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Qingdao China - August 11, 2008 - It’s the eve of racing for the Laser Radial and man, am I ever ready to get out there and sail. As of today, seven fleets have started racing. For me, it’s like that feeling when you’re hanging around someone who has their birthday two days before Christmas and they get all their presents then, and all you want is for your day to come so you can get yours.  At the Beijing Village Since I last wrote, I have done a bit of traveling. Some of the team went up to Beijing on the morning of August 8th to join in the opening ceremony. Early morning there was a charter bus to speed us to Qingdao airport with sailors from other teams. On the way to the airport we realized that the police had stopped all traffic on the highways to get us a straight passage through. It was great for us, but the public didn’t seem too happy with it all. At the airport there was no hanging around either. We had a charter flight and the plane left early because we’d all arrived. It was a quick flight, just an hour. Upon arrival, we were met by William, our USOC rep, and off we went to the official Olympic Village which looks like a massive apartment complex. It was amazing how large the village was. National flags were flying down every ally. We were shown to our rooms for the night, which I must say were not quite up to the five-star standards of the Qingdao venue, but still not bad. Each apartment had one common room with four bedrooms off to the sides. Each bedroom had two beds and a couple of cupboards for clothes.  Flags everywhere at the apartments Once we had put all of our stuff in our rooms, it was off to the dining hall for food. The scale and scope of the dining hall was, well, Olympic! There were endless choices, from Chinese food to Mediterranean, to McDonalds. The salad bar was twice as big as ours here in Qingdao which made me very happy but the best part was that they had ice cream which is something we don’t have.  The Village dining hall After lunch, Nancy the American RS:X sailor and I met up with Lisa Ross from Canada and we headed out to explore the village. The weather in Beijing is quite different from the heat we have in Qingdao. I guess the best example would be to compare it to Houston, TX on a typical summer’s day. We walked around the village and found the activities hall where they had A/C so we stayed there for the rest of the afternoon. We played some foozball and shuffle board before we headed back to the rooms to suite up in our Ralph Lauren blazers and white pants for the opening ceremony.  Team USA outside their apartments At 5:00 pm, the entire USA Team met outside the USA housing and busses took us to the fencing hall to meet President Bush and his family. He shook hands with nearly all the team members and had his picture taken with teams from each discipline. I was lucky enough to be able to stand right next to him for the sailing team picture. It was also an opportunity for team members to meet each other and to take pictures with each other. Of course, the basketball guys were the biggest hit, but there were many others too. It was a great experience to meet them all, especially when we can watch them on TV and marvel over their achievements. I got the chance to meet, among others, the basketball stars, Kerry Walsh, Tyson Gay and runner Jeremy Wariner. Eventually, we were escorted to the gymnastic hall where we were seated in the stands with athletes from every other country before officials started calling us down for the march in. It was a long wait. We were country #139. But it beat being out in the heat. After that it was a long slow walk to the "Nest"…the national stadium. We marched through the tunnel into the stadium, and it was the most wonderful experience I have ever had…words can’t describe all of the emotions and excitement that was going on within me and in the stadium. Hopefully you had a chance to watch the ceremony because, as expected, the Chinese did a fantastic job. My favorite part by far was the lighting of the Olympic Torch. When the whole event was done, we got back to the village around 1:00 am and then ate some late night dinner before heading to bed to get a bit of sleep before we were up early the next morning to get a plane home. That next day was for relaxing and resting up. I then had two more training days left before racing. I did a bit of training on both days to make sure I was fully ready and I am. I’m writing this evening fully pumped up and ready to go. As tough as our Olympic Trials were, they were one of the best experiences that could have prepared me for this event. I have some nerves, but they’re normal. I’m really looking forward to hitting the water tomorrow. The forecast is for light air. What a surprise! Our racing starts at 1:00 pm and we have two races scheduled. I will be sending out daily reports but you can also follow live on web-TV at www.nbcolympics.com. You can get leg-by-leg race updates and overall results if you go to http://www.sailing.org/olympics/resultscentre.php and click on Laser Radial Women in the left-hand column. Until the Olympics are over, you’ll notice some changes in the content of my reports and where they are located on my website. To comply with International Olympic Committee regulations designed to protect its sponsors’ interests, my reports are appearing on my special Qingdao Olympic Blog. The URL for the page is http://www.annatunnicliffe.com/content/blogcategory/29/113/. There is also a link from the home page of my website. The blog page includes hotlinks to official results and competition photos. Finally, thank you for everyone who sent me emails for support over the last couple of weeks. They really mean a lot and I greatly appreciate it. Sail hard Anna |