Olympic Impressions from Schinias/Athens. Day 7 - Friday 20th August 2004.
This is not intended to be commentary, as that is well covered via TV, radio, the FISA website and the newspapers. Plus it's difficult to get time amongst the other jobs. Here are odd bits and pieces those following the Games may find interesting.
Whew what a day. In preparation for what I knew would be 24 packed hours, I had a fairly quiet afternoon and evening night on Thursday after we were done at the rowing. A bit of badminton-watching (soooo close, the GBR mixed doubles losing the gold to China), a quick swim in the sea (delicious, warm bath temperature) and a few odd jobs around the hut. Later, supper in the taverna with the BARJ hack posse, and writing as much as I could of the race preview for the Telegraph before an early night.
The reason why: the day before, we had cracked the accreditation problem, and lined up day passes at three venues for our 'day off' on Friday. While the Group A crews took their last paddles at Schinias, we would be gallivanting round Athens, watching Olympians in other disciplines go for medals. Around that, there was the preview to finish, and other bits and pieces for the big Telegraph spread on their favourite rowing son (Cracknell) and his mates.
First, the old (1896) Olympic stadium for a spot of archery. My stars it's an amazing place. The rows are built tall: almost rock-climbing to get up them, and away in the distance the odd monument stands out against the sky, including (if you're at the right end) my current favourite, the Parthenon on Acropolis hill. Chris Dodd and I clambered right to the far end of the elongated horseshoe and sat in the only patch of shade in the entire place, watching GBR's women lose out in the archery, and Korea score a baffling number of bullseyes. We have become pretty expert at figuring sports out: I suppose rowing is on the difficult side, so it is good practice, and had the archery fairly well nailed before the end of the first game. I reckon they should hold an extra day's competition, though, and make all the medal winners do a Mediaevel-style archery contest - just longbows, wooden arrows, and a target, no aiming gear and telescopic sights. The best English archers of the 100 years war could apparently shoot your eye out at 400 paces (approx. 300m) without any technical help: this lot had trouble finding the bullseye at 70 metres with bags of help.
Leaving the Panatheneiko Stadium we noticed the marathon line swerving sharply across the road towards the stadium entrance. It made you quail watching the traffic dodge about recklessly over it and thinking about Paula Radcliffe - we hope - leading the field as she takes the same route when she runs the event on Sunday. Through a large park, avoiding the Hollandia Heinecken House on the way. This massive outdoor watering hole is apparently (according to the internerds of NLRoei) the ultimate place to be in Athens this week if you are Dutch, but we were wandering past at noon, and I can report there was no action going on at all, v. boring.
Over to the Temple of Zeus and Hadrian's Arch (impressive but also both very broken) before a quick drink in the Plaka district with more sneaky occasional Acropolis-admiring. At that point common sense came to the fore and I took myself off to the MPC (Main Press Centre) to get my hackery done. For some reason, although I shouldn't have been under any pressure, it was a fiercely difficult piece to write, so took me ages, not helped by sitting next to my line-boss, Telegraph deputy sport editor Martin Smith, who is the centre of much lively traffic involving various trouble-making feature writers trying to crack jokes.
[A quick aside. Jim White, one of our scribblers who is also a film reviewer, gave me his review of "Super Size Me" to read. Ew. Gross. Not his writing - the film. It's going to be worryingly hard to watch, I think, but engrossing at the same time. We were prompted to talk about it by the fact that the rubbish food at the venues is entirely provided by McDonald's and Coca-Cola.]
Next, off to the cycling, and much Byzantine nonsense from the various accreditation huts until they finally found my day-pass and let me in. I got there just as the pursuit heats were getting going, to see British cyclist Wiggins set a brilliant fastest time which has earnt him the best possible quarterfinal draw. The velodrome is a great venue: small and compact, and undulating round like the track for one of those waltzers you can go on at the fair. It was pretty sweaty under the flying roof, though, and you found yourself longing for the watersprays they were using on the cyclists. The middle of the track is a pit filled with team areas, each holding bike racks, tables for coaches to sit at, and stationary bikes with hopeful cyclists warming up or down.
To my amusement, the time-trials were accompanied by music, and we started wondering if the cyclist could choose the tune. I thought it might work in rowing, but changed my mind when I realised we'd have OAP's like Pinsent choosing to have chestnuts like "Eye of the Tiger" or "We are the Champions" blaring out as they rushed to the finish line. [You may think I don't remember what the 1991-3 OUBC squads played in the gym, guys, but you are WRONG.] The best theme tune was for one of Britain's top cyclists - got your pulse racing, and that was just watching. A great idea, would be worth doing at ergometer races were it not for our insistence on racing hundreds of people at the same time.
I moved down to sit with Jim White in the middle of the media desks, and together we spotted the British team getting ready for the races below in the pit and thought up good comments for his article. To our delight, the women's top seed won her time-trial (500m) - it's definitely more exciting when the final cyclist does the best, and even better when they set a new world record, as she did. We realised although the top guys are better, the bottom ten or so here are no faster than the women - it's clearly a sport where men and women are getting closer to together in achievement. What the women lack in muscle they gain from being able to race lighter, so need less oomph to get started from the standing blocks they use.
Huge excitement, with a world champion Brit (Hoys) starting last (ie top seed) in the event. When he did get going, the roar swept round the velodrome with him like a verbal Mexican wave - must have egged him on more than a bit. It's almost hypnotic, seeing the riders swoop around the circuit, and snatching glances up at the scoreboard to check his split times against the race leaders. An Olympic volunteer stands at each end, speed gun in hand, tracking the riders as they belt round each corner, with the score going immediately to the giant board. Clever techno-whizzardry. Add the Athens-style soaring suspension roof, and you've got a recipe for a brilliant event.
Then, after some more bureaucratojumble, away to the athletics (or arthritics, as one anonymous member of a broadcasting team routinely calls it.) This time I swear I stopped breathing as I stepped into the stadium, and hit Olympic fever full throttle. We had made our way up there via a labyrinthine series of stairs, so finally arriving at the entrance high in the media section was quite a shock. As we moved down to the free seats, we came out from under the floating gallery, and into the bowl of a sports whirlpool. Wow.
At first glance, the Athens stadium is not vast. Then you look across the arena and realise you can't make out individual spectators' heads until you spend a second focusing carefully. Huge flags looked tiny, shrunk to doll-size, seen from the opposite end. Soaring over the top are a handful of delicate suspension wires, holding the two halves of the roof in place with what looks like a big metal button. At one end the Olympic flame, now looking perfectly proportioned in its designed setting, reaches up to touch the sky as night falls behind it. It really is spectacular.
Forget the TV pictures - the stadium was full. Not entirely - there were two sections bare which we think are reserved for the athletes (and on the first real day of competition, that's no surprise). But other than that, packed virtually to bursting. One chunk of the top tier, bored of waiting for the women's heptathlon 200m heats, made a valiant effort to start a Mexican wave. Again and again they tried, but the section next to them weren't having it. Finally one huge roar, and off the wave went, rolling round the stadium three and a half times before they were embarrassed into stopping by the announcer's pointed comments, a message urging "Silence" in at least three languages on the scoreboard (both of which they ignored), and eventually a shot of the crowds flung up onto the giant TV screen - which they did notice.
Little things bowled me over. Being a few metres from the finish of the women's 100m heats, so that you could see the muscles standing out on their legs as they strained to reach the line first. Seeing the athletes getting ready for high jumps, before the camera swung to their run and leap. Laughing at the volunteer teams who stick the numbers out on the sprint track: next time you see them turn, walk and stop in perfect synchronisation, remember that one of the official-y types near them is blowing short whistle blasts to organise their military precision. Being brought the results of everything that's going on almost before it happens.
Of course there had to be a fly in the ointment. Minutes before I had planned to leave, for a sensible early night via the mid-evening bus, my mobile rang. It was the Telegraph. Changes in the layout, and could I add 120 more words to my preview. In less than holf an hour, if you please. Bugger. Thank goodness I was in a press centre, and close to phone lines. Bang went the plan of finishing off this wibble during the high jump, then sloping off. Got it done, eked the last bits of juice out of my phone battery, and finally left, a few minutes after seeing Haile Gebreselassie start the 10,000m final. No way was I going to stay until past midnight and see that finish, but it was a shame. Small consolation that the extra words made my piece much better.
And so to bed, thinking about the eight people in action tomorrow. I know how nervous I've been before huge races - how much worse must it be to wait for an Olympic final? I'd had my answer earlier in the day, in fact. I texted James [Cracknell] to see if he could spare time to answer a minor question the Telegraph wanted sorted out, and he rang back. Jittery as hell, trying to kill time between paddling, eating and not being able to sleep. What did I think was going to happen the next day? You tell me James - you probably have a better idea... And by the way, best of luck....
Rachel Quarrell at the 2004 Olympics.