Opening Day

Last night I sat between Finn sailor Zach Railey and his coach, Kenneth Andreasen, as we watched the ceremonies from the village dining hall. Watching on tv is no match for being there, and though the drummers and martial arts men were astounding in their perfection, it was a little slow. Zach was trying to distract himself from his nervousness by clearing trays and fetching drinks, and though he managed to keep it cool last night, he was headphones in with blinders on this morning and there was no chance he was going to say hi to me.


So now I sit in the media center watching the Finns race up their first leg. Though the windows from the workroom all point the wrong direction, it’s still a great location. I can watch it on tv and say, “That helicopter shot looks terrible is it really that hazy?” Then I just get up, walk around the corner and look out the window at the course, which is 200 yards away. Yes, it is that hazy.

The windows by my desk point up the coast and I swear they must have developed some special self-flapping flag material here in Qingdao, because the flags show breeze here but right around the corner the poor Finns are looking mighty doggish. It’s got to be tough in those light air days because everything becomes slower and hushed, and it’s harder to relax.

I’m running on a bit of second-hand adrenaline myself, after having spent the night getting post-Ceremony quotes from the team, distributing them to the media and updating our website. While the athletes were milling around after the ceremonies and defying laws of sleep, I was alone in a dark hall at 2AM with Chinese news blasting, working with an incredibly patient webmaster who cleans up my messes.

Yesterday the team message board’s London Olympics countdown just said, “London 2012… suddenly seems so far away.” It all begins today and yet again time is going to pass in a completely unfamiliar combination of warp speed and surreal slow motion. This is why we’re here and it’s getting pretty exciting.

Sailors and staff watch from cafeteria.