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We got back from our tour and took a nap. Now that we were “experts” on how to get to our Olympic events, I figured we didn’t need as much advance time to get there, so we decided we could nap until 5;00 for a 6:30 swimming prelim event. These were the tickets I had gotten from the US Swim Team and so were really good seats. However, we woke up from our naps at 5:20 and didn’t get going until 5:35. This time, the subway and crowds were much more difficult than anytime before. By the time we got to the Olympic subway entrance to the main square, there were thousands of people trying to crowd in. We had forgotten that this evening was the first night of track and field, which meant that 90,000 people were trying to go to the same general area as us. To give the Chinese credit, by this time, they had their lines and security procedures pretty well figured out – so they moved us along very efficiently. But it still took us longer and we got to the swimming venue about 5 minutes after the start.
Although there were no finals this evening, it turned out still be a very interesting evening. The preliminaries are where all of the minor countries and competitors you will never see on TV have their chance to compete in the Olympic Games. We started out with the preliminary qualification for the women’s 50 meter free style. The top 16 times advance to the semi finals and then top 8 times to the finals. But in the preliminaries, we actually saw 9-10 rounds of ladies – about 80 swimmers compete. It was very efficient and went by pretty quickly. They grouped each group by times, so that there wouldn’t be anyone with the fastest time completely out showing the others. This meant that there were many winners, which was great. For example, when we got there, they were in the third heat – which was won by someone from Nigeria, I believe. The world record is just under 24 seconds and she won her heat in 29 seconds. Of course, she will never make it into the semi-finals, but she had the biggest smile on her face as she clenched her fist and celebrated her “win”. We saw heat after heat of the same thing. Many of the very small countries had a participant entered in here. The whole evening was the same for different events and was simply interesting from the human story perspective. During the event, a guy from Kansas sat next to us (originally from Michigan). Turned out that he represented one of the swimmers from a legal / promotion / agent perspective, so we got chatting about some of the behind the scenes happenings of the swimmers. He confirmed that the US swimmers were great people, easy to work with, very above board – and that he really liked working with them. He also gave us a tip on shopping (which we are going to do on Monday). He handed us a “quick translation” tourist card which had all of the English names of the major sites and their Chinese translation – as well as some key and common phrases. We could have used this earlier – one of the phrases included “please use the meter”, which would have come in handy with my previous day’s taxi driver. But he also told us of the great deals he had gotten at Silk City. Apparently, that is where all the good deals and negotiations are. Way lower prices than any official place in the city. He showed us some fake pearls (that he got fooled / gypped on), and some real pearls –and showed us way to tell the difference. He got a fully tailored top of the line suit for about $200. We had designated Monday morning as our shopping day, but hadn’t figured out where – so now we had a place to go. The swimming session started at 6:30 and ended at 9:00 – and really went by fast. We very much enjoyed it, and then left for home.
Although there were no finals this evening, it turned out still be a very interesting evening. The preliminaries are where all of the minor countries and competitors you will never see on TV have their chance to compete in the Olympic Games. We started out with the preliminary qualification for the women’s 50 meter free style. The top 16 times advance to the semi finals and then top 8 times to the finals. But in the preliminaries, we actually saw 9-10 rounds of ladies – about 80 swimmers compete. It was very efficient and went by pretty quickly. They grouped each group by times, so that there wouldn’t be anyone with the fastest time completely out showing the others. This meant that there were many winners, which was great. For example, when we got there, they were in the third heat – which was won by someone from Nigeria, I believe. The world record is just under 24 seconds and she won her heat in 29 seconds. Of course, she will never make it into the semi-finals, but she had the biggest smile on her face as she clenched her fist and celebrated her “win”. We saw heat after heat of the same thing. Many of the very small countries had a participant entered in here. The whole evening was the same for different events and was simply interesting from the human story perspective. During the event, a guy from Kansas sat next to us (originally from Michigan). Turned out that he represented one of the swimmers from a legal / promotion / agent perspective, so we got chatting about some of the behind the scenes happenings of the swimmers. He confirmed that the US swimmers were great people, easy to work with, very above board – and that he really liked working with them. He also gave us a tip on shopping (which we are going to do on Monday). He handed us a “quick translation” tourist card which had all of the English names of the major sites and their Chinese translation – as well as some key and common phrases. We could have used this earlier – one of the phrases included “please use the meter”, which would have come in handy with my previous day’s taxi driver. But he also told us of the great deals he had gotten at Silk City. Apparently, that is where all the good deals and negotiations are. Way lower prices than any official place in the city. He showed us some fake pearls (that he got fooled / gypped on), and some real pearls –and showed us way to tell the difference. He got a fully tailored top of the line suit for about $200. We had designated Monday morning as our shopping day, but hadn’t figured out where – so now we had a place to go. The swimming session started at 6:30 and ended at 9:00 – and really went by fast. We very much enjoyed it, and then left for home.
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