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Published: August 13th 2016
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Day 7 here in Rio has come to an end and we've been going flat out all day! Many hours spent on transit crisscrossing the greater Rio area in order to cheer on our Canadian athletes and some Brazilians too. The City of Rio and the Organizing Committee are doing a incredible job moving tens of thousands of people hourly, hundreds of thousands daily on the transit system around the City. Trains, buses and subways connect seamlessly, run on time and the transit staff have been superb. A truly massive effort and achievement by everyone involved. Having said that, it is super later and we are back at it again tomorrow so the blog might be a bit shorter than usual tonight (we've said that before and it ends up being super long).
We got our first (and only) opportunity to visit the Olympic Aquatic Stadium today in the Olympic Park. It was really exciting to get there, especially considering it has been the centre of so many incredible Canadian Olympic moments thus far at the Rio Games. The facility is gorgeous and this is a very popular event at the Olympic Games. We watched the 50m Freestyle heats, followed
by the 1500m Freestyle heats and then the Men's and Women's 4 x 100m Medley Relay heats. We felt like a bit of a good luck charm in that any Canadian with a chance to advance to a semi-final or final, qualified today. Who are we kidding though? We obviously aren't the good luck charm at this pool -- we wouldn't be surprised to find out that a Loonie is buried under a tile somewhere at the bottom of the pool! The session capped of with an fantastic effort by our Canadian Women's relay team to capture a heat win and qualify second going in to tomorrow night for the final. Quick side note, the Swimming is the most widely participated in sport (by country) compared to any other. In each Olympic venue, they hang the flags of the competing nations in that sport. In Basketball, for example, it would be the 12 countries qualified in each of the men's and women's tournaments. If their are duplicates, there is only one flag. It is common place to see a couple dozen at each venue. A much different story at the pool. We couldn't get a wide enough shot to even
show them all hanging at the Aquatic Stadium. A tribute to the fact that Swimming is an extremely inclusive sport to countries around the world and that everyone is given an opportunity to have their Olympic moment.
Back to transit, a quick stop at Brazilian McDonald's (our first visit and an interesting one to get our order right)...and then off to Women's Indoor Volleyball. The story of the Games so far for Canada has been the incredibly strong and talented women that have won each and every one of our medals thus far, including the back-to-back repeat Gold of our flag barer, Rosie McClelland today. While Brazil has a few medals, the real pride of their Country appears to be their Women's Indoor Volleyball team. They were undefeated heading into play tonight and a sure hope for a medal. We've been pumped for days at the thought of joining the hometown crowd to cheer on their team. This was the biggest and loudest crowd we've seen at the Games so far. And when we say loud, we mean it. The loudest cheering crown in an enclosed space you can possibly imagine. Ever had your ears ring after leaving a
concert venue? Our ears rang tonight on the way home -- absolutely incredible. Not to disappoint, the Brazilian team easily handled the South Koreans with a 3-0 win. The volleyball was the best we've ever seen. Better than then men's we must say. In the men's game each point tends to be over quickly and you don't really get an opportunity to see their true skills and talent. Not so in the women's game. Countless long rallies, spectacular plays and highlight reel worthy moments throughout. The action was fast, fierce and non-stop. We learned some great new cheers, had a fantastic time with the fans around us and would go back in a heartbeat to support the Brazilian women's team.
We returned home to another medal in the pool (congrats to Hillary Caldwell on her bronze) and the news of Michael Phelps defeat tonight and the ensuing triple silver medal (the first ever three-way tie in Olympic history). Eventually, someone was going to beat Michael and if it was going to be anyone, why not a young kid from Singapore to win that nation's first ever Olympic Gold Medal. Our favourite angel of this story though is most certainly
learning that Michael and Singapore's Joseph Schooling met back in 2008. Check out the picture of Joesph meeting his swimming idol. We're certain that not even Joseph believed in that moment, that 8 years later, he might have the opportunity to swim alongside his idol in an Olympic final and experience the thrill of beating the man who has become the most decorated swimmer of all time!
Home now at the apartment and it is amazing how fast the time goes by here in Rio! Up again tomorrow to head to the Olympic Park and take in an afternoon and evening of preliminary men's basketball action.
More pictures below (a few extra to make up for the length of the blog).
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Kim
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:)
Rio seems to have got it right! Good for them. Had to change the batteries in our remote! So many events to see. Beach volleyball always comes on very late and of coarse i just have to watch. Heading to word again with not enough sleep and I'm not even there lol Our channels did not carry the indoor game but could only imagine the game. See you tomorrow xo