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Published: August 18th 2016
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It's hard to believe that Day 12 has already come and gone here in Rio. No matter how much excitement, noise and passion the athletes display in the first days and week of the Olympics, it just keeps building and building, the closer we get to the end. In the big tournaments (volleyball, basketball, soccer, handball, etc.) the pool play is over and as the announcer said this morning at our Men's Volleyball match against Russian -- it is win or go home time. Every points means that much more, every win feels that much sweeter.
Our first adventure started early this morning heading back to the Maracanazinho Gymnasium to watch our Canadian men battle Russia in a quarter final volleyball game. Much the same as our Women's Basketball Team last night, our men just didn't have it. They have proved multiple times in this tournament that they can compete with, and beat, the very best teams in the world. When they are hot, they are RED hot...but unfortunately, when they're cold, they are ICE cold! We just couldn't seem to string points together and while Russia seemed to catch every break and close in/out play, we had the exact
opposite luck. Kudos to our Men for qualifying at all (a major accomplishment) and for finishing higher than we have placed in indoor volleyball over 30 years.
Back to the apartment for a quick nap (not much sleep last night) in order to get rested up for a full night of Athletics (Track & Field). Getting to the stadium was really easy and it was great to see all of the improvements made to Rio's SuperVia train stations and platforms. The Olympic Stadium train station is essentially brand new as are the entrance/exits and an entire new grounds around the stadium itself. Picture Rogers Centre with a brand new train station and new grounds surrounding the entire place. This will also be the site of a new Brazilian Olympic Museum and the stadium itself regularly plays host to major soccer games. Talk about legacy -- great improvements to transit, new tourist attractions and an outside of a stadium that their home fans can be very proud of.
We arrived about 5:45pm local time in order to watch the first event of the night which was the Men's High Jump as part of the Decathlon. In our opinion, the
decathletes might be the most under appreciated track and field athletes of the lot. They don't just compete in one or two events. They aren't just world-class at one or two events, no, they compete in ten events over multiple days. These guys and gals might as well be the track and field all-stars. We were stoked to cheer on Canadian Damian Warner (sounds a lot like Horner when you hear it in the stadium) as he continues to make a name for himself in the sport of Decathlon. He finished second in his grouping tonight, but more importantly made up ground on American rival (and Canadian Olympic husband) Ashton Eaton. Surely you've heard about the controversy surrounding his support of his talented, medal winning wife, Brianne Thiessen-Eaton. So aside from cheering for Damian and even though they were competing against each other, we cheered just as loud for him too. He is a class-act and deserves nothing but support from his home country (and if they aren't going to do it - we will).
The stadium really wasn't too full when we first arrived, but by the time the Javelins started to fly and the Women's Long Jump
Final began, things were very full. Our seats were supposed to be up in the rafters, but we snagged a couple of seats right at the 200m corner. In perfect view of the Javelin, right at the long jump pit and dead centre to the start for the 200m races later in the night. We hit the jackpot big time as no one ever came for the seats. We stayed their for the balance of the night and while we didn't have any Canadians to cheer for until Brown and de Grasse showed up around 10:00pm, there was still lots to cheer for. Seeing strong women jump over 7 meters may look amazing on television, but witnessing it first hand is unreal. The same goes for the men tonight, needing a throw of over 75 meters to even qualify for the next round of javelin - many did. Truly spectacular to watch.
A little break in the action tonight was one of our most special moments of the Olympics thus far. While we haven't been lucky enough to see a medal winning performance by a Canadian in person, we did get to see Derek Drouin accept his Gold Medal
for his win yesterday in the High Jump. Hearing our Canadian anthem pouring out of the speakers at Olympic Stadium and getting to sign along with Derek and a few hundred other Canadians is not something we will soon forget.
Even though it was a 5+ hour session at Athletics, the time just flew by. It wasn't long until the crowd erupted for Bolt (and we'd like to think our smaller version of Bolt, Andre de Grasse). Getting to watch them side by side was likely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Their camaraderie together is very special to watch and as arrogant as some may find Bolt, trust us when we say, he is really just giving the crowd exactly what they came to watch. Grinning from ear to ear as they crossed the line tonight, the admiration between these two superstars is very apparent. The torch relay may have ended 12 days ago, but the torch is about to be passed to the next great sprinter in Olympic history and we're hoping he starts tomorrow by narrowing that 0.02 second gap for a 4th gold medal for Canada in the final.
Ending the night, we walked further around the
oval and found ourselves in a couple empty seats at about the 50m mark of the Women's 100m Hurtles Final. George looked focused and determined, but the task ahead was enormous. It was our first opportunity at the Games to watch a Canadian athletes compete for a potential medal and were sick with anticipation prior to the race. Things didn't go as planned (as will happen from time to time when competing against the very best in the world for Olympic glory) and we ended the day on a bit of a sour note (somewhat like how it started at the volleyball venue). Such is the life of an Olympic Games fan!
Tomorrow we are heading to the beach for the Men's Triathlon and later on in the day, one of the Women's Basketball Semi-Finals. If we can, we're going to try and grab tickets to a couple of other events where Canadians have the potential to medal. As we lay our heads on the pillows tonight, we have a very good feeling about tomorrow and our chances to add to our already impressive medal haul.
More pictures below.
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Kim
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:)
Wow Wow Wow. That was an epic day for you!!!!!!!! Beyond exciting that you were able to see so many once in a lifetime events/athletes. Watched it all on the TV and can only imagine how pumped you were! I agree with you that the decathlon athletes are overlooked. They are so talented. We can hardly believe Rio is coming to an end!!!! Somehow it seems like there is still another week! Be good show tonight with Athletics:) xo