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Published: August 10th 2008
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National Indoor Stadium
Gymnastics and Hanball are competed in this building. Today, I woke up at about 6:30 to get ready to go to gymnastics. My aunt is taking me to watch it at the National Indoor Stadium. I had toast as usual for breakfast. Last night, I charged up my camera battery to full. Bobo was still very fuzzy when he woke up. I was very excited. Today would be the first day I go see an Olympic event. We packed everything up. I brought my camera and my Olympic hat. My aunt and I walked to the subway station near us. It only takes about 5 minutes. We headed down to the subway area. We had to take about eleven stops until we transfer to line 10. It wasn’t very crowded so I sat on a seat. My aunt sat next to me. I rested my head on her shoulder until we got to the stop. I almost slept until at about 8:00, we got to our station. We then had to transfer two more times. For the next transfer, we had to go through security outside. It hadn’t opened yet. All the lines were packed and it was raining too. They suddenly allowed people to go through security
Cheng Fei
Team China's gymnastics star. in another tent, so many people rushed there. We stayed where we were. As our tent opened, everybody rushed in. A volunteer let in the tent because it was raining. My aunt finally got into the tent after two minutes. We both had to go through the X-Ray machine and metal detector. After 10 minutes of security, we walked to the next stop. There, we walked to the end of the area where nobody was in line. The station was beautiful. It was much cleaner and cooler then New York or London subways. This stop was designed especially for Olympic goers. It had pictures of the Bird’s nest and Water Cube everywhere. When the subway came, I ran into the train and went to the very end. There, you can see the tunnels the subway will go through. There are also TVs in the subway, so we can watch the Olympics while we were on our way. As we started moving, I planted my face to the front window, and watched the tunnels. At one point, the tunnels branched out to many other tunnels. I wonder where those tunnels lead to, because the subway only goes from the station to
Gymnastics Symbol
The Beijing Olympics Gymnastic Symbol. the Olympic green. As we stopped, everybody rushed out of the train, pushing and shoving. I found my aunt and we walked up the stairs because there were too many people on the escalator. When we got out of the station, I came face to face with the Bird’s Nest. I saw its grand torch with the flame shining. The station was only a few minutes away from the Indoor Stadium. Lined along the path were buildings. Each was for a different sponsor. The sponsors had each owned a building and put fun stuff for the guests to see. A lot of building had fountains in front of them. We went to take a look in the Bank of China building. Inside was a giant museum talking about China’s money and what is on it. We didn’t have much time to stick around so we left to the Indoor Stadium. It was now pouring outside so my aunt opened her umbrella and we ran to the building. The building looked like a giant piece of paper furling on the roof. As we went inside, a volunteer looked at our tickets and directed us to the left side. Inside, it was very cool compared to the outside. I felt like I was in a giant opera house. When we went to go to our seats, we found out it was the second to the very top. It was a long climb and we could barely see the people.
When the gymnastics started Team China walked in. It was the women’s qualifying today. They were broken into four teams for this session- China, Romania, Mixed 1, and Mixed 3. China and Romania were the only teams which had only the countries athletes. I followed China. They first started on the balance beam. Everybody in the crowd cheered when China came in. The gymnastics event is a rotation with vault, floor exercise, balance beam, and uneven bars. The refs gave the teams a 2 minute warm up. China is known for their gymnastics. Especially women. On the top, the athletes looked like monkeys jumping round and doing flips. I encourage you to watch at least one gymnastics session. All of the athletes are about half a feet taller than me! But they are very flexible and can do flips without running starts on the ground. Seeing nobody was sitting in two seats near the front of the second level, we moved and sat in them. Now everything seemed much clearer. Cheng Fei was up first for the balance beam. Everybody cheered very loudly. I think she is China’s best gymnast, seeing that she gets the loudest cheer. She started off with two flips. Then she did a routine of flips, twirls, and whatever else you do on the balance beam. She ended with a “super flip” onto the mat. Everybody clapped and cheered and screamed. After about 15 minutes, the teams rotated once to the next area. China went to the floor exercise. That is where you run and jump around on a mat. China was in the lead with the most points. Another 2 minutes of warm up. By now, the floors of all the area were covered in chalk dust. I very impressed that these athletes can even walk on the balance beam. I probably couldn’t walk on it for a long period of time. As usual, the athletes danced to a piece of music and did flips and jump with the beat. I like one of the routines when a Chinese gymnast did a flip then two cartwheels and ended up doing another big flip. After 15 more minutes, they moved onto the vault. The vault is when you jump off a big springboard and push of another board to do one flip or spin. China was still in the lead with Romania far behind. Cheng Fei hold the record of the vault with a 18.453. Another Chinese gymnast started first. She ran to the springboard did a cartwheel jumped of the board and did a flip. Everybody cheered and clapped. Over on the balance beam, a Swiss gymnast fell of it, but got back on fine. China was a lot in the lead. But, not many gymnasts from China were very good on the vault. Many got deducted points by stepping out of the line. Chang Fei got a 16.256. Romania was coming closer. Finally, China went to the uneven bars. The floor to the areas were pretty much all white now. I think the uneven bars is my favorite area. You get to see athletes swing on the bars like monkeys and do very cool flips. One of the Chinese athletes, He Sanxing. She was on a roll with many flips and twirls. It seemed as if she could go on forever doing flips. Everybody was cheering. Then suddenly, when she was about to finish up, she fell of the short bar. She tried again and succeeded finishing, but she lost many points for falling. At the end, she started crying. I felt very sad for her. She tried very hard, but made one mistake. At the end, China still won. Romania came in second. We left the stadium and went back home.
The rest is like the usual, eat lunch do homework and watch the Olympics. Tomorrow, I am going to see two events. Swimming in the morning and tennis at night.
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