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Published: August 5th 2012
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Today was a roller coaster day, lots of emotional ups and downs and we followed Canadians on their Olympic journey. Up bright and early again to make our way to Hyde Park (London’s version of Central Park in NYC) for the Women’s Triathlon event. Going into the day, Edmonton’s Paula Findlay was a big favourite for not only a medal, but a gold medal. She had won numerous World Cup races in the past two years and seemed to be our best hope for a medal in triathlon (men’s and women’s).
Arriving at the park was pretty crazy. Crowd estimates in the park were nearly 200,000. Will remembers the days back in Toronto during the 2008 Olympic Bid and the Toronto World Cup race where he and Barrie Shepley (Canada’s National Team Coach at the time) had printed thousands of $10.00 grandstand tickets – only to have to pay workers to hand them out for free because no one was all that interested in coming to watch a triathlon – what a difference a decade makes! The crowds lined the course 5-10 people deep and the ticketed grandstands were jam packed.
As we’re sure you know by now, Canada
had a heart-breaking day. Not only did Kathy Tremblay crash and not finish, but Paula ended up in last place and later apologized to Canada for her performance. You will likely wake up on Sunday morning to headlines of fellow teammate and all-around nice guy Simon Whitfield defending Paula’s performance and urging the team around her to step up and take some responsibility for how things played out on the course today. Paula had a hip injury about a year ago and Simon has said (no pun intended) that the team of coaches, doctors, etc. that managed that injury bare some responsibility for the performance and should not allow Paula to shoulder the weight of all of it. We both agree.
For Kathy, we couldn’t have been more disappointed. She actually had a great swim and was comfortably leading the second chase pack before her crash. Many people likely haven’t heard of Kathy, but Will races with her for than 10 years ago. She is a classic example of an athlete with not all of the God given talent, but one that will work harder and longer than anyone else (the Rudy factor) to make her dreams come true.
She has watched for 3 Olympics as the ‘big names’ had their chance, all the while putting up continual solid and consistent performances. She was able to qualify this year for the Olympic Games and we can’t think of a more deserving athlete. To have it end is a crash was so sad. The silver lining is that if there is anyone who will preserve and be back – our money is on Kathy!
After the triathlon we headed back to the hostel to organize ourselves for the evening. We went down to the lounge in order to use the computer and despite the 24/7 British Olympic coverage, we were fortunate enough to find a TV with the Trampoline final on it. Within a few minutes of sitting down we were able to watch Rosannagh MacLennan win Canada’s first gold medal of these 30
th Summer Games! Awesome!
This evening is a pretty exciting one; it is day number two of Athletics at the Olympics and we have tickets to what the media have dubbed ‘Super Saturday’. Going into the evening Team GB had an opportunity for multiple gold medals and if you watched some of the coverage yesterday
afternoon at home, you will know that the Brits didn’t disappoint the packed to the rafters 80,000 spectators in the Olympic Stadium!
If we could have only gone to one event, after walking inside the Stadium, we think this would be it! The atmosphere and WOW factor is through the roof. There is really nothing like it. We had fantastic seats right in the middle of the north end of the track (the final two turns into the final 100m stretch of the track and the end where the long jump pits are and 100m starting blocks). We simply could not have asked for better seats. Not to mention that if it did rain (which it didn’t) we had the cover where the more ‘well-to-do’ spectators, did not!
On to the actual Athletics, we got to watch the: Men’s 400m Hurdles Semi-Finals, Women’s Discus Final, Men’s Long Jump Final, Women’s 100m Semi-Finals, Women’s 800m Heptathlon (the final event of seven), Men’s 10,000m Final, a bunch of medal ceremonies and the Women’s 100m Final. INCREDIBLE!
While our Canadians did not have any marquee finishes, they all did better than Paula earlier in the day and we were particularly
impressed with our Canadian 10km runners – especially Carl Levin who held on for 11
th place. The real story of the night however, was Team GB. The gold rush was certainly on. We witnessed along with 80,000 (which sounded like 800,000) roaring fans Great Britain’s athletes win and impressive three gold medals. They won in long jump, the 10km run (in 27 minutes and 30 seconds by the way) and Jess Ennis in the Heptathlon. In fact, it was the most successful day in Britain’s athletic history. The newspapers will certainly have a field day tomorrow and we are still pinching ourselves that we got to experience it all, live!
Like we said at the beginning of this entry…what a day of ups and downs. Now time for us to lay down…sleep is needed, big time!
Night,
Kristy & Will
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