Opening Ceremonies

Well two nights ago I had the time of my life. The eight and quad on the women's rowing team decided to walk in the opening ceremonies. We don't race until late afternoon on Aug. 10th, so it won't affect our race.

The whole Canadian team met in the village for staging. Marnie McBean was our team leader and led us onto the buses to the holding area (aka the gymnastics venue). All the athletes were sectioned according to the order they would come out and march, which was determined by how many strokes it takes to write the country's name in Chinese. We were number 63, so it was a bit of a wait. Unfortunately we also missed the actual opening show, but I caught it on TV later the next day. Apparently, coupled with the closing ceremonies, the show cost 100 million US. This makes sense since there were 10,000 performers and 30,000 fireworks!

When it was finally our turn to march into the Bird's Nest, the whole team sang O'Canada a couple times. There's no way I can describe the energy. Just imagine marching into the largest enclosed structure in the world with over 90,000 spectators, and an estimated 4 billion viewers at home. We did our loop around the track and then all the countries congregated in the middle as we waited for the giant cauldron to be lit at the top of the stadium.

Yao Ming was the flag bearer for China, and the crowd went insane. He walked out with a young boy who was a survivor of the earthquake that killed 70,000 last May. It was quite powerful to see them side by side.

Perhaps the coolest part of the whole show was when retired gymnast Li Ning, three time Olympic Champion, was raised to the top of the stadium with the Olympic torch in hand. He "ran" along the 500-meter-long brim of the Bird's Nest with a large screen mimicking an unrolling scroll behind him. It showed footage from the torch relay and all the countries it traveled across. At the end he reached the gigantic cauldron, which he ignited using the flame from his torch. As soon as that cauldron was lit we booked it out of there to beat the masses. We still had an our commute back to our hotel, and it was already after midnight.

I was so happy we decided to go, but now it's time to focus on racing. We have our first race in a few hours. Our boat draw put us with China, Russia, and Ukraine. I've posted a link to the times I'll be racing, but I'm not sure it will show live back in Canada. I think it would be pretty early back home.

Thanks for everyone's good luck wishes!

Rachelle

http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/Schedule/RO.shtml