Left Coast Cowboys

Women’s Gymnastics. Every Olympics, it’s one of the most covered events in the summer games. But few journalists and sports analysts really go behind the scenes to get the hidden truths. Luckily, Dear Readers, you have me.
Today, Wednesday in Beijing, was the day our morning was scheduled with the Women’s Team Gymnastics Finals. I panicked when I saw that it was listed as “Artistic Gymnastics” on my tickets. Could it be I was going to see the only event stranger than Synchronized Swimming? You know, the event where they dance around with ribbons and hoops and twirl batons. However, it turned out to be the event where the teams rotate through four events: Balance Beam, Vault, Parallel Bars and Floor Exercises. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The first order of business was to provide the service I always perform when I blog on my travels: a complete, unvarnished and comprehensive Restroom Report. Yes, it’s a dirty job, few journalist will tackle it, but my readers demand it.
Once inside the National Indoor Stadium, I circled the perimeter doing a complete check. Two years ago — I found that, when in Beijing, and, to be honest, most of Asia — bathroom logistics can be tricky. Asia consistently had the most odoriferous, frightening restrooms next to the All-Time Disgusting Restroom Champion: France. Nothing I saw in Beijing two years ago matched the shear horror of French bathrooms. Even the restrooms at the Louvre were so foul, they could give you a life-threatening disease just to think about using them. I’ve been to Third World countries that had a higher standard of hygiene. But I digress. Two years ago in Beijing, your day and your sightseeing had to be carefully plotted around a route of five star hotels catering to Westerners since these were the only safe bathrooms. If you couldn’t get to one, you’d be forced to squat over a filthy hole. And pray you remembered to bring your own toilet paper.
I’m glad to say, things have changed dramatically in Beijing — at least in the Olympic venues. In addition to more restrooms than you’d find in any five US stadiums put together, the level of cleanliness at the National Indoor Stadium was right up there with the motels that put the little paper strip across your toilet. They are even giving out toilet paper which was unheard of a few short years ago. Which leaves the French safe with their title.

Nice ladies like this one even burn incense in the rest room to keep things smelling sweet!

Now on to the Games. You’ve read the other news stories, you’ve heard the exhaustive technical explanations. But here are the awards and technical specs Bob Costa could never give you:
Scariest Looking Coach. Russia by far. She was like the junior high school girl’s gym teacher of your nightmares. All the coaches were practically standing under the gymnasts as they flipped on the parallel bars. But this bruiser looked like she was going to punch any one of her girls who didn’t come up to scratch.

Most Rhythm. Brazil. Hands down! Every one of them did their floor exercise routines to a high stepping Samba beat. If they’d had tall feathered headdresses and baskets of fruit on their heads, I’m convinced they would have won.
Music Most Out of Keeping with Nationality. France was edging in there, but I have to give it to Russia. Sorry, but if you want to do handsprings to the Theme from Exodus or Modern Jazz, move to America. Your music should reflect your nationality. (See the Brazilians above.)
Cheesiest Music. No contest: the Australians. I’ve never gone to a Celine Dion show. (Or at least, I’d never admit to it.) But they must have been doing an electronic version of one of her numbers. I know they can’t all compete to Waltzing Matilda, but what about Kylie Minogue or Olivia Newton John tunes? Okay, “Physical” is a craptacular cheeseball of an 80s song. But what better gymnastics theme? Australia: see Brazil above.
Best Music, Nationality Category. At first it seemed the Romanians would take this easily. Imagine the soundtrack to a really good Dracula movie, especially for the scene where the unsuspecting peasants are dancing. Imagine it on steroids with lots of gypsy influences. Good job Romania. But you only get the Silver. The Chinese topped you with the best jazzed up version of what sounded like a Chinese Opera or Chinese Acrobatics tune. If Tina Turner were Chinese, she would have had this music.

In addition to the awards I gave them, the Chinese team walked off with a well-deserved Gold.

Worst Costumes. Australians by a mile. They had some sort of green sequiny leotards with sparkles. Then they were sporting cadmium yellow eye shadow as an accent. Fine if you are in Vegas backing up Clay Aiken. Ix-nay for the Olympics.

Hard to appreciate here the full awfulness of the Australian costumes. Check the gal on the right to see it even more heinously.

Worst Hair Accessories. The Chinese scooped up this award easily. Every girl had at least 15 plastic barrettes in her hair. Plus a scrunchie for good measure.
Best Fed Gymnasts. In a very positive development, most of the teams looked like they actually had a passing relationship with food, unlike the little anorexic tweeners of the Bela Karoly days. The US, Russia and Rumania all made a good showing in this category, but I had to put them in the Best Muscles Category. The Best-Fed award goes to the French. Keep eating that Brie, Ladies. You looked great!
Youngest Looking Gymnasts. I was tempted to give this to the Chinese who looked about average age twelve. Then the Japanese walked in and their median age appeared to be about nine. So Nippon takes this one.
Best Group Walk. Hands down, the Chinese. There are many transitions between equipment as the teams rotate from Parallel Bars to Mats, etc. The Australians and US girls heaved up their backpacks and strode down the path. But the little Chinese girls walked in perfect formation, hands at side, up on toes, eyes forward like little soldiers. Impressive. Made me want to go on a Long March. (Side note, this award has to be shared with ANYONE Chinese. Even the Chinese stage hands who ran in to move equipment around and bring in the awards platforms had perfected this walk.)
Equipment Most in Need of A Redesign. What up with those things the gymnasts got their chalk out of? They look like urinals. In Women’s Gymnastics? At least redesign them to look like bidets.

Can someone redesign this thing. Quick!

Least Clapped For. The crowds, while cheering loudly for their own teams, were also cheering for anyone who was doing a good job. Except for the Russians. They faced almost stony silence from the crowd. That’s what happens when you invade someplace with tanks and bombers on Opening Ceremonies Day.

Most Deserved Win. The Chinese Gold. These girls, tiny as they are, executed an almost flawless program over all four events. At one point, Andy turned to me and said, “The only way China doesn’t get Gold is if one of them breaks her leg on the next exercise and another one spits on a judge.”

See all the good pix from our first day at the Olympics, here.

After nearly 24 hours in airports and airplanes, we arrived in Beijing at something like 3AM San Francisco time. That was after being up at 5AM to catch our early flight. I’m still trying to figure out what happened over the International Date Line. I can’t remember if going to Asia is when you have a 48 hour day or that’s coming back. I remember there is one day where you completely lose a day. As in leave Monday, arrive Wednesday and officially never have Tuesday. As you can see, I am clearly rambling, so don’t expect much from this post. I can barely focus my eyes, let alone my camera and half the time I’m just snapping with my iPhone because I can’t get my mind around how to turn on my DSLR at this point.
Luckily, our sponsors, UPS, realized the state we’d be in and had loads of cute girls in UPS T-shirts holding UPS signs running around Beijing airport to round us up as we wandered aimlessly near the baggage claim. (As an aside, check out the new UPS “gang colors”. Is Teal the New Brown?)

Beijing Airport Exit Gate

I found that the impressive Beijing Airport can get downright hallucinatory if you haven’t slept for 24 hours. I can’t tell you how long I stared at this exit trying to figure it out before the UPS “Tourist Wrangler” herded me into the mini-van.

Beijing Rush Hour? And this qualifies as a "Blue Sky Day".

First thing I noticed from the window of the mini-van is that Beijing skies do look a lot cleaner than when I was here two years ago. That said, I haven’t seen smog like this since the seventies in LA! But today qualified as a “Blue Sky Day”. I also noticed that the forest of construction cranes from two years ago are gone. Not completely. But mostly. And the traffic? The Government here wasn’t kidding when they said they were going to ensure traffic moved smoothly. The shot above was taken at afternoon rush hour. They even have designated “Olympic Lanes” which our mini-van driver used, so I guess they are ways to get us tourists into the inner city and between venues as fast as possible.

We hit the jackpot on tickets! We're going to the BEST events.

The best news once we reached the Beijing News Plaza Hotel was that we really scored on tickets. Our hosts had warned us that tickets were handed out for their sponsored groups somewhat at random. Well, we scored!

Tomorrow (Wednesday), we’re going to Women’s Gymnastics Team Finals in the morning. In the afternoon, it’s the Men’s Swimming Heats. (I hope that includes Michael Phelps!) Thursday is a tourist/sightseeing day until evening when we see Men’s Basketball. We’re scheduled for USA vs. Greece and Argentina vs. Croatia. Friday is the Women’s Individual All-Round Gymnastics Final in the morning. At night, it’s Women’s 1000 Meter Final and the Men’s Shot Put Final. What a result! Although I did double-check those Women’s Gymnastics tickets and they say “Artistic Gymnastics”. Is that “real” gymnastics or that weird one where they dance around with ribbons and hoops? Who cares! OLYMPICS! The only addition I would have made — although it’s mean to even have a wish with this haul — but I would have liked to see the Chinese compete. It’s always fun to cheer for the Home Team. (Although I expect we’ll see them in Gymnastics.)

The only strange note is that security has been ramped right up after the tragic incident at the Drum Tower. The Chinese Government has sent over some soldiers to be stationed outside our hotel and we’re told to walk around with our UPS Guest Badges at all time, even in the hotel. It’s a shame, because two years ago, I went all over Beijing by taxi and street car with a student translator from the local University. Of course, I stuck out at that time as practically the only Western face on the street. But I felt completely safe and welcomed. I’ll never forget the taxi driver who chased me across Tiananmen Square to return a tip that I’d given him. Even when I insisted, he refused to keep it. He seemed to speak only a few words of English, but those words were “Welcome to Beijing” delivered with a big smile.

Just about at the end of Day One’s Report here — which has somehow merged into Day Two. I’m not sure where Monday ended and what happened to Tuesday which I don’t think I ever had.

So it’s a wonder that I only embarrassed myself a little in this completely loopy state. UPS had scheduled a cocktail reception and proper Chinese Banquet with former Olympic Gold Medalists as speakers and guests. Even though Andy and I were in no condition to mingle in polite society, we went. Matt Biondi, who was the Michael Phelps of his day (I think he holds more Golds than any other US Male swimmer), was our featured speaker. He was inspirational and funny although I can’t for the life of me remember much of what he said.

My embarrassing moment happened at the cocktail party when I found myself next to a tall, slim, elegant Black man who was very clearly an athlete. I gushed, “You must be one of the Kenyan Marathoners!” Ooops. Turns out he was a former American Swim Team member. Before I could spill my drink on him, I muttered something about how you could always pick an athlete out of the crowd and backed into the steamed dumpling tray.

So tomorrow, hopefully I’ll be in better shape for my early morning wake-up call for Women’s Gymnastics, Rhythmic or Otherwise! I could even enjoy it. Especially if they’re doing that baton twirling thing. (Go ahead and see the few pictures I was able to take today, but don’t expect much: Flickr Day One Set.)

And in a side note: I can cross one thing off my Bucket List (find it in the right had column of this blog.)