As previously mentioned, Mark attended 3 sporting events and was a witness to a fourth. Below, please find Mark's commentary on the 4 events, based on his background knowledge of each event, which is, admittedly, uneven.
Rowing. So, first thing: they announce that there is 5 minutes to go before a race starts. This is pretty awesome. Mark was standing near the starting blocks (starting docks? who knows?) and heard that he had 5 minutes before it was go time. Mark decided to grab a quick beer and/or snack. Unfortunately, there is no beer guy at the starting line to rowing events at the Rio 2016 Olympics. Go figure.
Anyway, on the event itself, I think they middle guy won. Or the guy on the left. Hard to tell, the finish line was really far away.
Next up was basketball. As you can see, the lights on the court worked, but the lights in the stands made Mark's selfie look like Mark had left the lens cap over the left side of his lens. But it wasn't just for Mark, the same phenomena affected the Serbian couple sitting in front of Mark.
Regarding the game, the USA got a big lead (like 25-6 or something) and ended up winning by 3. So, after the hot start, the US team got outplayed the rest of the game. Now the Serbs are up again as gold medal game opponents. Ugh.
Selfies were a lot easier to take at the outdoor venue of the Olympic Stadium. Mark is informed that the stadium was used for soccer, as well as opening ceremonies. The stadium itself is new, clean and has nice sightlines. Mark sat about 20-25 meters off the starting line of the 100 meters, so he had a nice vantage point for 100 meter dash starts and for the ending of all of the races.
Mark was fortunate enough to see Usain Bolt run 100 meters in the preliminaries. He started slow, let up early and still won by a lot. He's just better than the other runners. The other highlight was the 3000 meter women's steeplechase. Not normally an event that Mark knows existed, but he got into it this time. One of the competitors from Kenya got into a crash when another runner stepped on her foot. Her shoe became dislodged and she tried to slip it back on. That didn't work, so she just through it off. Since it was steeplechase, her socks were wet, so she took that off too. She ran about 2000 meters in one bare foot. That's compelling track and field, ladies and gentlemen.
Lastly, Mark attended weightlifting. Despite having some prior interest in weightlifting, Mark had never been to an actual weightlifting event. He will probably never go to another one because (1) this was the pinnacle, the Olympic games and (2) even so, they could not make it interesting. Mark saw the only member of the USA men's Olympic weightlifting team compete. He did well, but did not make it to the finals or on to the medal stand. But why does USA weightlifting have only 1 male team member?
The one thing I liked about the weightlifting was that there were no assigned seating, just a section. This would seem to reward the more aggressive fans. Weird, but whatever works.
Rowing. So, first thing: they announce that there is 5 minutes to go before a race starts. This is pretty awesome. Mark was standing near the starting blocks (starting docks? who knows?) and heard that he had 5 minutes before it was go time. Mark decided to grab a quick beer and/or snack. Unfortunately, there is no beer guy at the starting line to rowing events at the Rio 2016 Olympics. Go figure.
Anyway, on the event itself, I think they middle guy won. Or the guy on the left. Hard to tell, the finish line was really far away.
Next up was basketball. As you can see, the lights on the court worked, but the lights in the stands made Mark's selfie look like Mark had left the lens cap over the left side of his lens. But it wasn't just for Mark, the same phenomena affected the Serbian couple sitting in front of Mark.
Regarding the game, the USA got a big lead (like 25-6 or something) and ended up winning by 3. So, after the hot start, the US team got outplayed the rest of the game. Now the Serbs are up again as gold medal game opponents. Ugh.
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| Serbian couple. |
Selfies were a lot easier to take at the outdoor venue of the Olympic Stadium. Mark is informed that the stadium was used for soccer, as well as opening ceremonies. The stadium itself is new, clean and has nice sightlines. Mark sat about 20-25 meters off the starting line of the 100 meters, so he had a nice vantage point for 100 meter dash starts and for the ending of all of the races.
Mark was fortunate enough to see Usain Bolt run 100 meters in the preliminaries. He started slow, let up early and still won by a lot. He's just better than the other runners. The other highlight was the 3000 meter women's steeplechase. Not normally an event that Mark knows existed, but he got into it this time. One of the competitors from Kenya got into a crash when another runner stepped on her foot. Her shoe became dislodged and she tried to slip it back on. That didn't work, so she just through it off. Since it was steeplechase, her socks were wet, so she took that off too. She ran about 2000 meters in one bare foot. That's compelling track and field, ladies and gentlemen.
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| You can't finish the race without going by Mark. |
Lastly, Mark attended weightlifting. Despite having some prior interest in weightlifting, Mark had never been to an actual weightlifting event. He will probably never go to another one because (1) this was the pinnacle, the Olympic games and (2) even so, they could not make it interesting. Mark saw the only member of the USA men's Olympic weightlifting team compete. He did well, but did not make it to the finals or on to the medal stand. But why does USA weightlifting have only 1 male team member?
The one thing I liked about the weightlifting was that there were no assigned seating, just a section. This would seem to reward the more aggressive fans. Weird, but whatever works.
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