Boltin

After seeing Michael Phelps in the pool, I knew I had to take in Usain Bolt on the track.

First, though, I have to mention that I had my best dinner of the trip at a Chinese restaurant a couple blocks from our media village. Scott and I walked into town one evening and just had a tremendous meal of duck, ribs, dumplings, shrimp and, of course, General Tso's chicken. I simply had to try the real thing here in China since I get it so often in the states and it was, by far, the best I've ever had. Just a little crisp on the outside after being seared, perfectly cooked, great flavor and fiery, but not too much. Man, was it good.


So on this night I was working on other stories, not track, but figured it would be more fun to do it in the stadium surrounded by 91,000 people and soak in the atmosphere than in our bunker in the media center. Caught plenty of action, including Bolt absolutely cruising in another gear in his 200m heats, plus hurdles, javelin, discus and high jump.

Had terrific seats too. Second row off the track about 15 yards short of the finish line. Couldn't get much better.

One minor problem about being so close and also trying to work is that you're pretty close to the starting line for some of the races. I have to say, the starter's pistol is MUCH louder than I expected. While working on a couple of occassions with my head down, it startled the bejesus out of me when that thing went off..

Lots of different things were going on at the track at the same time, but this was one of my absolute favorite things to watch.

That little gizmo in the middle of the picture is yes, a remote control car. There were two of them that constantly ran up and back to bring the discus, hammer and javelins back to the competitors after they'd been thrown. I was absolutely riveted by this novel idea... The discuses would just be put in the back while there was a little cylinder for the javelins to go in. Then two guys sitting near the throwing point with their remotes would drive em on back..

What a terrific idea! I was waiting for some spinouts or loops on the infield in between runs, but never got em.