There was no question I had to get over to the Water Cube to watch the freak of nature as he punched a hole in history. These are the Michael Phelps Olympics, have no question about that. He is the star of this show, and not just for NBC, which tweaked the swimming schedule to make sure all the swimming finals air live in the U.S.
All those finals he swims in? Might seem late in the U.S., but those are just after 10 in the morning here in Beijing. Makes for a VERY long day for all of us who have to get up early to cover the swimming stuff and then end up staying late into the night for all the other events.
Because of the heavy interest in Phelps, media members have to put in a request to actually get a special pass for entry on those days. Spots are definitely limited. I took in his 2oom freestyle final on Tuesday the 12th and man was that impressive. Wasn't even close. The guy is just effortless power. He blistered his own world record, yet again, by almost a second and dusted the runner-up by almost 2 seconds. His WR time is posted on the scoreboard below on the inside of the bubbled Water Cube.
I was a bit more subtle in snapping that photo than a journalist a section over was in getting up from his seat. The guy, who was on the end of his row, stands up to walk out in the steep stairwell, catches his foot on his chair and down it goes.. Bam, bam, bam, tumbling down the steps as everybody on one side of the stadium stands up to look, especially the TV people directly below. The poor chap just stands there with his hands on the sides of his face like Macaulay Culkin in 'Home Alone.' Fortunately it happened after the race and not as Phelps was on the starting platform...
Another thing about Phelps, he just might be the most popular athlete here among other U.S. athletes, the NBA guys included. Everybody wants to meet him. Kobe, Jason Kidd and a couple other US hoops players came to his race the other day to cheer him on and take some pictures with his mom. Every day, there were different US athletes coming to see him race. And why not? It's history in the making...
After taking in some of the other swimming finals on that day, I headed out to wander around the sponsor's village, which is part of the main Olympic green.
Below is the fencing venue I passed on the walk there, with this year's Olympic slogan -- ``One World, One Dream" on the side of the building.
There were some big screens throughout the sponsor village, with the Chinese dominated sports like diving, weightlifting and ping pong being the most popular among viewers. The folks below were gathered watching the Chinese snag yet another gold in diving.
These are a green Olympics, at least according to organizers, and China's largest energy company -- which I was told was bigger than Exxon Mobil -- got in on the act here...
Coca-Cola, the same the world over...
The following pic is from the front of the Main Press Center as the organizers ramped up security a bit around various areas. After being greeted by this bad boy coming out of the media center one night, we thought it might be a not-so-subtle message to journalists not to mess with the Chinese government..
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