Olympic Impressions from Schinias/Athens. Day 4 part 1 - Tuesday 17th August 2004.
This is not intended to be commentary, as that is well covered via TV, radio, the FISA website and the newspapers. Plus it's difficult to get time amongst the other jobs. Here are odd bits and pieces those following the Games may find interesting.
Yup, you read that right, beach volleyball, and women's, to boot - Norway versus Switzerland. Somewhat to my surprise, I was pretty impressed. Forget the TV coverage, which we all know is soft-porn for sporty bods, all lingering shots of tanned bods and dodgy camera angles and seeing the ball about once every half hour. The real thing is skilful and energetic, and you find yourself envying not the players' ability to wear a bikini without looking blobby, but their athletic movements and talent for guessing where the other team is going to put the ball. Think tennis, but even more whole-body.
It was made much more fun by discovering, as we sat down, that we were sitting next to the Norway no. 1's elder brother and sister, who explained all the rules to us and turned us into honorary Norwegians for the afternoon. Hugh, with his commentator's eye, spotted that the higher-ranked Swiss girls were a bit slow off the mark, and guessed that they were going to lose the first set, win the second, and then be out-played by the gutsy Norwegians in the decider. He must have written the script, as it panned out precisely that way. I'm sorry to relate that this august Old Blue, Olympic silver medallist and pillar of the community then spent most of the time trying to decide which orange-bikini'd cheerleader he thought was best at the synchronised wriggling (or whatever it is they do between sets). [Hugh wasn't the only one - we later discovered that photographer Pete Spurrier had spent most of the evening down there, snapping close-ups including one artistic study which should be entitled "Navel with Stud" - top quality sporting stuff.]
Coming back to the main stadium area, I saw a red stretch Mini go past looking for a place to stop. I was going to lurk and see which minor celebs it was going to disgorge (George Bush? Melanie Griffiths? Lord Elgin's great-grandson?) but it swept regally round the corner and nipped off between two buses. Another bizarre sight to be encountered on your travels is turf. Flatbed lorryloads of the green stuff can be seen whizzing around Athens, mostly at night, and sometimes with a police escort. Weird. It's almost as if some sneaky God (Hephaestion or Hermes perhaps, or that difficult kid Pan) has been slyly filching chunks of lawn from the venues while the Army boys aren't looking, and ATHOC are trying to replace them before they think anyone has noticed. Divine divots, perhaps?
In the evening I went to the men's team gymnastics final, quite incredible stuff. Again the atmosphere in the hall is very different from what you get on TV - quieter at some points, since you don't have commentators talking all the time, but amazing when something big happens. One thing you don't hear on the coverage much is the booing - the judges were having a bit of a brainstorm at times, and frequently judged apparently brilliant routines very harshly, so came in for a bit of stick. For those who remember the 70's and 80's and Olympic gymnastics during the Cold War era, you can imagine it was strange to see the US and Russian teams competing side-by-side in the rotations, but the US had red romper-suits while the Russians were in blue and white. Seemed somehow back to front - there was a time when the Americans avoided large blocks of red on their kit because of the Communist connections.
In line with their 'ancient and modern' theme, the Greeks are giving laurel wreaths to all the medallists. It's hilarious to see the athletes work out how to cope - the girls love it, but the guys who win don't know where to look as they are crowned by the IOC dignitary, and then have to stand in the camera sights while the anthem is played with what amounts to half a bush in their hair. You can bet they'd be disappointed if the organisers ran out of wreaths, though. I also notice the olive wreaths aren't chucked into the crowds - just the bouquets of Greek wild flowers which nowadays seem to be obligatory at prize-givings.
And so back to the coast, with strings of Athens street-lights outlining the dark masses of ancient monuments and hills around the city. And back to the lake tomorrow.
Rachel Quarrell at the 2004 Olympics.