Olympic Diary: Day 2

I guess complaining about the lines on the first “real” day of the Olympics in Rio falls pretty far to the left on the noteworthiness curve. That said, they did suck. And the most terrible part is how the experience, gradually, erodes what started as a good mood and turns it into dark bleak disdain for humanity. Watching minor transgression after minor transgression perpetrated by people who must think, what? That no one’s watching? That probably the other people don’t mind waiting in line as much as they do, so, they’ll understand? After over an hour of standing in the sun to get my bag x-rayed so I could go see ping pong, I couldn’t help really wanting something bad to happen to the guy dressed completely in Polish flags who blatantly cut the line right in front of me, just before my turn.

I ended up viewing, by the time I got in, 15 minutes of ping pong. And to be honest it was pretty great.

The highlight of day, however, was the men’s road race. I kept track of how the brutal 241km race was progressing on my iPhone while returning from Pong and saw the original six man break (which was down to five at that point) pass by out in front of Casa Italia.

I then jumped on my bike and went to a spot on the climb section of the Canoas/Vista Chinesa circuit — the second and more difficult circuit of the race. They would loop around this three times before a 10km flat run in to the finish. See the course profile below:

This was my first time viewing a professional cycling race and, I must say, it was phenomenal for a variety of reasons. First of all, there is this unusual tension of following the bulk of the race as it happens far out of sight, essentially like any sporting event, and then, suddenly, the riders arrive and you are thrown into the actual event you are following. It’s hard to describe, but it creates a strange (but great) break in the normal TV/internet sports viewing experience.

And the riders aren’t just passing by, they are passing by inches away. And you can run with the riders. And you even could, as many people were (usually in a helpful manner as they climbed the hill) touch the riders. I can’t think of another sport where this is allowed. And not just allowed, but free. And on top of that it turned out to be an unbelievable race with a dramatic finish (I watched the final kilometers outside of a local bar at the bottom of the hill).