…for worst use of a word in a sentence. In this case a non-word. In a press conference this afternoon, a British journalist asked the IOC President (my new buddy Jacques Rogge) this question:
Oh dear.
For worst use of a word in a sentence?
Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I thought origami was the art of folding – or an adjective.
I’m appearing in countless photos right now with Jacques Rogge, IOC President, sitting behind me at the basketball.
Yeah – that’s right, I’ve got a better seat than the President 
I had a uni assignment to do today. Fiji has no more events to cover, and the team was going to church, I figured it was my best opportunity. But, alas the TV distracted me with news from yesterday’s basketball that Australia would play the USA in the semi finals of the girls competition, starting in 2 hours. 
It was a no brainer. I was at the Athlete’s Village media centre at the time of distraction, so I idled down to the “transport mall” to get the shuttle – along with the USA team (which got me wondering where the Australians were… I guess they got an earlier or later shuttle).
Good call me!
The basketball is a 3 on 3 half court competition, which is pretty entertaining. They play two games at a time on the one court (but only one is televised), and the stadium is pretty small, making it a good atmosphere. Calling it a stadium is a stretch – it’s actually just a court on a main road, which they have erected a cover and stands for.
The semi underway when I arrived was China v Canada. Canada were losing 11-2 and, in what was the least entertaining semi final, China won by 7 to go through to play the winner of Australia v USA.
Next up were the two men’s semi-finals (I think they call it “boys” but some of them just look too old for that description) – USA v Serbia was first and was an incredibly athletic game. It was neck and neck the whole way and eventually went to extra time, where Serbia reached the required winning score of 33 first.
That rule confused the hell out of me – apparently 33 points wins it! Or if no one gets to that, it’s whoever is leading at the end of the 10 minute game – or the 2 minute overtime periods
Next up was Greece v Croatia. Greece lost a player to a rolled ankle early on – and with only 4 players per team, that left the remaining 3 to play out the whole game. They built up a big lead, but you could see one of their p
layers completely run out of steam – appealing to be subbed off, but with no choice but to stay out there. Croatia came back and levelled the game with a second remaining to go into extra time. Same result again – another extra time. And again. In the 3rd extra time, the Croatian captain nailed a 3 pointer to take them to 33 points. Exciting stuff.
When the Australian girls came out to play the USA, the guy next to me (an Australian guy from FIBA I think) said “gee, they’re a fair bit shorter!” The opening minutes saw the US lob passes in to take advantage of that height difference, and they raced ahead. I thought Australia was done and dusted at the half, down 15-
7.
I was wrong – they started killing it and got ahead 17-18 with a minute and a half to play. A minute and a half later and we had the third game in a row go to extra time.
2 minutes later, they had killed off the giants 25-23.
And I had found a better story for my uni assignment. Here’s hoping they can beat crowd favourite China tomorrow!
(The dude in the Boxing Kangaroo costume was the sweatiest man I had seen in a long time – he didn’t take long after the match to rip it off ! I was sweaty just from sitting down wearing a t-shirt.)
It’s been a busy couple of days here in Singapore. On Tuesday, Fiji’s two weightlifters were competing, then yesterday at the Athletics, Lepani Naivalu made the 100m final, which was super exciting.
The weightlifters went in looking to make PBs rather than win any medals. That was a good thing considering the winner of the girl’s event of the day (58kg division) broke 3 junior world records, and came within 1kg of matching a senior world record – lifting 110kgs in the Snatch – yep, almost twice her body weight.
I actually really enjoyed the weightlifting – it’s much more tactical than I thought. I assumed it was a bit like high jump, where as long as you’re successful, you can keep going up, but with competitors only given 3 lifts, they have to decide on what weight they’ll enter the competition, and then how much to raise it by each time. Presumably they have an aim for their final lift, but if they fail to lift something successfully they’re out, so they don’t go straight in at that weight.
One Egyptian girl was potentially trying that tactic when she failed to complete a lift in 3 attempts and ended up fainting on stage with disappointment (left).
Sitting in the front row in the media stand with camera in hand and laptop out, I was able to break stories as they happened – good for Fiji who don’t have the Games televised, and internet connections which are probably too slow for people to stream the live webcast. And fun for me too.
The actual weightlifting news was not necessarily the most interesting part as far as Fiji was concerned for the day. See the Team Fiji site to read it all.
The athletics feat was pretty amazing – I’d been at the pool again in the morning, and had to upload a story there quickly 
before hot-footing it to the stadium. I hadn’t done any research into the competition, but after the first couple of heats the times were looking like the Fiji runner could do alright, with limited runners going under 11 seconds (the 100m at Fiji’s high school Coke Games are usually won in under 11s.) It looked less possible when it started raining, but luckily Fijians know how to do stuff in the rain
I had to do my own sprint after the race – down to get an interview – luckily I’d already learnt from day one that I needed to do that quickly, AND I had pre-researched the route – I’m an old hand at this stuff now!
With such a good day under the belt, I rewarded myself with a (successful) dabble at the Casino (so tempting located right next to the MPC) followed by a sleep-in today. I was happy the hostel staff commented on how unusual it was for me to have a late morning. If only I had a boss here who could also notice my diligence…
I gave myself an early mark today. The Fiji crew were having a quiet afternoon, and I don’t yet have a pass allowing me into the residential zone of the village.
So I jumped on the shuttle bus going to the only city-based sports venue. The drop off was the top of the International Convention Centre, backstage for the taekwondo.
So rather than head straight back to the hostel, I thought I’d take a look.
I have no idea how the sport of taekwondo works. It looks like kickboxing without the boxing and sounds like strangling cats (as I imagine it, not from experience).
The first fight was stopped early on by the referee when the American girl was dominating the girl from a country whose 3 letter code I didn’t even recognise. Surprisingly it was the American making more of the screeching cat noises.
The referees seem to be a big deal – they get a moment in the spotlight when they’re announced and give a smile and a wave to the crowd before snapping into robotic-policeman mode. They seem to scold the fighters with some regularity.
The second match had a Thai girl up 12-2 over the UAE when she went down with an injured ankle. A quick spray of something on it and she was back on her feet. I was hopig for a one legged karate kid move, but alas she just hopped around avoiding the other girl for the remaining 40 seconds.
At this point I was about to leave when I saw a Singaporean was fighting (forgive me if that’s not the right term) next. It was a much tighter affair, then in the 2nd round when she was 4-0 down, her coach interrupted (after the Canadian opponent had just claimed a point for landing a kick on the chest) and gave the ref a red card!!
Was the coach sending her own player off?? Did she not like the refereeing? Turns out it was a request for a video replay. Sure enough – the Canadian had copped a sweet kick to the head after she landed her chest kick and none of the judges (or crowd) saw it. 3 points right there for that red card.
At 11-3, the same thing happened again – a kick to the head spotted on replay. Unfortunately those 6 were the only points the Singaporean got.
Taekwondo: Not my new favorite sport.
Fiji’s first event was today at the swimming. The race started 15 minutes early, which threw me – I was on my way down to the poolside stand to set myself up for some photos. I walked past just as Tieri was being marshalled to the starting blocks, I quickly reached for my camera for a quick photo – blurry. Then I couldn’t get to the media stand fast enough for the start – managed in desperation to push to a spot for a picture – blurry. Went to the media stand and got an ok, non-blurry action photo, then stayed there to watch the race. Rookie error – I was too slow getting to the post-race interview zone. Yep – pretty much missed everything I needed.
The good news is, I think I learnt every lesson at once.
I didn’t really know what to expect from the Opening Ceremony, but it turned out to be pretty good. I imagine it made the whole “I’m at an Olympic Games” thing sink in for the athletes.
Sitting in the media stand had its drawbacks – a lot of empty seats around, and the whole audience participation thing was lost on those who were there because they had to be, and scrambling to go somewhere else where they could get a better picture or see/interview the actual audience members.
Here are some of my photos from the ceremony…
I just returned to the hostel after a long day, and as I walked in I realised I was now the only person carrying a bright blue bag with blow up clappers and a plastic white dove sticking out of it.
The free stuff I have been given in just the first two days of Olympics ranges from “fucking awesome!” (the laptop backpack) to “what the hell am I supposed to do with this?” (a tie between the plastic illuminating dove and the plastic illuminating love heart).
By the time these games are over, I think I probably will have exhausted the storage space under my bunk bed.
Given the high turnover rate in Singapore hostels (I might be the first person to ever check in for 15 nights), I will likely also elicit some strange looks from new backpackers who then want to steal my dove.
UPDATE: This morning – some 9 hours after this post – I bought an $8 local sim card – it came with a free “2010 Singtel Limited Edition Racing Watch!” (which actually doesn’t scream “I’m a 9 year old boy” like I thought it would)
I always thought the snooze function of the alarm clock was my favorite thing. Proven wrong on that this morning in the 28 bed hostel dorm with some tool snoozing at 4 minute intervals for an hour.
What kind of idiot backpacker sets their alarm for 7am if they don’t actually need to get up then!?
Grrr.