Flashes of Panic

I’ve been a lousy tourist. A solid week in Beijing as of this afternoon, and I’ve left the Olympic Green twice, both times to downtown hotels for various dinners. (Hooray for traveling with a jacket and tie.) The schedule, which generally keeps me in the stadium past midnight and requires me to be up around 7 for morning sessions, has had me too tired to concentrate on anything but my work. I hope to change that, but aside from the firewall and the large numbers of Asian spectators, these Olympics might as well be in Spain. (I can’t even blame jet lag; I’m tired in all twenty-four time zones.)

The trade off has been that it’s been an awesome track meet. Three world records might not sound like much after the swimming section of the program, but track, as one of my colleagues sniffed, does not give away World Records like door prizes. Most of these events have been around decades, if not centuries. World Records mean something.

To put it another way, I’ve seen three world records in three days. In my entire career to date, I’d seen three other world records in outdoor track, and for one of those I didn’t actually see it; I was in a press conference when it happened. I’ve seen probably around five more for indoor track, with one of those now likely to be revoked under doping suspicion. And one in the marathon (again, I didn’t see it; I was in the press room). So maybe around ten in twelve years. Now I’ve seen three in three days. And there are at least two more events in which world records are possible this week.

Also, I have to say the Olympic mascots, the fuwa, have to be the best mascots I’ve seen at a major event in ages. They’re actually kind of cute.

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