Can you say you’ve been to an Olympic event? I can, and it was awesome! Today Tao and I hung out around the his dad’s apartment until it was time to go to the Beijing University Aeronautics and Astronautics gymnasium (what a mouthful of a name) to see the men’s 85kg weight lifting competition.
At first I was a little disappointed since there weren’t any countries other than China I felt strongly about, but that turned around pretty quickly. I mean, these men are athletes first, but entertainers second and with the exception of the Kazakhstan were all very interesting to watch and engaged the crowd.
Our seats were in the very very top of the right side, but the view was still good. We were going to move a little closer if there were empty seats anywhere, but aside from the reserved seating, every seat in that building was occupied. I didn’t realize weightlifting was such a followed event.
Belarus was on fire the whole event, even if he came in second to China. The first event was the snatch-they would lift a bar straight over their head. I was shocked at how much they were able to fling over their head-anywhere from 161 and 184kg (355-405lb). Belarus broke the previous Olympic record of 182 by successfully lifting 184kg. The crowd loved it and he was pretty excited about it too, as was his trainer.
During the time between the first and second event they had two pairs of acrobats come out and do a few stunts, which were somewhat impressive. There was also a lion run and what I mean by that is, you know the dragon dance? Well, instead of a dragon costume, there were two Chinese lions that chased around another actor holding a ball and did all sorts of jumps and twists. It was a pretty amusing thing to watch during the half time.
The second event was the clean and jerk-they would lift the bar first to the chest and rest it on their collar before throwing it over their head. They could load even more weight on this bar, anywhere between 195 and 210kg (427-462lb).
Part of the excitement of this event was that it had everything, from breaking records, to failure and injury. The Armenian failed to make a single successful attempt at the clean and jerk, which eliminated him from the competition and Turkey hit/hurt his knee which prevented him from continuing to compete. Belarus also broke the world record for the clean and jerk (yet another record for this guy! What a feather in his cap). After one of France’s lifts he walked off the platform and fainted flat on his face. Knowing he was ok, allowed the amusement value of witnessing that to fully come through (and man, it was comical).
I was really surprised with how supportive the crowd was of all the athletes, no matter which country they were from. Of course, when China came out they were like a bunch of soccer fans, but everyone wanted each person to make a successful lift. When the Armenian was on his final clean and jerk attempt to stay in the competition, everyone started cheering for him. A hush would descend among the entire building whenever anyone would start their lifts so they could concentrate and then cheering would begin as they were holding/trying to hold the bar up for the required seconds. It was a nice warm fuzzy feeling to see so much support for everyone.
Speaking of soccer fans, you know when you’re watching a Latin American soccer game and the announcer screams “GOOOAAALLLL!!!!!” whenever someone scores and it goes on for nearly five minutes? The guy sitting next to me was exactly like that for China’s really big successful lifts, only he was saying “HAAOOOOO” (good/excellent/fantastic/etc).
The first winning lift China did was first considered good and then the judges reversed their decision. You could tell how many people in the room understood English because everything during the entire event was announced first in French (the official Olympic language), then English, and finally Chinese. When I heard I was like, “What?! Why?!” but everyone was just kind of listening and waiting. Then when it was announced in Chinese, a chorus of boos went up. It was rather amusing. But China did the same lift again and it was considered good and ended up winning. I’m still not sure how that worked his both he and Belarus lifted the same amount of weight. In order to win, they judges add up the highest successful lifts for both events to have a total weight lifted amount and whoever lifted the most wins. But as I said, if there’s a tie I don’t know how that works out.
Since China won, the atmosphere was very festive leaving the place and I saw one guy just sort of jumping around and handing out cigarettes to people who’d have them (and some who didn’t seem to want them too). It was pretty late by then too, since the event didn’t start until about 7 and ended at 9. I came back to the apartment and packed up my things since tomorrow I’m flying out. I’ve really enjoyed my time in China this summer, and not even the prospect of another 13 straight hour flight can bother with it at the moment.
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