Beijing

I’m officially writing from the Olympic village in Beijing! We arrived and settled in on Wednesday afternoon. It’s been a while since my last post, so here’s a run down of the last week.

The last couple of days have been spent in training mode. Our preparation in Daegu went off well. We put the final pieces of our puzzle together and can only hope that preparation and performance will come together for us to pull off a good tournament. In between our preparation we managed to polish our putting skills. Together with the SA Men’s hockey team we enjoyed a game of dress up golf. The golf was pretty entertaining and the outfits were a designer’s nightmare!

As I mentioned before, we arrived in the village on Wednesday. The village is absolutely amazing. I have dubbed it “The city within a city”. As these are my first games I was a bit overwhelmed by everything. Well, I guess spotting Ana Ivanovic, Kobe Bryant, Nadal and Fernando Gonzalez in a mere 3 hours can be overwhelming to anyone. I just have to take it all in. I’ve only got praises for this place. The Chinese have really gone all out to make athletes and officials comfortable. A hair salon, bank, photo shop, florist and dry cleaners are just some of the facilities and services offered within the village.

Training has been going well for our team. Yesterday we played a friendly international versus New Zealand. It was a good game for both teams to settle into the conditions. The final score was 2-2 with both teams not giving too much away. Today we had a light training at the main Olympic pitch, where we will face Holland on Sunday.

Last night we were hosted by the South African Ambassador at the Westin hotel. The same hotel that US president George Bush called home for the night. The occasion was well run and enjoyed by athletes, friends and families of a few of the South Africans.
Today is the big day 08/08/2008. The village is buzzing with a lot of athletes all excited for the opening ceremony. I am sure the Chinese will not disappoint. Until my next post (I promise not to make you wait for too long) enjoy watching the Beijing Olympic Games!

Posted 08/08/08