Olympic Games

Just spent 48 hours getting the Olympic experience; Opening Ceremony, then spectating with the family at Volleyball, Diving finals and Basketball preliminaries. Then I took my family into the Athlete’s Village. They met some athletes, exchanged pins, saw the workout facilities.

The Opening Ceremony was a lot of fun. The best part is being in the “holding facility” (Gymnastics arena) before we marched in. All the countries were in this arena. So it was like being at a Sharks game and wandering around the food area’s with everyone there being an athlete. I met so many neat people. Very impresses with our track and womens basketball athletes. Marching around the stadium was cool too. The USA got a very nice reception…nothing but cheers. I exchanged a pin with an Iraqi athlete! Very nice people and didn’t seem to have a problem with us.

My boat got measured today and all went well. We had one small issue that Carl Eichenlob is taking care of tonight. Tomorrow we will sail if the Meltemi is not too strong. The Meltemi filled in today and the classes that are racing had some strong winds…20+ up to 30 knots the Greek 470 women told me.

We will train Monday-Wednesday this week, then take Thursday off and do the practice race on Friday. Just last run through’s with the race sails and masts and keeping in sailing shape. Need to protect the assets so we have to watch the conditions.

The family is off to SF on Tuesday so I will be flying solo from then on. I will miss them but I will be alone to focus on my sailing which is good.