Looong Day

Today was the last day of the Track Cycling, and, to be honest, I'm kinda sad about it. It goes back to that whole thing that I'm used to the track at this point and I'm not sure I'm ready to have to grab quotes from BMX riders or Mountain Bikers.

That being said, I was up early today to head over to the velodrome and then interview some Mountain Bikers. The big challenge with the mountain bike course is that, as I've said in a previous post, it's carved into the side of a mountain. This makes it extremely hard for the athletes to train on the actual course...and, therefore, extremely hard for us to pin them down for an interview.

But, we got a few, which was all we needed. The nice thing is that we're done with having to get interviews and such from the BMX and Mountain Bike because the events start tomorrow. Plus, not nearly as many people care about those as compared to the track.

Today, I felt really productive for the first half of the day and then didn't feel like I was a useful member of the team at all in the afternoon. Firstly, I fell asleep reading "The Daily Show and Philosophy" (and I may have drooled in the book a little bit. Seriously, we all just passed out during our hour and a half break.), then went up to the track and sat in the ENG zone, which has become the mixed zone that wasn't supposed to be.

Essentially, the journalists learned early on that the athletes weren't going all the way over to the actual mixed zone, so the journalists just kinda found a spot to pester them. So, therefore, we were there too because we stalk the journalists for our own personal gain. So, I was there in the ENG, the name for this new zone, all day. Every time an athlete came through, either a) someone else had them and was in a better position than me or b) the athlete didn't speak English...or c) the athlete was someone we really didn't care about.

So, I really didn't do anything until Chris Hoy won his third gold medal...yeah, he doesn't stink...that I did anything. Then, I was busy the rest of the night.

It was kind of a boring day, but honestly a pretty exciting day. A lot of great races, some controversy with the Chinese Individual Sprinter, who fell and got to race again and won, but then bumped the other rider so was disqualified. It was nuts. I also met a really nice guy from EuroSport and bonded with the New Zealand TV guys again.

Up early tomorrow for the first ever day of BMX! Up early, but also done by 1:00. Perhaps off to find the USA house for some team merchandise and then off to do some much needed laundry.

Oh, and I understand that some people might want to e-mail me questions or whatnot. That's totally awesome. My e-mail, if you want to send any questions or comments my way, is pwrighth@purdue.edu OR philwrighthouse@gmail.com.