Edmonton

Saturday | 4 August 2001 | Edmonton, The World's | Day 2: First, a report on last evening's activities. It didn't start out as a very exciting evening, as our pick for the marathon, American runner Kahlid Khannouchi dropped-out at mile 16! This morning, the newspaper's say he had blisters on the tips of his toes and the heat was bothering his breathing. The local (available via our antenna) "official television station" of The World's sucks - they wouldn't show anything "live", holding out for prime-time. Luckily for us, the French station (obviously the unofficial station of the games) was showing the race live... unfortunately for us, the coverage was in French. (Where is Lisa when you need her?) But, seriously, it was a race - men are running down the street, they are live on camera, we knew their names, we knew their nationality and stats - so we didn't need to understand the announcers. But... when Lisa gets here, maybe she will translate the commercials for us?!

The Opening Ceremonies were just boring and long. The papers this morning are trashing them as "just awful" - "World Crass Act" is one headline. No matter, a pounding nose-to-nose marathon finish woke the dozing crowd. Enough said on that subject. I won't really give "results"... I'll just give running commentary... get it... running commentary? Oh, how I do amuse myself.

Anyway, back to our evening... after an easy dinner - prepared at home a few weeks ago, frozen and vacuum-sealed for such an occasion - and a few hours watching people dance on stilts, we called it a night.

At about 2:30 a.m., we were awakened by claps of thunder, flashes of lightning and the sound of our flapping awning trying to detach itself from the motorhome! We scrambled outside and frantically worked to get the awning down - fighting the wind all the while. Of course, The Bungee King had the awning fastened to the picnic table, so the first priority was to un-bungee! That task complete, we brought the awning in. The vision of DT reaching up to the awning switch using a metal rod with lightening flashing around him was a frightening sight... no matter how big his life insurance policy. We made it back inside Goldie just as the clouds opened - free car and RV wash - as the rain pounded for an hour! This morning, the campground is a mess - people's "stuff" is all over the place - satellite dishes, lawn chairs, awnings, tarps... and the poor people in tents - everyone is busy cleaning-up.

Today was our first day at Commonwealth Stadium... the first of MANY. Today, we drove into a local shopping center and took a shuttle to The World's. From leaving Goldie to the stadium was under one hour! Not bad, as we are staying outside of town. We didn't go directly to our seats, but looked around the arena, checked out the goods for sale, food and people watched. Here is our view of The World's - and we bought our tickets the first minute they went on sale, too! We are a bit far away, but definitely have a view of the entire oval and we don’t have the sun in our eyes - and are above the finish line!

Commonwealth Stadium

You can find results on-line several places and hopefully on television - but here are a few notes from my little notebook: The 100m men's heats were pretty exciting. American Tim Montgomery won the first heat. Yesterday, we watched Toby fitting Montgomery with new racing spikes at the NIKE center; the little slippers looked as if they weighed about the same as a feather. The second heat was totally loaded - American Maurice Greene, Ato Bolton of Trinidad and Canada's occasional-least-favorite son, Donovan Bailey in the same heat! Bailey didn't report to training camp and they threatened to not let him on the team... yet, here he is! Maurice ran a blistering 9.88. Canadian Bruny Surin was third in his heat, after he was given a very questionable false start. A nineteen year old English boy, Mark Lewis-Francis won the heat in 9.97. Another American, Bernard Williams, moved into the semi's by winning the 5th heat in 9.95. Tomorrow, the men must pass another test to narrow the field to 8 runners for the final -ALSO TOMORROW! Ouch. The 100m is brutal. In the men's shot put, it was the usual one-two finish: Americans John Godina and Adam Nelson. The 50,000m race walk, yawn, was won 1-2-3 by Russians. Probably a bit of vodka being consumed tonight in Edmonton. Okay, so that is it for my sports report. Here is the good stuff about the meet...

The Gauntlet


The scoreboard at Commonwealth Stadium

Obviously, the Canadians are cheering like mad for their athletes. Though not as knowledgeable as European fans, the Canadians are really into track & field and are putting on a good meet. Most athletes interviewed on the field are Canadian and when they interviewed John Godina, the announcer asked Godina his opinion of the young Canadian putter! John Chaplain was spotted. The athletes are forced to leave the oval through a certain gate, which snakes it way through the press box (photo above) - so they can't avoid the Fourth Estate - but I did notice several athletes simply ignored the reporters and continued on to the locker rooms below. The lower photo shows the fantastic scoreboard - the screen on the left shows what is/will be on television and the screen on the far right shows what is happening now on the track. The screen in the center usually shows the results or heat sheets. Attendance today was only 28,000 - and it was Saturday! We had beautiful, warm weather until the very last heat of the women's 1500m - thunder and a little rain.
 
We walked out of Commonwealth Stadium after the final race and stepped onto a waiting shuttle bus! Very organized! We found our car back at the shopping center and headed over to The World's Largest Mall - The West Edmonton Mall - for something to quench our thirst. We ended up grabbing a light meal at the mall - not a very good place for a meal, but okay for a snack. We visited the mall three years ago and it hasn't changed much, though it has expanded. It is similar to the Beaverton Mall - just on the largest of scales with a huge amusement park.
 
Heading home to Goldie - the skies opened up again! Lightning, thunder, wind and sheets of rain. When we arrived at our campsite, the power was out and everyone was putting their awnings and lawn chairs inside again! I wonder? Is this a weather pattern? There is a lot of talk around town about the questionable weather. I hope this system blows over and no athlete is bothered by the weather! Power returned shortly after our arrival and I suspect it was only out for a few minutes.
 
Note from Lisa: Besides losing her Nordstrom card and debit card, she had an otherwise terrible time at the concert in the gorge. Someone walked by their tent with a garbage bag filled with beer bottles and whacked her in the head (accidentally hit the tent) while she was sleeping. Every campsite around them partied all night and she only had "twenty minutes sleep”. The credit cards are being replaced, nothing has been illegally charged and I told her where I had a little cash stashed in the house. Obviously, had is the key word in that sentence.

RV Park: Glowing Embers RV Park in Spruce Grove, Alberta