After the late
night of beach volleyball, the GSK Hospitality Team let us sleep in before we
departed for our day at the Olympic Park.
As part of the package, we were given day passes to the Olympic
Hospitality Center (OHC).
When we arrived at
the Olympic Park, we entered through the special tour-groups area and were led
straight to the OHC, which was well-protected by the very visibly armed guards
at the entrance. The lavish spread was
constantly replenished by the attentive staff, who seemed to be under strict
orders to not let a single napkin sit unfolded even for a minute.
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| Olympic Hospitality Center |
During lunch, I got
the chance to have a long talk with one of our North America Pharma colleagues (Tony). I was thrilled to hear how interested he was
in the compounds in development and how much he seemed to care about getting
new medicines to patients who need them.
All my interactions with the NA Pharma attendees, including Deirdre,
made me proud that they work for GSK.
************
Following lunch,
our hosts herded us through the park to the Basketball Arena. The afternoon preliminary men’s basketball
session pitted Argentina against Tunisia, followed by the battle between Russia
and Brazil, both of whom were 2-0 at that point in round robin play. The Argentinian team soundly defeated the
Tunisians behind the stellar play of Manu Ginobli of NBA’s San Antonio Spurs. Thanks to the lop-sided scoring, the dance
team during half-time might have been the highlight of that game.
But the Brazil-Russia
game was another matter. From the
start, the two teams were battling it out, with neither team managing to take a
commanding lead. Russia did pull away to
an 11-point lead, but Brazil battled back to tie it up mid-way through the
fourth quarter.
The fan base in the
arena appeared to be overwhelmingly in favor of the Brazilian team as the noise
level grew with each basket they made.
Brazil took the lead 74-72 and the time-outs started. Then, with only four seconds left, the
Russians knocked down an off-balance three-pointer to win the game 75-74 and
remain undefeated in pool play.
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| Game-winning shot by Russia |
(Side note: Since I
didn’t post this until the end of the Olympics, I now know that, of the six
teams we saw play, three of them ended up in the final four of the Olympics,
with Team USA taking gold over Spain and Russia pulling out the bronze over Argentina. Pretty exciting stuff!)
************
The excitement of
that basketball game was followed by a nice, relaxing dinner back in the
OHC. After dinner, we wandered around
the Park to take pictures in the fading light.
On our way over to the Megastore, we saw a few members of the Russian
basketball team heading in. How was I
sure they were Russian basketball players?
The first hint was their uniforms, but their height really gave it away.
After only a couple
minutes, the Russian players came out of the store. I tossed my camera to LJ and told him I was
off to get a picture with the guys.
Hoping to schmooze
them a little, I started off with, “I saw you guys in your amazing win over
Brazil this afternoon,” followed by the
polite request of “Can I get a photo with you?”
There was a moment
of silence from them, punctuated by a sigh by one who responded with, “Okay,
but make it quick.” LJ was ready with
the camera and got the shot. (I later
learned that the Olympic athletes are encouraged/told to wear their uniforms
around the Olympic Park and make nice with the fans, which is probably the only
reason I got this picture.)
 |
| Me with members of the Russian Olympic basketball team |
************
We then spent quite
a bit of time shopping for souvenirs in the Olympic Megastore. I picked up a few Olympic pins for my
collection, some to take home and some for the potential to trade the next
day. Once it got dark, we headed back
over to the basketball arena to see if we could get resale tickets* to the Team
USA game that night.
Thanks to another
GSK couple (Court and Holly) who spent over two hours in line, we scored a pair
of resale tickets for the second half of the Team USA men’s basketball rout of
Nigeria, which started with Team USA up 78-45 and only got worse. Starters like Kobe and Lebron had already finished
playing, but we still got to see Carmelo Anthony knocking down threes and
Anthony Davis using his huge wingspan on defense.
The previous
Olympic record of 138 points by Brazil was shattered by Team USA, who managed
to rack up 156 points, more than double the 73 scored by Nigeria. With that kind of thumping underway, the
feeble team USA chants never took off, as the only time it seemed respectable
to chant was when a three-pointer was sunk to bring the score to 139.
On the way out of
the Park, we had our first chance to experience the London Tube during the
Olympics. Even with thousands of fans
pouring onto the trains, there was plenty of space for everyone.
Throughout our
experience, the Olympic volunteers did a stellar job at keeping things
moving. The lessons they had in crowd
control really paid off when trying to move tens of thousands of people around
the park. (If you’re really interested
in the many ways that they’ve contributed, try reading this story.) The security and police presence was also
well-organized and as unobtrusive as uniformed, armed people can be.
*At this Olympics,
there’s been quite a bit of complaining in the news about tickets. On the one hand, early rounds of events have
had tens of thousands of empty seats, especially for games outside London. On the other hand, getting tickets seems to
be nearly impossible. LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games) sold
tickets that allowed entry into the Olympic Park for fans who hadn’t gotten
tickets to the events. But they had a
chance to see events by purchasing resale tickets.
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