Rio 2016: The Experience - Day 8 - Winding Down

8/13/16 (Rio 2016 Day 8), “Winding Down”

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Olympic Stadium)

Our trip is winding down.  In fact, a good portion of the day will be spent packing.  Tonight is the last night of Swimming, and Athletics are starting and will take its place as the marquee races of the Primetime Coverage on NBC.  If I was watching at home, I would consider this the end of Phase 1 of the Games, and I would be preparing for some intense Days of watching with as many as six screens up at a time.  That is not how I am experiencing this Games.  I will experience Phase 2 from home, instead, as our trip is now winding down.

I’m sure we will have a few more adventures, and those will be recorded in due course, but today will be the last day of medal races that I watch.  We are now at the Athletics venue, and I will see the last night of Swimming later, but this will be our last full day in Rio, and we intend to enjoy it to the fullest, despite the rocky start it has gotten off to.  I am a firm believer in, all’s well that ends well.

After I closed, I published my entry and went to sleep.  We slept in as much as we could and not miss the beginning of Discus.  I got ready and found Ray downstairs at the breakfast area.  I was hungover af.  I needed coffee.  Badly.  I had one cup, and we figured it would be quicker to grab a taxi to the venue, so we could finish our coffee.  I also got a cup to go.  Well, we figured wrong.  My navigation app informed me of three different spots of traffic.  Our driver managed to hit them all.  We also went to the wrong entrance.  It was quite a process to get in.  Long story short, we missed the first two rounds.  After three rounds, the field is reduced to eight for the final three rounds.  Nothing was going right.  I just wanted to sit down.  Ray insisted on standing at the railing.  The American had been eliminated in the third round.  Finally, the sixth round came around, and a German had an epic throw, claiming the gold medal position from the Pole who had been holding it all day.  That was that.

We headed out to get beer and souvenirs.  I found a beer station that had five Beach Volleyball cups.  I needed that cup.  Badly.  There was a long line.  There was one cup left with one person in front of me.  It was like the marble rye, to use another Seinfeld reference.  Well, guess what, she took the Beach Volleyball cup.  They actually had an Athletics cup, so I settled for that.  We tried to find the souvenir shop, but it was apparently at the base of the stadium.  We found some seats in the first level in view of the 100m race, where I sat down and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, as Usain Bolt will be doing his heat shortly.

One day, I will be able to tell my grandchildren that, over the course of 52 hours, I saw Simone Biles give one of the most dominating all-around performances of all time, that I saw the greatest athlete of all time in the race that earned him that title and in his final race, that I saw one of the most dominating swimming performances ever by swimmer in the 800m, and that I saw the fastest man in the world run in the 100m.  That is what I will remember from this trip.  I also saw Kerri Walsh dominate in the sand.  I saw the “Final Five” prove that no one else could compete.

To supplement my other travels, I saw a New7 Wonder of the World every morning and night from my hotel, and I was situated in one of the Seven Wonders of the Natural World.  Will this trip be the GOAT?  Only time will tell.  I have exactly 13 months left in this Travelogue.  Over those 13 months, in addition to this trip, there are four upcoming trips that could contend to be the GOAT, or at least top five.  Those are “Because It’s There”, Australia, Greenland, and Hawaii.  Those will all be epic, and they will certainly be more mobile than this one.

Okay, so, after I closed, Bolt did his thing.  The entire audience, or at least my section, was facing the giant scoreboard and taking pictures of the scoreboard.  Seriously?!?  You are in the stadium.  I don’t care how far away he is.  You fucking watch him, not the same video you could have watched from home.  He dominated his heat.  We then headed out, stopping at the souvenir shop on the way, and again at another souvenir shop for Rio T-shirts.  I was about to pass out.  With some difficulty, we found a taxi, which took us back to the hotel.

When we got to the room, but the cleaning lady was there.  I crashed on the bed while they finished, and then I fell asleep after they left.  Ray had gone out and was dealing with some drama via text with “my girl” from last night in re: he and his girl abandoning us.  I told him how to respond and then went up to my entry-writing spot on the roof, where I proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that Ray and I can enjoy our last evening together before I head out to Swimming.

The greatest trip of all time?  The answer is no longer, “Maybe.”  It’s, “Probably.”  My reader should know by this point that I never finalize assessments like that until I’m at the airport ready to fly home.  It is also a very tall order to say that a trip could beat the National Parks of the American West trip or my Eurotrip.  However, for now, I will say, to use Olympic parlance, this trip is guaranteed a medal.  I will determine what color it is at the airport tomorrow (or maybe even after the Olympics so that I’ve had time to make a rational assessment).

That said, tonight very well may have been the best night I of my life that did not involve copious amounts of alcohol, such as my misadventures at NYU or various New Year’s Eve celebrations.  I don’t even know what else would come close.  There are nights that are great, there are nights that are wonderful, and then, every once in a long while, there’s a night that’s pure magic.  Tonight fell into that last category.  It is a night I will remember for the rest of my life.  In fact, it is, along with the day lit version of this vista, is how I will always remember Rio and, by extension this Games.

I will not find much sleep tonight.  That’s okay.  I can sleep on the plane.  I just need to watch some horses jump tomorrow and pack before my flight.  I need to record every single detail of this night before I go to sleep, and I want to publish it, too.  I will stay out here as long as it takes to record tonight in full detail.

After I closed, Ray and I got to talking to a flight crew of a private jet.  He was going to see Golf tomorrow.  Raymond wanted to see Golf.  He was hiring a driver to take him back and forth and offered to let Raymond join him.  That happened.  Meanwhile, the Australian rowing coach from Night 1 wanted to hang out.  I had Ray tell her where we were going for dinner, and we could all make arrangements to hang out later, and I would meet up after swimming.  I would also alternatively see if I could meet up with the girl from yesterday.  Either way, I had options, some of which would have been more publishable than others.

We headed out to the restaurant, a place called Casa da Feijoada, a place where they serve feijoada, Brazil’s national dish.  It is a bean and meat stew made with, among other ingredients, the ear, tail, and foot of a pig.  They do a whole family style service, but Ray wasn’t hungry, and I hadn’t eaten all day.  We got there, and told them I wanted the food, and he only wanted the drink.  I also got a caipirinha.  It tasted like my hangover, so I barely touched it.  The food was, to say the least, interesting, and the accompaniments may have been the best part.  It was something I needed to try before we left.  I was, once more, running short on time.

Phelps’s race would be at the end of the night, but the first race was at 10:03 PM, and I was risking missing that.  Well, I got to the venue, once more, just as the swimmers were entering the arena.  I figured I’d be able to catch it.  I figured wrong.  Like the first night, my ticket had been relocated.  I wasn’t going to sit in my assigned seat anyway, but I still needed to get a new ticket printed.  That cost me the race, the W 50m Freestyle.  We got silver, so, like last night, I didn’t miss much.  Next was the M 1500m Freestyle, which, quite frankly, is like watching paint dry.  I got my beer beforehand, finally finding my Beach Volleyball cup.

I found a seat in the front row, exactly centered wh

ere I want to be.  I had an obstructed view for the 1500m Free, but it meant I would be where I wanted to be when I stood up for the medal ceremonies and the two relays.  Some Italian guy won, pulling a Katie Ledecky in the process.

Then came the medal ceremonies for the first two races.  Then it was time for the relays, the 4 x 100m Medley Relay for Men and Women.   Our girls won their race, Australia in second, Denmark in third.  Then it was the guys’ turn, and that’s when the magic started.

Phelps came out to thunderous applause for his last race.  The order of the medley is backstroke first, of course, followed by breaststroke, butterfly, and freestyle.  We had a good squad.  I believe we had a medalist from the 100m standalone version of each race, and two of those medals might have been gold.  I liked our chances.  Team GB in Lane 4 was our only real competition.  What a race it was.

It started Ryan MURPHY setting a World Record in the 100m, but we lost that lead and more during Cody MILLER’s breaststroke, whereby the Brit put in a WR split, beating the previous record by over a second.  Phelps was half a second behind when he entered the pool.  I recorded his whole split on video.  He is a fucking beast, a god perhaps.  He turned that half-second deficit into a half-second lead, and, taking his place was none other than Nathan ADRIAN.

Like a champ, Adrian held that lead, and Team USA won Gold on Phelps’s last race.  I cannot even begin to put into words how happy that made me.  I could barely eke out my “USA!!!  USA!!!  USA!!!” chants through my tears of joy.  This will go down as one of my greatest Olympic moments of all time, and I was there to watch it in-person.

Then came the medal ceremonies.  The girls were up first, and, out walked 12 of the most beautiful women I have ever seen, from Denmark, USA, and Australia.  I think the Australian women were the most beautiful.  One them looked up at me and smiled.  I figured that I was just imagining things.  Then, later, she looked directly at me again, batted her eyes, smiled, and looked away.  What was going on?!?  Reader, this moment was captured on national television.  A link to the medal ceremony should be readily available at the NBC Olympics website.

Team USA got their Gold medals, and then came the national anthem for the first of two times tonight.  I sang along, of course, and I was practically the star of the NBC feed.  After the national anthem, all the girls from each individual stroke type, girls who had raced each other multiple times, congratulated each very affectionately and sincerely.

Then there was a long delay before the guys came out, which led to a lot of booing.  Meanwhile a professional photog was standing next to me.  He asked if he could switch with me, as he wanted the dead-center post.  I didn’t care.  I just wanted to be close to Phelps.  Then he came out, and the crowd went wild, especially some drunk locals, including one guy who kept shouting that he was the second best swimmer of all-time, only after Phelps himself.  Phelps wasn’t having any of it.  At one point, he looked at them, gave them a thumbs up, and sarcastically shot back, “Thank you, I appreciate all the yelling.”  I had also yelled at him a few times that he was the greatest athlete of all time.  He didn’t acknowledge me.

When they handed him the Gold medal, I could literally see a tear fall out of his eye and drop onto the ground.  Then came the national anthem, and I sang along for the last time in Rio.  Then they stepped down, and Phelps faced away from the cameras to hide his tears.  He was practically facing right at me when that happened.  We were both crying.

Now what to do?  Try to pursue one of my “options”?  See if I could meet up with Ray?  Or stay there?  I didn’t want to leave that Stadium.  I wanted to remember that for the rest of my life.  I also realized that, if anything unpublishable happened, I would remember the night for the unpublishable stuff as much as for Phelps’s last race.  I didn’t want to dilute the magic of the night in any way.  I chose to just stay there, and that’s what I did, stood in my spot for an hour of denouement.  My photographer friend was standing next to me uploading his shots.

All the volunteers on the floor below started taking group pictures, then the photographers took a group picture.  Everyone was just so happy, and it was just such a fun thing to watch.  Also, the women on the Tokyo swim team posed for a group photo, each putting out 2 fingers with their right hand and making a 0 with their left hand, signifying that the Games would be in Tokyo in 2020.  Then they spelled out Tokyo 2020 with their bodies and hands.

After that, the stadium was almost empty.  I took a selfie, and my photographer friend asked me if I wanted him to take a picture.  Of course I did.  Like a pro, he expertly shot my picture, taking several different shots.  He asked if they were alright.  I told him he was the pro, I’m sure they were.  He found that quite amusing.

Then came the Team USA Swimming group pictures.  The whole swim team was there, everyone from the “Call Me Maybe” video, incluiding Missy FRANKLIN, Allison SCHMIT T (Phelps’s BFF), Ryan LOCHTE, and, of course the man himself.  There was also the new crew, including Katie LEDECKY, who locked very different with dry hair, and Ryan MURPHY.  It was amazing to see them together.  Everyone was so happy, and they were all having such a great time.  After the group photo, the coach told them that they needed to report to the USA House between 11:15 AM and 12:15 PM for doping tests.  He also warned them about some muggers on the beach.  Then they were dismissed, and they fooled around some more.

I took a selfie when Phelps was angled kind of towards me, and Lochte seemed to be having the most fun at all.  My friend was convinced he was gay, but I knew him to be dating a Playboy Bunny.  Now, I’m not so sure.  Everything about the way he talked and his mannerisms was, well, flaming.  He took pictures of some of the girls for them, and it was completely flamboyant the way in which he did it, even the way he said to them after a couple of photos, “Okay, now make out.”  Then they lifted him up.  That was fun to watch.

Everyone left the stadium, and then Omega sent two divers into the pool to retrieve all the timing equipment and cameras.  That was fun to watch.  I had interest in leaving.  I would have slept there if they let me.Then they started breaking down the lane lines.  Rolling up the buoyed lane line markers onto giant spindles, it was quite an event to watch.

After they fully broke down Lane 5, the lane for Team USA in that last race, I decided it was time to go.  I did not want to do anything else.  I just wanted to get home and write this entry about this magical night.  I hadn’t heard back from Raymond, but I didn’t care.  We both had to get back to New York eventually, and he was quite capable of figuring out the rest of the trip on his own.  The stadium was locked up at that point, and I had to go out the media entrance.  It was quite a process to figure out how to exit the Olympic Park from there, but I managed.  I had to overpay for the taxi ride due to the late hour (well past 1 AM), and, I watched the races and medal ceremonies on my phone during the drive.

When I was near the hotel, Raymond messaged me that he was at the hotel.  I went up to the room, and he told me that he had in fact met up with the rowing coach, but his phone died.  I wouldn’t have wanted to leave the stadium to meet up with them, but I was slightly annoyed that he didn’t ask her, with whom I am connected on social media, to let me know what was going on.  We talked a little about our nights, and then I headed up to the roof and sat down in my usual entry-writing spot, where I lit up a Romeo y Julieta and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish and hope to get a few hours of sleep before the show jumping tomorrow.  It is magical nights like this one that make this trip such a stronger contender for the GOAT.