Track and Field Blogs - Leonel Manzano

8/8/08

So I guess ill start off by letting everyone know that Jao Ming came into the cafeteria while I was eating and grabbed a Coke and McDonalds, def a publicity stunt, but way cool. Needless to say that was only a precursor to what was to come during the day. We had a meeting at 3pm about the opening ceremonies which took about 30min. After the meeting is when it all started. We were all rushed to make sure we got a quick bite to eat before we left for the opening ceremonies since we knew they were going to last a long time. It was almost like going through prom again. My roommate and I went back to our room to start getting ready.

Info on Josh: My roommate is Josh McAdams; he runs for New Balance you have maybe seen his commercials. I guess you could say he is an alright guy. I met josh last year at the world championships in Osaka Japan. We have become close and we always give each other a hard time.

I had to make sure my pants and shirt were nice and pressed. And most important, that I had my camera in hand. We had to meet out front of our building at 5:15pm. At 5:00 we were still scurrying around making sure all our Ralph Lauren wear was looking slick especially since I was the best looking guy on the squad. Haha…

We headed downstairs to meet the rest of the group everyone was HOT literally and metaphorically. Most of the team didn’t wear the overcoat up until the point and only when we were in air-conditioned areas. People who did decided to wear their overcoat became a monsoon dripped in sweat. We finally headed down to where a multitude of buses were waiting for our arrival. I believe there were around 400 athletes in our group.

Finally when all the buses were loaded we headed down to the fencing arena where we would wait for the V- vip’s since we werre the vips. We waited patiently for about 40 min or maybe a little impatiently until the president of the UNITED STATES showed up. Accompanying him were former President Bush Senior, First Lady Barbara Bush, and the Secretary of Treasury.

Josh and I had planned to take a picture with a couple of the Basketball players Lebron James, and Kobe being probably of the two most famous. Reaching these two guys was very difficult since there were a lot of people trying to do the same. So Josh and I waited until the president showed up before we made our move on the Basketball players since we knew most of the attention was going to be on the president. We planned it just right and went over and took pictures with a couple of the basketball players.

Josh and I Rushed back to make sure that we didn’t miss the president. We first took pictures with George Bush senior, and then with the Secretary of treasury and then with the Ambassadors to china from the USA. They were all friendly and then we finally got our chance to take a group picture with the President. Then went over and took a picture with the first lady Barbara Bush. I walked up to her and mentioned that I was from Texas and that I was a longhorn. I proceeded to ask her if she would do the Longhorn sign. The photo was snapped and she and I both had our photo taken with the longhorn sign. Let’s just say it was pretty awesome.

After all the pictures were done and over with, we were escorted out to the Gymnastics ring were we waited to be escorted to the Birds nest. But not before we had to walk in lines of 8 for 30 minutes. Guarding us from adoring fans were hundreds of Volunteers and workers as they made a fence to make sure no fans could break through their barriers. We were also being waited on by over 100 thousand people in the stands. We were sent through a tunnel, we really couldn’t see what awaited us on the other side because of the bright lights. As we got closer to the end of the tunnel and finally came out the Crowds of people ROARED in excitement to see the USA team. The feeling of seeing the crowd and feeling loved by all of them was one of great emotion and appreciation.

We walked around the track and finally had a spot somewhere in the field. I couldn’t tell you on what side we were on since my orientation was off because of the clouds. Either way as I would look up into the stands my head would start spinning because of all the bright lights, camera flashes and people cheering and it almost made me feel as though I was the center of attention.

One of the best parts of the ceremony was when then the Olympic flag was flown and then out came the torch. There were approximately 5 or 6 people that handed off in the stadium and finally got passed to an older gentleman who just happened to be strapped by some wires. As his torch was lit, he was lifted up into the air and a big commotion came from the stands as though magic was in the air and this man was really flying. The man appeared to be running a lap around the stadium. My only thoughts as he was doing this was please don’t drop the flame, and then it was please don’t drop the Man. In the end the man came up to where the torch was placed his small torch next to this mechanism which would light the BIG torch. As he did this his torch touched whatever was there and caused this chain reaction sending a flame spiraling into the big torch and the Olympic flame burst into life. The crowed cheered in excitement.