tea with pinky and witchy...

I arrive at the velodrome yesterday delightfully surprised that I have once again been placed in the broadcast mixed zone. Regardless of the evil Pinky and her entourage, I really enjoy the broadcast zone. There really wasn't much for us to change, except to get closer when we are trying to hear what the athletes are saying to the sportscaster. I really need to take a picture of this for you all. Let me try to describe it. When you see any athlete interviewed on tv, it looks like it is the athlete, anchor, and the camera man. In actuality, it is those three, one or two people like me standing DIRECTLY behind the sportscaster and crouching below the camera, and to each side there are about 10 or 12 more cameras fighting for the next interview. It is pure madness. That doesn't even give it justice. I'll try to take a picture today, hopefully I won't get caught.

Yesterdays events were Men's Pursuit, Women's Pursuit, Points Race, and Keirin. I'll describe the new ones to you.

Keirin: Riders race two and half laps sprint after riding for five behind a motorized pacer (derny). Similar to riding behind a pace car in racing. The derny starts at 30km and gradually increases speed to 50 km/hour, before dropping off. (Many of us have a life goal of riding the derny some day.)

Points Race: Riders race 160 laps (men) and 100 laps (women). Every 10 laps a sprint race is held, those finishing in first, second, third and fourth receive 5, 3, 2, 1 points respectively. If a rider laps the crowd 20 points are awarded, if a rider is lapped by the crowd 20 points are taken away. The winner is the person who has the most points.

So women's qualifying once again proved that Great Britain is the team to beat here. The Gold/Silver race is between two British women, so no matter what they will take one-two. By the way, the final racers are determined by their times in the semi-finals. The fastest two riders will race for Gold and Silver, while the other two race for Bronze. The bronze medal racers have no chance of receiving anything other than the Bronze, even if both their times are faster than the riders in the other race. So the British will be taking home at least two more medals today.

The day starts with more Men's Pursuit qualifications. Poor Taylor Phinney rode four seconds slower today, playing him 8th at the end of the day. Not horrible for your first Olympics. All the favorites and expected winners moved on as they were supposed to, there were no big upsets. When the women raced Hammer (USA) started out in front but gradually through out the race fell back and ended up almost 2 seconds behind the winner of her race. It wasn't America's day.

The Keirin heats began immediately after the Pursuit qualifications. It was decided that we make a 5 yuan wager to see who would make the medal podium. None of us did well because one of the favorites, Theo Bos was involved in a crash during the end of one of his runs. We all had him on the podium, essentially we each only had one person up there. Other than the crash things went pretty much according to plan. In each heat there were 6 riders out there and the top two move on. Then there are repechages; the best way I can describe these is that they are ride in races. Four cyclists go out and the top person from each heat works his way back into the race. There is probably more behind it, but that is the way I understood it yesterday. The Keirin went on and off all afternoon, ending with Great Britain sending two people to the medal podium.

I really enjoyed watching the points race. It is a long race, about 40 minutes and the leader changes constantly for the first half and then it starts to level off. The USA rider, Bobby Lea started off strong but then left the race and ended up not finishing. I have no clue what happened to him but he was one of two to not finish. Again we had made our guesses on who would win, NONE of mine were in the top three, however, I did get two of the top five. The medalists were Spain, Germany, and G. Britain. (BARF!) All three were very emotional after the race. In the press conference the Spanish and British men discussed how cycling training really takes a toll on family life, the Spanish man even went as far as saying that after the 19th he would no longer participate in competitive cycling. I really liked the Spanish guy. He didn't speak much, if any, English, but what was translated to us was much deeper than most of the cyclists give you. Even the British guy was pretty insightful.

Yesterday's press conferences were nothing short of a disaster. They were all running late, not to the fault of anyone in charge of the P.C. but because the events were running late. One of them started out casual and turned into the p.c. and then had athletes walking in and out. Even athletes from different events up on the stand at the same time. The Gold medalist from one of the races never showed. Pure Chaos.

An update on Pinky, today she adorned lace and see through white pants. I am starting to think she needs a stylist, and quickly. Pinky however, was nothing compared to her new friend Witchy. Witchy is a Canadian woman that looks like a witch. She is skin and bones, almost to the point where she looks sickly. She has long black hair with grey highlights (she is not at the age where her hair should be LONGER than mine.) The back of her legs are apparently unshaven and she thinks she is the new moderator of the broadcast zone. Amy and I walk up behind Pinky in an attempt to double team the athlete that might be coming down and Witchy butts in saying "Only one of you should scribe." THANK YOU! I didn't knooow you were just promoted to Broadcast Manager. Where did (insert name here because I forgot it) go? Oh speaking of what's his face, he had the most retarded analogy EVER today. The Eurosport guys, my favorite, were gravitating over into two EMPTY slots because well, they were empty. Terd butt comes over and asks them to move because and I quote "This is televised live and the people who have these spots know where their spot is. If they see you in their spot it is kind of like you walking into your hotel room and finding another person in your bed." I kid you not my friends. I swear I am going to write a book about the ridiculous things that happened here and everyone is going to think I made it up because they are so out there. But from now on, watch out for those people who come into your hotel room and try to steal your bed. (HUGE EYE ROLL!!!)

Anyway, we now have Pinky and Witchy to deal with. As either Traci or Andrea or Lauren put it, Witchy is the kid on the playground who just got invited to play by the cool kids and now has to act like them in order to fit in. So true. She was fine yesterday, but apparently she banded together with Pinky in an attempt to destroy all hopes of us FQRs.

At the end of the day, the Brits send five people to the podium, Spain one, New Zealand one, Germany one, and I cannot remember the other person who won. America did nothing at all, the only real disappointment was Sarah Hammer. She should have been in the Bronze medal race tomorrow. We have a few more chances for track cycling medals, but the only one expected to actually achieve a medal is Jenny Reed. Hopefully she will avenge the Americans for at least one race.