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The Olympic games of 2008 have come and gone...and I've finally arrived home. It's been an incredibly summer filled with great experiences, lessons, and friendships. Taylor had the best showing by an American in the individual pursuit since Steve Hegg won in 1984 with his 7th place. He beat several previous Olympic medalists and rode 2 out of 3 possible rides. He is already looking toward London in 2012, but is enjoying a break for now. Here are some final shots for Beijing. Enjoy!

Olympi-mania

Beijing is crazy right now - lots going on with the games. Inside the venues not all of the seats are taken, and outside the gated areas there are a lot of people who want to get inside...but don't have access because they don't have tickets to the events. It seems like a weired catch-22 situation that there are empty seats, but lots of people who want the tickets to those seats, but the tickets are all sold out. Not sure how that happens...but there it is.

I got to have dinner, kind of, with Taylor last night and that was fantastic. There was a dinner sponsored by Dow Chemical company that sponsors the USA Cycling Team, and Taylor and several other members of the US track cycling team were there. Unfortunately, I didn't get to sit at a table with Taylor, as he was encouraged to sit at one of the tables for folks from the company that be able to meet with them. It was good to have some time with him though, and we could see that all was well. The Olympics are challenging for many athletes and their coaches, because if you are not one of the national team coaches with Olympic credentials (and there are only a few of those per sport), then you don't have much access to the athletes or facilities where they are doing their final training sessions.

We last saw Taylor on Thursday when he left the bus headed for the Olympic Village. We've stayed in contact by email, texts, and some phone calls. I will be heading to the Olympic Village on a day-pass on Friday morning...which will be cool. Taylor applied for the passes for Davis, Connie, and I last Saturday...and we're just now getting access. Me on Friday and Davis on Saturday. Connie was supposed to go today, but it didn't work out for some reason. Lots of hoops to jump through, always.

I'd like to thank Hamilton Gregg, a friend of a friend, who set me up with a room to stay for the first few days in Beijing. I am now at the same hotel as the rest of the Phinney clan and their family and friends. Yesterday (Tuesday) we got to see some syncronized diving, where the Chinese pair swept up the gold. They were clearly head and shoulders above the rest. Then we had the dinner, and after dinner we had tickets to swimming prelims. Our driver was a mess and didn't go the right way so we had to walk extra far to get to the venue, and then walk even more to get through security screening. We got there just in time to the watch the men's 4 X 200 meter relay finish with the US team setting an Olympic record. Today, that team crushed the world record by about 5 seconds - that's massive! Phelps is still on track for his golden feat...which is crazy to think about.

Today was spent going to the White Pagoda near the Forbidden City and Tian'amen Square. There were some pretty incredible shrines in Beihai Park. Then we went to eat pizza at Hutong Pizza in HouHai...thanks for the recommendation Bruce! Then, I headed over to a spot to meet up with another coach for a little while near the beach volleyball venue, as someone from our group had tickets. I spent a little too much time talking, and by the time I headed to beach volleyball they had gone...and I didn't get the tickets before I left. Bummer...but now I've got it on TV and am able to get another post up and download the pics from my camera. Enjoy! It's less than 2 days until Taylor races...and all things are good. We're starting to get excited...as it's almost here. Enjoy the pics...

Let the Games Begin!

Last night I watched the opening ceremonies live on TV at a friend's place of my Beijing host for the first few days, Hamilton. The girlfriend of Hamilton's friend is Korean, and several of her relatives were there, Hamilton is also from the US as were two others, and then there was a girl from China there as well. We ate great Korean food, some of which was cooked right in front of us as we ate, and watched everything on TV. It was very impressive...though I couldn't understand of the Chinese broadcast, everyone did translate some of the story that was being told. The broadcast didn't end until just after midnight, so it made for a long day...but it was great to know that the Olympics had gotten off to a start without a hitch. I saw Taylor and Mike Friedman walk by on the TV broadcast - they both looked really excited, and Taylor looked really young...sometimes it's kind of easy to forget that he just turned 18 a few weeks ago.

Today, on Saturday morning, we got up and walked out to the Olympic cycling road race course that passed through downtown. We wanted to get out to the finishing circuits, but there was no simple public transportation to get there and it was nearly 60km away. We decided to watch the race go by a corner near the Lama Temple. We watched some of the oldest cheerleaders do a routine as we waited, and then finally saw the racers fly by. There were two riders about a minute ahead of the peloton, and we were only about 10K into the race. I didn't see Stevic, but I yelled out for him anyhow. He did finish today in 67th place...well done in a tough race Ivan!

After the road race went by, we went to lunch at a small restaurant located in a siheyon in a local hutong. It was food from an area in Southern of China and was fabulous. Then I got a text from Connie, who said she had some tickets for gymnastics and maybe swimming. We took a taxi to the Olympic area near the Bird's Nest, where the Opening Ceremonies were last night. It was incredibly huge - and we had to walk a bit to find the place to meet with her to get the tickets. We finally met up, and went straight into the National Indoor Stadium to see some gymnastics. It ended up being a rotation of the men's teams (China, Russia, Canada, France, Japan, and a mixed team). They were doing compulsory routines in all of the events used to seed the individual events and also the team competition. It was pretty impressive...and the cheers for the Chinese athletes was definitely the loudest.

Then we went straight to the Water Cube to watch some swimming. There were preliminaries for the men's 400 IM, women's 100 fly, men's 400 free, women's 400 IM, men's 100 breaststroke, and womens 4 X 100M relay. Michael Phelps set an Olympic record in the 400IM, and an athlete from Norway set a new Olympic record in the breakstroke. It was quite cool all in all. The facilities are remarkable...very impressive! Check out the photos below. Enjoy - I am!

Technial Difficulties

Yeah, yeah, I know that I haven't updated my blog in over a week..BUT my hard drive died not long after we left Paris, so I've been unconnected from the internet for the most part. Fortunately during that time Jane, Abby, and Renee were with me in Bordeaux and we got to see some cool places and spend some much needed time together. During that time, Taylor hit some excellent workouts and hit some PR times in training. Everything is going along very, very well with Taylor's prep for Beijing. The weather was pretty good most of the time, and we even got in a trip to the beach, which was nice. The traffic to get there was a little bit of a nightmare, but fortunately didn't delay the trip too long. We went to Arcachon, just south of Bordeaux. It was nice and hot that day, and my back got completely cooked. Taylor's friend, Gabe, also came along with the 4 of us...making for a fun trip. On Saturday we went to the old Mediaval town of St. Emillion (great wines come from there, by the way) and then had our final supper together until I return in August. On Sunday morning I took the girls to the Bordeaux train station as they started the long trek home (TGV train from Bordeaux to Paris; flight from Paris to Reykjavic, Iceland; change planes then fly to Minneapolis; stay overnight in hotel in MN; and then finally fly home to Denver, and then finally home - or in Jane's case right to work. Though it was a long trip home for them, they might it without too many hassles. I'm jealous of Jane now, as she's sleeping in our bed...while I'm on the road for another two weeks. I have to give lots of credit to Jane for taking care of Abby (and Renee) this whole time - thanks Love! For now, it's off to Beijing!