How I lost faith in the Olympics' organization
The game was at 18:30 – USA vs. Argentina, women’s field hockey. Not the most exciting event, not by a longshot, but hey, it’s the Olympics.
We arrived outside of the “Security Check” tents around 16:30, right about as the drizzle changed into rain, thunder, and lightning. Having all umbrellas are waterproof jackets of some sort, it wasn’t all that terrible. We tried to go on inside one of the security check tents, only to be sent to the next one. There we would be sent to the next one, where we would be sent to the next one. Finally we were herded into one of the tents, squeezing tightly with many others. Here we remained squeezing, toe-tapping, grumbling, until 18:40. But hey, at least the game was delayed, they said. When they finally started letting people through, they did so by opening two – of the eight or so available – metal detectors. Not cool; this would take a long time; people were here for two hockey matches, and there was some tennis going on somewhere, also. But luckily we were towards the front and got through after a couple minutes of pushing and shoving.
We made it to the stadium fairly quickly after that – but whoops, surprise, the game started on time and we missed more than half of the first half and three of the four goals. Grrr.
You remember how every event here in Beijing was hopelessly sold-out, and how tickets were only available on the black market for very hefty sums? Bullshit. There were plenty of empty seats at the hockey game, at the volleyball game some friends saw, and at the handball game some other friends saw. Somebody else got tickets for 5 bucks a pop. Not quite so glorious, I guess.
