The Olympic Village is a fascinating place. We continue to
meet both new and old friends from around the world! It has a friendly,
supportive, and unique environment full of the most talented athletes on
the planet.
The USOC is to be complemented on the tremendous support staff they have for us here in London. We are very well taken care of on every end. We just came out of the FINA technical meeting and all the questions and concerns about the race course are now answered. Open Water is always a bit more challenging because the course and the races are never quite the same. I think this adds to both the difficulty and the beauty of this race.
There were over 200,000 people in Hyde Park watching the Triathlon on Tuesday. Spectators will line the entire 10k course and the overflow can watch the race on two huge big screen TVs set up in the open area of the park. The weather forecast calls for a high of 24 and low of 13 degrees Celsius with partly cloudy skies for both the women's and men's races. The water temp should be around 20 degrees Celsius.
A reminder that the women's race in on Thursday, August 9 and the men's race is Friday, August 10. The start time for both races is noon London time, so plan to get up early to watch it live (5 hours ahead of EST)! I will let you do the math on both.
There is a sense of calm before the storm starting to settle in with the USA open water team. The work is done. Cheers to Haley and Alex on their consistent, focused, and determined preparation and efforts to represent our country with their heart, mind, and soul on race day! They have earned the right to be called Olympians of the 2012 London Games! You never know what will happen on race day, but we do know that we will be just as proud of them when the race is over.
