First Olympic Experience

Well, yesterday was the start of the 2008 Olympics (for soccer, at least). After weeks of anticipation and waiting the big day finally came. As I mentioned earlier in the blog, my experience as an Olympic athlete is quite a bit different than most Olympians, because we are not right in the heart of everything that is going on in Beijing, but in satellite cities. At times, it almost feels like you are just at another tournament, and other times, it really hits you that you are in fact at the Olympics. I think yesterday, for the first time it really hit me that I am at the Olympics. While on the bus over to the stadium, the nerves could be felt a bit, but the excitement was much greater. As a child, I dreamed of an Olympic experience and that moment finally came true once that first whistle blew. The day did not go quite as I imagined my first Olympic experience would, as our team fell behind two goals in the opening five minutes, and we were never able to recover. It was a very physically and mentally demanding game as it was rather hot and humid even at that time of night, and even as a sub on the bench it takes its toll on you as you are so engaged in the game and cheering on your team. Obviously you never want to lose a game, but if you are going to lose one, it is better for it to happen now than later on down the road in the tournament. We still have two games in group play and a very good chance to advance, so the universal feeling after last night is that we have to move on, forget about what happened yesterday, and come out and take care of business these next two group games.