Wow

The past few days have been busy trying to get a little more acquainted with the village, training, and spending a little time with the family. I think it took until about today for us to figure out how the bus system in the village works, which saves us the fifteen minute walk to each of our meals in the dining area. Being in the village definitely makes seeing the family a little more difficult than when we were in hotels, but we have all been managing to spend at least a little bit of time with them.
Last night, was by far the most memorable game of the Olympics. Just when I thought the last game couldn’t get any better, the next seems to always top it. We played Japan in the semifinals in front of a spectacular crowd in Beijing’s Workers’ Stadium. This was our first game in Beijing, and the atmosphere was awesome. There were over 50000 fans there and it seemed that most of them were cheering for us. Throughout much of the game you could hear the chants of “Jiāyóu USA” or “Měi guó Jiāyóu” ringing in the stands. Both translate to “Let’s Go USA.” We gave up the first goal of the game, going down 0-1 after a little bit of a slow start. But we pretty quickly picked up our game and continually put them under pressure. Just before half, we got the equalizing goal, and minutes later, we went up 2-1 off a brilliant goal from Lori Chalupny. Going into halftime we definitely had the momentum and never looked back. In the second half, we got two more goals to go up 4-1 before conceding one final goal in the final seconds. The win means that we will be playing in the gold medal game against Brazil. I don’t think it has really hit all of us that we are playing for the gold medal. Just the whole idea seems a bit surreal. The most exciting part is that we will be walking away from this next game with a medal, and hopefully it will be gold.
Today we had most of the day off, after a short recovery workout in the gym/pool. Most people chose to spend the rest of the day with family. I met up with my family over at the Bank of America Hometown Hopefuls Family Center which they set up for USA Olympic athletes and families to hang out, relax, watch Olympic events on TV, and get meals. The place is great, and has definitely made my family’s stay enjoyable. So, we all grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then ventured off a little more. Our next stop was over at the Nike Hospitality Area, which Nike set up for all of their Nike athletes. It took us a little bit to actually find it, and in the process we wandered through a neat little park that everybody kept sending us to (if you look lost and confused, which we tend to be a bit here, people will usually offer to try and help you), but in the end, we finally made it there and got to relax a little bit. From there, we decided to head back to my family’s apartment. After walking back and forth several times (seems to have been the theme of our day), we finally found the station we needed, and hopped on the subway for a few stops. So, I had my first subway experience in China, and it was not bad at all. My sister and I had picked up tickets to one of the men’s field hockey quarterfinal games, so we quickly ventured off to find the stadium. We hit a bit of rush hour traffic, so it took us a little bit to get there, and we had to walk a good ways to get to the entrance gate, but we made it for most of the second half. When we got there, Spain was up 1-0. The stadium was really neat and we caught the end of a great game. Korea ended up scoring a late goal to keep it even more exciting, but they couldn’t quite get that final goal they needed to tied things up, and Spain won 2-1. So, that was my first Olympic event experience in Beijing and outside of the men’s soccer games I have been to. Hopefully, I will have a chance to get to a few more, but the first thing we are worrying about is our upcoming game against Brazil. So, tune in to watch and cheer us on as we compete for gold.