The events were held at Sha Tin which happens to be about a 10 minute walk and six subway stops from the southern Kowloon area where I am staying. All the events were sold-out in advance so we had to rely on scalpers to obtain the tickets. They are not nearly as rude and obnoxious as the ones in North America and are mostly people who bought tickets but are unable to attend. A couple of co-workers (one was visiting from the New York office, the other one from Tokyo), their girlfriends and Val (a Canadian girl I met here) came to the event.
On the final day of competition, it was probably the most spectacular event: individual show jumping. There were two Canadians in the list of 22 riders which sadly included no Hungarians. The first Canadian completely demolished one of the hurdles so got disqualified quickly. A few Dutch, American and German riders battled for the first place when the Canadian Eric Lamaze came and rode a flawless round as the last rider of the competition. He went into a jump-off (equestrian term for 'playoff') for the Gold Medal where the Swedish rider knocked over a hurdle and the Canadian rode flawlessly again.
The stadium erupted, Canadian flags were flying high all over the stadium. At the medal ceremony we proudly sang "O Canada" and my co-workers from the US had no choice but to acknowledge the winner and stand for the anthem.
After the event we were able to get caught up with some of the Canadian delegation who invited us to join the party that the official hotel of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games was throwing to all the Olympic "athletes". I must say that this was one of the best parties I have ever attended. There were so many different countries represented, the Netherlands, Norway, USA, Canada, Sweden, Germany etc. All the medalists showed up, we were able to congratulate the Canadian and the Swedish rider, checked out the gold medal up-close-and-personal and partied the night away. This party started after the event ended and towards 3 am it was virtually impossible to determine who was from what country. I saw a Swedish girl who was wearing a shirt from Mexico and was waving my Canadian flag while dancing (a bottle of Heineken in the other hand). Some of the organizers showed up along with a few volunteers as well. If the Olympic Games were this much fun in Hong Kong (about a 3 hour flight from Beijing), I cannot even imagine what it must be like in Beijing for the final weekend of the Games...
A cab ride back to Tsim Sha Tsui at 5:50am and a quick shower later I was at my desk at 7am. God bless nature since a typhoon was approaching Hong Kong. We got sent home for safety reasons and I spent the afternoon taking a 5 hour nap...
The album below is from the Dressage competition held on August 14.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=mxgvx6r.6qrjx737&x=0&y=6qiopa&localeid=en_US
