Randy Snow’s Blog

Dear Paul;

I am so sorry it has taken me a few days to write.  I always take time to read your emails, but sometimes I only have 5 min.  I barely have time to eat and sleep is only limited to 4-5 hours a night.  Daddy has been racing great.  His speed is looking very strong, he finished first in his heat of the 800 meters this morning.  That final is tomorrow night.  Tonight he has the final in the 5000M.  I saw him for a brief moment today after his race and talked to him on the phone he was resting.

Yesterday was a good day at the track for the USA. We won the Gold (Jessie Galli, WR time) and bronze (Anjali Forber-Pratt) in the T53 400M.  I did however have to put on my sports psychology hat for an old friend/athlete. Cheri Blauwet (yes the one Lynn and Derek have met at Boulder Bolder) finished 4^th in that same 400.  She was hit a personal record, but it was not enough. She was having to deal with the fact that the competition has gotten so good even a PR was not fast enough for a medal. IN the last Paralympic Games she medaled in everything she competed in, she has 7 paralympic medals. She and I just cried and got it all out. She is better today and is ready for her 5000M final tomorrow.  That is the race that is being rerun due to a crash that took out 6 women.

Our young sprinter (Tayana McFadden , the one on the McDonald Cups) did not do well in her 100m final. She missed her start, but wow when she finally got it all together, her top end speed was awesome and she gained major ground, but the finish line came too soon. She was very devastated (another sports psychology moment for me).  She has her 400 semi tonight and she will be ready.

Beijing is a very clean city, or they have done an excellent job  cleaning it up.  My tourist time (which was very limited and is over now) we went to the silk market (huge market with lots of bartering) and to the great wall.  Yesterday AM we did have a little time that we got to see ½ of a goalball game and ½ of the women’s basketball game. Both games were victories for the USA and it was fun to get to see some other sports. All the facilities are amazing, especially the birds nest.  Most sessions are a packed crowd with standing room only and even the standing room is packed.  Luckily, I have figured out how to get into the media section.  I am slowly teaching all the other staff as it is like having your own box seats at the finish line. 

I hope ya’ll are able to see the races on the internet. Universal sports has races archives while Paralympicsports only shows them live.  For the 5000M tonight (7:24 China time) there are no Americans so it may not be on UNiversalsports, there are 2 Mexican athletes in the race so I would think telivisa would have it on.

Paul, we miss you and Daddy will be racing for you tonight.  Thanks for all your emails, we love getting them.

Love, Mommy (Wendy)

Day 5 Iran vs Sweden
 
I have one of my wishes granted today.  I wanted to have an Iran game out of curiosity as to how their players would behave towards others and towards myself.  Curiosity.  I slept the best I have since I have been here, the accomodations are great but the one complaint I would have is that the bed is very hard.
 
My game isn’t until this afternoon so I killed some time exploring the village and wearing out my camera batteries.  They have a physical therapy clinic and I went in to see what they have that may differ from what I have — not much, it pretty much look the same on this side of the world as it does in the US.
 
Everyone here is turning flips to help anyone who needs it.  They are almost so helpful that it get’s under your skin a little.  All of the Chinese that I have delt with have been great, and eager to help.  It is as close to southern hospitality as you can get.  The older population does not speak hardly any english.  We were at a taxi stand with a bunch of male drivers over 50.  As soon as we spoke they grabbed this little chinese girl who couldn’t have been over 20 to translate for them.  The younger population loves to try the english they have learned.  One thing I find myself doing is speaking very slow broken english so they can understand better.  However, from doing this so long, I now talk to Jon like this occasionally out of habit and we have a good laugh.  Like big cities in the US people don’t smile much and don’t initiate much interaction/conversation.  I love to cut up and joke with them and as soon as I do they come out of their shell quickly and want to know where I am from, what i do, and so on.  Most of the volunteers are young college age kids.  Almost all of them indicate that they want to visit the US sometime.  JJ doesn’t know this but I have invited 1.3 million so far to be guests at my home.
 
The Chinese have a schedule and come hell or highwater they are sticking to it.  The buses run on a schedule, they don’t leave a minute before, and they will wait only 3 minutes if someone is late, otherwise you walk.  We finished early at the national indoor stadium (our basketball venue) and everyone was on the bus to go back to the dorms by 10 minutes to 11 p.m..  The bus was scheduled to leave at 11:00.  We all had to stand there on the bus for 10 minutes before they would depart, we assured them that everyone that needed to be on the bus was on the bus and they would not budge from their schedule.
 
My game today was Iran vs Sweden.  I’m familiar with the Sweden team from a tournament 2 months ago in Warm Springs.  I have never seen the Iran team, however, I have met one of their coaches in the past.  I think most believed that Sweden would handle the Iranians easily but they did not.  Iran upset them and beat them by 20.  The Iranians were good guys, they showed no animosity toward me.  Some of them spoke a little english.  The coach I was familiar with was there and really a nice guy.  He was constantly giving me the thumbs up and saying “good referee, good referee”.  I was impressed with Iran’s playing skills. 
 
After the game I went back to the National Indoor Stadium and met up with Jon.  We were able to get a “U” Pass.  “U” stands for unlimited.  This lets us get into other venues.  We went across the street and right into the Cube, site of Michael Phelps 8 gold medals.  The inside wasn’t quite as big as I expected but it was big.  Everything was so shiny and clean.  The stands were filled, a few seats at the top.  We watched a few races and a few medal cerimonies.  The thing that stuck out in my mind was the precision at which things occur.  Guys don’t just walk out and hang three flags and run them up in the air.  A group of men march out in a military type style, they move in synch, it is very impressive.
 
We left the cube and took a few photo’s that turned out great.  From there we went to the Birds Nest, we went to the top, about as high as we could go.  We took some photo’s, watched a couple of races and saw several people that I know racing.  From here Jon said “I think with these passes we can get out onto the field”, so we were off to try.  As we left the upper deck a volunteer saw our “U” pass and asked if we wanted to use the “lift” (elevator) so we got on and went down to what we thought was the ground level.  It was a good guess.  The first guard we came to looked at our pass and waved us through, this but us in the underbelly of the stadium.  It was a huge utnnel that went around the bottom of the stadium.  We saw where the marthon runners enter the stadium.  We tried to get out onto the field but this is as far as we could get.  There were normal sized buses driving through this tunnel transporting athletes and coaches.  You could drive two buses side by side, the tunel was so big.  We decided to go back outside and take a few photo’s at night of the birds nest my photo’s turned out great.
 
We returned to the basketball venue to watch the end of the game and caught the last bus back to the dorms.
It was a good day.  Tomorrow China vs Australia - my second wish.
 
Hope all is well in the US.Bill