Thursday was a chance to do a little bit of nothing, and go see the Beijing Zoo. My coach, Elliot, is still requiring some movement to keep everything in firing order for Saturday, so I did a quick swim and ride in the hotel's fitness center, and wolfed down another huge buffet/trough feeding with Henri before we took the hour-long taxi ride to the zoo.
Beijing has put great effort toward cultural and architectural improvements in an attempt to draw tourism dollars from across the globe. The zoo is massive, with beautiful grounds and attractions - at least in the popular and new areas. The Giant Panda exhibit was impressive, and the park has a new aquarium with dolphins and belugas that is state-of-the-art. The average animal pens, however, are small and unimaginative, and they underscore the bizarre need for humans to display captured animals. Most of them seem lethargic and very much out of their element (the animals, not the humans) although lemurs and monkeys seem to be able to find the fun in any situation.
As Americans we are jaded with our standards of sanitation, transportation, and even obscure things such as zoo security. The amount and type of barrier used to separate the animals from the humans in the Beijing Zoo would make any American parent want to stand between their kid and the zebras, lions, and crocodiles that are within alarming reach of the public. In a way it was cool to be able to get that close, but those videos you see on America's Dumbest Videos are also cool, from your couch. I watched an old man taunt a male lion, and then a huge female rhinoceros with a plastic toy sword he had grabbed from his grandson. Never have I wished for one of those "camera phone incidents" like I did at that point. I told Henri to get his flip-cam ready, because the lion was about one Mandarin grunt away from making the next day's news. The monkeys, as always, retained a sense of humor no matter what the stupid humans were doing.
Thursday afternoon and evening were filled with the official start of World Championship Week. The US team gathered for press and team pictures, and our 200-strong contingent boarded buses for a police-escorted ride to the Opening Ceremonies and Parade at Changping Stadium. The 60+ national teams from around the world gathered a mile out from the stadium and followed Chinese Dragons and drummers through crowd-filled streets. All of a sudden we felt like celebrities, waving to the crowds who were madly snapping pictures and recording the passing of each colorful team. Television cameras and reporters intercepted athletes in the street, and little kids asked for trinkets and high-fives.
This is a much bigger deal than I remembered.
We filed into the arena and were seated in sections according to country; The Americans, Australians, and British were the largest contingents, the Brazilians and Mexicans the loudest, and the Germans the most aloof. The president of the ITU and the mayor of Beijing both welcomed and opened the event, and we were treated to a very Vegas-like production of live music, video presentations, speeches, athlete's oaths, and celebrity appearances. As the 3000+ athletes mingled on the arena floor, we were served a picnic box of very elaborate (but mostly unidentifiable) food items that most athletes just kind of smelled, tasted, and then winced at. Lots of, uh, candied and pickled and gelatinous items of undeterminable origin, neither meat nor fruit, but possibly something in-between, and all elaborately packaged, and with a small note that read "Edible: To Be Consumed by 21:00 hrs." Which meant it all had a shelf life of about six hours. Luckily, organizers had also contracted the Beijing Pizza Hut to supply buckets and buckets of pasta in little plastic drums. The athletes and their families sat in little circles on the arena floor as the Chinese Wayne Newton crooned butchered versions of American pop from an elaborate neon-bedazzled stage.
By 9pm were back on the busses, having snuck on bags of beer from a local shop for the evening's only libations. Henri and I made friends with a family from Scranton PA, who were there supporting their 17-yr old daughter, who was racing at Worlds for the first time. Her parents were working class folks who had never been farther than California in their lives, and we bonded over our kids' achievements and a couple of cold Yangjings at the back of the bus. There are some amazing people who come to these events. Our other back-of-the-bus partners were a recent cancer-survivor who was racing in her 10th championships and who had "just gotten her hair back in time for the race," and a 21-year-old lower-extremity amputee who was racing at this level for the first time.
For all its neurotic allure, uptight preparation, and myopic obsessive/compulsive types, this sport does draw a certain cross-section of interesting personalities, soulful warriors, and whackos. I met a 65 year old judge, an art historian who is helping rebuild Tuscaloosa, and a long-haired single father from Atlanta who was racing with his 18 year old son, and was intent on finding the best bar and the prettiest girl in Beijing. There are also the obvious assortment of possessed, high-strung over-achievers who absolutely LIVE for this level of competition, and are always the first ones on the bus, in the proper Team USA attire, and walking around with water bottles accurately mixed with electrolyte replacement solution and ph-balanced water. My race buddy Dave Goldberg and I watched them file to bed at 9:15 from the hotel bar while sipping G & T's and talking about kids and marriage and work and anything but triathlon. Don't get me wrong, I will get plenty obsessive about this at the right time, but I can't imagine becoming so self-consuming about the race that you forget to have fun, or go talk to the pandas. Henri has a good outlook on this. He'll soldier through the events and lines and registration stuff, and then patiently ask, "OK, if we're done with that, what are we going to eat, and what are we going to see today?"
Tomorrow, we check in our bikes for Saturday's race, and head to The Great Wall, and attempt to get lost in an entirely different section of the city.
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