Inside the Nest- Track and Field

Here is what it looks like inside the Bird's Nest.

Pretty much your regular track and field stadium.

Took this shot from the first level but don't be fooled my seats were no where near here!

Perhaps I am just new to this whole track and field thing since I didn't run in high school or college but I thought the little carts that brought out the hurdles were neat. I didn't know they did that.

The flame was burning brightly even in the day time.

It was big and I was seated in the third row down from the very top but really you could still see everything.

This is men's pole vault qualifying. Jumping right now is USA.

Me inside the nest.

I was there like 2hrs before it started!

Our vaulter makes it over.

Here are the medals for men's 2000m I think, I am typing this several weeks after the fact. But I do know that Kenya got gold and Morocco silver.

Here is Kenya getting the gold.

The medal platforms were actually facing my side of the stadium so that was cool.

These fun little cars were taken the hammers and chalk back and forth across the field to the hammer throw participants. I thought they were fun.

Here we have men's running- I don't know which, we saw a lot of qualifying and semi-final heats.

I was seating straight up from the finish line which for this race also happened to be the starting line.

My own photo finishing pictures!

It was a packed house that is for sure.

USA is in lane 7.

Round and round they run.

USA just barely made first in their heat as you can see here.

So while this running is going on the Women's Hammer Throw is also taking place in the middle of the field. This is the Silver medalist from Cuba doing her victory lap after the finals were over.

China took the bronze in the Hammer Throw - nice flag in the bag victory lap going on here.

Don't forget this whole time we still have pole vaulters jumping.

This guy made it over with room to spare.

On his way up...

over...

...and back down.

Men's hurdles.

I believe that is USA in lane 4.

Pushing towards the finish.

Here are the women getting their medals for the Hammer Throw.

More medal ceremony- don't forget people are still pole vaulting in the background!

Women running!

Here you can see in lane 6 the women from Bahrain is running fully covered like a good Muslim.

Men's discus throw medal ceremony. We didn't see this event it happened the night before.

This is the Men's 200m- we have three Americans racing and Ussian Bolt is in the yellow.

Ussian Bolt breaks the World Record!!! Look how far he is ahead! It was amazing!

That is Bolt's new world record. 19.30!

The victory lap!

Nice flag waving going on.

Bolt doing his famous lightening move.

There he is! I can't believe I was sitting right there in the stadium!


Here are the women's 400m hurdles.

Jamacia crossing the finish line first with USA behind coming in second.

The Jamacian girl broke an Oylmpic record in the hurdles that night.

Here is her victory lap.

USA makes her rounds. It was an awesome night.

On the Olympic Green

So what most people don't know about the Olympics is that where ever the Olympic Green or Square is the sponsors have exhibits that you can tour for free.

Omega had a row boat outside where you could take your picture.

These are a few of the people who were in front of us. Everyone was having a great time! Asians LOVE taking pictures- especially when they are in them!

Here Kelly and I are at our rowing finest!

Another sponsor had huge stuffed Friendlies that we took our picture with.

I felt this was a much better option then getting my picture taken with the people dressed as Friendlies. (Most of you know I have an extreme dislike to people in costume!)

Over at the Samsung building my friend and I got in line. We thought the line went into the building, but after standing there for a good 5-10 min we began to notice that other people appeared to be entering the building without being in our line. As the line moved up we suddenly realized... oh-we are in line to get our picture taken with the torch!

So it was a good line to accidentally wander into! This is my best- 'Hey look I am running with the torch face!'

Kelly and I did the classic torch hand off that you always see on TV.

Over at the Adidas building they had a giant sculpture of Team China's jersey which Adidas designed.

Inside they has exhibits of famous runners shoes and a case showing you all the different shoes for different sports. They had a fake track area so I decided to pose for a picture and I started trend. All the Asians behind me then did the same!

I think Adidas has had some really neat and artistic ads this year in conjunction with the games. This is one of them.

Next we went to the Coca-Cola building which had the longest line and we probably waited for at least a half hour if not more to get in. I think it was worth it although I also had nothing else to do that day and was just really excited to be near anything Olympic!

So they had a cool little movie about coke and the Games and then they had Olympic Coca-cola paraphernalia on display from different years. They also had some torches on display from past Olympics. My favorite though were these sculptures.

Coke had an art contest and selected a local artist from every province in China. The artist then got to design an over sized coke bottle for them to display.

So every province in China is represented in this room.

Here I found the one for the other province I have lived in.

It had the minorities dancing painted on it.

They were really neat. I especially liked the ones that had stuff carved as well as painted on them.

I was proud of coke for supporting the arts and have decided that creating a piece of Olympic art that gets displayed at an Olympics is now a goal of mine.

Every bottle was different and it reflected China well.