Olympics insider blog: Heading home after experience of a lifetime

By SAM SACKSEN
For The Tribune-Democrat

September 02, 2008 11:23 am

— Tuesday, August 26 - Final entry

I am sitting on the plane heading home from Beijing right now, and once I land it will be officially over.
One funny thing that will happen, though, on this flight is I will arrive in Chicago before I left Beijing. Of course in real time the flight will take more than 12 hours. But crossing the dateline en route causes some time to be lost. Basically, I steal some time back for myself.
The days after the competition went by so fast that it was over before I had a chance to blink. I spent the day after the men’s pentathlon at the women’s competition, so didn’t do much besides go watch them.
On the 23rd, I went to see the Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City with Mom and Dad. My Mom is an incredible tourist and we had the forced march style of touring until the end of the day, when we climbed a small hill above the Forbidden City and looked out over Beijing for a few minutes. It was quite scenic and I am afraid that in the relaxing moments my Mom decided she would want a Chinese garden, too.
The next day, I got up early and met them at the hotel for the trip to the Great Wall (there are the Pyramids of Egypt and then there is the Great Wall of China). I can sum up the extent of surveying that was done: The boss picked out the steepest, highest, and hardest-to-reach peak in the mountain range and said “build it there.” And well ... they did.
I was impressed to the max, because I’ve tried to build some small things out of rock before and it isn’t easy on the flat ground, not to mention on top of a mountain. Being the Chinese emperor must have been nice. He built quite the house for himself (the Forbidden City) and surrounded it with a very big fence – all without doing a single thing himself or lifting a pebble.
And yes, I ate lots and lots of McDonald’s food. I didn’t quite make it for every meal of the day, but gave it my best effort. I’m happy to report that I think I’ve had my fill of McDonald’s for the foreseeable future.

Closing ceremony

I want to briefly talk about the closing ceremony and the last few days I spent before the 26th.
Closing ceremony was yet another incredible experience to have among the many others that I’ve had over the past three weeks. I hope that you got the opportunity to watch some of it, since the Chinese really put on a quite a show in the final few moments that they had the world’s attention. In fact, it was probably better to watch on TV because all those fireworks that they sent up could not be seen from inside the nest.
The show inside was still pretty amazing, though, for sure. It was much less organized than the opening, since mingling is part of the idea. So I spent a large part of the ceremony searching out friends from other countries – some of whom are retiring soon and I will never see again – so it was an opportunity for some final words and in some cases congratulations.
I made quite a large number of friends in my time in China and was quite busy walking around trying to find them in the crowd. I did get to see David Beckham up close, and maybe someone will have to explain to me what the big deal is because I certainly don’t get it. Jimmy Page playing was certainly a highlight, since that’s the closest I’m ever going to get to being in a Led Zeppelin concert.
The whole thing was very much like a giant party – which is good because I think that’s the whole idea. Jackie Chan showed up and sang again at the end, which I found to be slightly comical, but the crowd loved it.

‘Blessed and fortunate’

Afterward, I decided to walk back to the village and savor the evening and reflect on some things – such as the amazing memories I will have forever.
Just a few examples would be: Walking into the stadium for opening, those first few moments after coming out of the tunnel are indelibly etched in my mind; and the warm-up for riding was done in the shadow of the Birds Nest. It was getting close to dark and the stadium was lit up red and I could see the torch burning in the dusk – yet another amazing moment in time.
For those few moments, sitting there looking around and seeing the entire environment I was blessed and fortunate enough to be in at that time, I couldn’t think of anywhere else I wanted to be.
I have depended on the advice, guidance and support of so many people through the years that it would be impossible to thank each and every single one of you.
You know who you are, and please know that I am eternally grateful to each and every one of you.
I would love to give a “shout out” to everyone by name. But for fear of leaving someone out by accident I don’t think it’s possible.
Thank you for sending all the support. I hope to see everybody soon.
God bless.
Sam

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Monday, August 25

The trip is almost complete. I feel almost sad because this had been the most stressful and wonderful time ever.
I don’t mean that it was stressful in a life or death way but having the “slight” pressure of the U.S. on me whether real or perceived was definitely something I could feel the whole time.
The wonderful part hit me a few days after the competition, when the slight disappointment had faded away and I realized that I had competed in the Olympic Games. There are definitely things that could have been better, but I feel as though I did everything to the best of my abilities that day and couldn’t ask myself for more.
The winner, Andrey Moiseev from Russia, was far and above the best competitor in the field that day, and I applaud him for doing what is considered almost impossible, defending his crown as Olympic champion.
Some quick highlights from the competition itself:
I had a rough go of it in the shooting, for sure. I told one of the Brits who was next to me during the competition that I felt like throwing up while walking to my position and this feeling never went away.
It was very difficult to fight against this and try to execute each shot but I really was OK with the results because there was no way of recreating the incredible nerves that are created in this situation in practice, so it was a trial by fire and I got burned. All said and done, I ended up on the low end of the group with my final score.
We then went back downstairs to the warm-up area to prepare for fencing. I fenced as well as I could when the short amount of time training in this event. I made some errors that were costly but also had some moments that I am quite happy with. I also scored a hit on the eventual winner of both the fence and the overall competition, so I would chalk that up as a positive for sure.
The only event that I was truly disappointed in was the swimming. There isn’t more to say, really, because this is one of those clear-cut things – the time is what it is and it is only my responsibility that it ended up slower than I expected or wanted.
The bright side of being in the basement is there is no pressure on the rest of the day, so I really had only to get through the ride without getting killed – which on this day was not a gimme situation by any stretch of the imagination.
It had been raining all day and the ring was a sea of mud. The jumps were all within four inches of the maximum 4-foot height (and width in some cases) so the lineup for the draw had a lot of nervous people in it.
I drew the same horse as the 2007 world champion from Hungary, and our horse almost kicked two people on its demonstration jog out of the ring. So we looked at each other and weren’t sure whether this was the last time or not.
He got to go first, and as I watched from the stands I was not thrilled. He knocked a bunch of rails and had a vicious stop that removed him from the saddle and got his nice white pants all muddy. All told, he ended up with so many penalty points that it effectively removed him from contention and moved my heartbeat up near 200 beats per minute as my mount time approached. Fortunately the competition was running behind schedule and I had an opportunity to walk around the warm-up ring on the horse and it calmed us both down immensely. As warm-up proceeded, I got happier and happier because it went really well. So I thought this might actually work.
Meanwhile, there was mayhem going on in the main stadium. It was collectively one of the worst rides ever for the men, so if the crowd wanted to see a demolition derby they got it. My last image before going into the holding ring inside the stadium as next to go was the French rider coming out with a broken nose and I think broken orbital bone and there was blood everywhere. Last bit of encouragement received, I went into the ring.
Those 81 seconds will be forever in my mind. Aside from a stop that came out of nowhere and one dropped rail, we went around just fine and when all 32,000-plus people who braved the rain started cheering at the end I had my “this is the Olympics” moment, I stayed in the ring as long as I could savoring every minute because everything was perfect at that point in time.
From that moment on I enjoyed every second of the competition, even though I was heavily handicapped by the extreme number of 180 degree turns in the running course (24 total) I was able to finish 18th in the Olympic Games.
The women’s competition was the next day and under a brilliant blue sky it was a great competition to watch. I got to see history made as Sheila Taormina officially became the first woman to compete in three different Olympic sports. She is truly an amazing athlete and even more so an amazing person. She struggled through an incredibly difficult day and observing how she handled the changing situation was an outstanding educational experience. Someday she will be known as the greatest women athlete in U.S. history, and I had the distinct honor to be part of her team. She ended up setting an Olympic pentathlon record in the swim and winning the ride with a perfect score (one of only four total between the men and women).
In an effort to reduce the carnage of the men’s ride from the day before, the organizers reduced the size of the fences somewhat and took the lowest scoring horses out of the draw and the results were much improved. It was a good move on their part, and I was glad to see it done because the president of the IOC was present to observe and it would not have been good for the future of the sport to have people hauled out on stretchers. The women are great riders and would have handled the course in its original state easily, but it made more sense to put the changes into effect and clean things up a bit. They kept the run course the same and I was happy to see our women improve their standings with some very good running.
In the U.S. team overall (men and women) we finished 18th (me), 22nd for my teammate, 19th for Sheila and 21st for Margaux Isaksen.
The two women and myself have only been training for this sport for three years and it is unheard of for one person to make it to this level in that amount of time, not to mention three. It is a testament to my coach Janusz that he was able to accomplish this. I feel that it is primarily through his guidance and pushing that we got this far.
Coaches do not get nearly enough credit especially in smaller sports for where they struggle constantly to keep their small groups of athletes around and in a mental and physical condition to perform, because there is not much support money to be had and a lot of things have to be done with little more than faith and dedication plus a love for their sport. I have watched Janusz be abused and disrespected by everyone including myself over the years, and through it all he never stopped just doing his job. As a gold medalist, he never got the respect he deserved from his superiors. I hope that at some point in time his feat will be recognized by somebody and he will get the recognition and respect he deserves.
On the plane home tomorrow, I will write about the closing ceremonies and final days here.

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Sam fInished 18th.
The final phase, the run, was around a track. But instead of using it as a circle, the organizers put in what ended out to be 24 turns of 45 to 90 degrees!! Definate built-in advantage to shorter builds.
So Sam, who normally runs up quite far, making up places, could not get any speed and actually lost a few places for the first time this year.
But we did not care and screamed ourselves hoarse!!!!!
It was so wonderful to be here!!!!!!!!
Thank you everyone for taking an interest!!
* * *
Hi all.
Sam has not had the best of days. Eleven hours straight competition so far. However he just had the most fabulous ride of the day. If you can watch a replay try to do it!! It was a ride we can all be proud of!!
It also moved him up from 30th to 15th.
What a long day!! The huge stadium is packed!!! Lots of fun!!! Cheerleaders etc!!! Stadium is so loud!!! Fun!!!!
Runners warming up beginning in front of us now!!
The Olympics are GREAT!
* * *
He’s not winning many bouts, but he’s beating the superstars. He just beat Viktor Horvath from Hungary – the 2007 world champion.
* * *
Even though it is not going well overall, Sam has defeated the gold and silver medalist from the Olympics in Athens.
* * *
The shoot is complete. My heart was beating so fast that I was glad I was not the one shooting.
The top shoot was a fabulous score of 191 by Czech Svoboda for a score 1228
Sam shot a 178 and for him that was a poor score so he must gave been nervous. I wonder why?
His score is 1072.
Eli (Bremer of Colorado) is 34th with 916 points and a score of 165
Now fencing!!!
It is raining hard, hard, hard outside!!!
* * *
It's pouring rain and our taxi is lost. We were waiting in the lobby of our hotel since 6 for our pre-arranged bus and it was a no-show. Finally we grabbed a cab, but suddenly the traffic is bumper-to-bumper and accidents are rampant.
Our driver his doing his best but he is guessing.
(Sent from Jennifer's cell phone.)
* * *
It is four thirty in the morning here in Beijing and I am finished sleeping. I slept well until now which really surprised me.
My son begins his competition day in only a few hours. Like most parents and family, we have been to many competitions before but nothing like this one – the Olympics.
Arriving in town a few days ago and seeing the famous landmarks of the blue swim cube, the Bird’s Nest stadium and walking around the Olympic Green with Sam and seeing firsthand the friendly enthusiasm of the Chinese people for these games has cemented this experience already in my mind as the most unbelievable event in our lives.
I am writing from a hand held e-mail device and am not fast with it and make many mistakes while writing but have been kindly asked to provide a few eye witness accounts which it is my pleasure to do.
Our trip over was very exciting to me – not just because of our destination but because of our route.
After making our way to Washington, DC, we boarded a United 747 full mainly of Chinese. We flew directly north over the pole then directly south to arrive in Beijing.
The flight only took about 13 1/2 hrs , time enough to learn a little helpful Chinese from my delightful seatmate and to stare out the window at the endless and fairly packed ice flows below then the solid mass as we rounded the pole itself.
Flying over the Chinese countryside was riveting .
We did not experience night on our trip even though we left Washington at about 11 am and arrived in Beijing the next day at about 1:30 pm.
Everything you have heard about the Chinese efforts to prepare for this event are not exaggerated.
From the moment we stepped off the plane into the fabulous new, fantastically designed airport and were greeted by an Olympic mascot and other lovely and friendly greeters, our time here in China has been one seamless delight!
It does seem as though not the smallest detail has been left to chance and we are enjoying every moment of this trip.
Our trip to the Great Wall came off even better than we had hoped.
We rose before dawn and armed with Chinese phrases (such as “please stop the car I need a bathroom”) we found ourselves in a super clean taxi with brand new white slip covers and the friendliest driver we could have met.
Driver Yong spoke plenty of English and had interesting things to tell us as he zipped us along the brand new highway constructed within the past year just to help visitors to the Great Wall make the journey in comfort!
The way was through picturesque small towns complete with pagodas on distant hills and every inch of the drive had been attended to with bright Olympic banners flying and poplars, willows, pines, shrubs and flowers lining the way!
The most amazing thing was that we were headed to a rather less-touristed portion of the wall and found that even here the Chinese had prepared for every contingency.
As the first visitors of the day we were pleasantly surprised when the gondola operator turned on the cars just for us and away we went, to the wall!
Our lifelong dream of walking on the wall was met by an early sun and peace all around us as we drank in the incredible rugged mountain vistas. We marveled like all who see it must, at the engineering feat of this massive construction effort. We walked only about 6 km that day and filled our eyes with the sight of the wall snaking around ragged corners along impossible peaks.
This wall seems impossible. For awhile our only companions were the ever present cicadas but we did pass one friendly worker who was carrying a small hammer he must have been continuing the maintenance which has been ongoing in various forms for so many, many centuries.
As our walk on the wall ended we were met by many, many more visitors. How happy we were to have arrived so early before the buses of happy tourists!
What an honor it is to be here in China and to be so welcomed with open arms and warm smiles.
Well, I am going to get up now and get ready to go the short distance to the Olympic green and watch the event of my son's life! I will try to tell you later about the other incredible experiences which we have already had and will e-mail competition results as they happen today.
Till later,
Jen



It’s Tuesday here and that means that, for better or worse, I will be finished in a few days.
I’m excited to get started, but the nerves already are starting to creep in.
This is the first time I can remember that we will be competing directly in the final. Usually, there is a semifinal two days before to narrow the field down to 36.
Since this is a qualified competition, I can’t gauge where my competition level is right now.
The training sessions have been good. But there is no substitute for actually getting out there and doing the real thing to know for sure heading into the final so we will see, I guess.
I got to see some track and field last night, which was really awesome because it was the first track meet I’ve been to since high school. I had almost forgotten what an exciting atmosphere it can be.
We got to see the finals in the men’s 3000-meter steeplechase, the women’s 800 meter run and pole vault finals, which were all awesome. The highlight of the evening was the last final: The men’s 400 hurdles.
We had all three men in it so there was an outside chance of a sweep – which I’ve never seen before – and so was excited to get the opportunity at least. They came through and ended up 1-2-3 and the stadium went nuts. It looks cool on TV but live – it is unreal.
Now for a look at the final part of the competition – the ride and run.
The ride in a pentathlon is, for lack of a better word, a crapshoot. We reach blindly into a hat and draw anything from a ping pong ball with a number, the more traditional way, to unique – the Mexicans had those small bottles of tequila with the number on the bottom of the bottle.
We have never even seen the horse not to mention sit on it. If there were a way to train on how to draw the best horse every time we would, but there isn’t, so you go with what you get.
We then get 20 minutes and only five jumps to get a comfort level established before having to go in the ring and go through the 15-obstacle, 4-foot course.
The organizers try to get a similar level of horses for everyone but this is almost impossible to achieve. So there are some really good ones that make you feel as though you’ve won the lottery and others that are not the best or the most fun to deal with.
The horse for this competition will be all off-the-track thoroughbreds, so they can be a little squirrelly at times.
I enjoy this because I feel that it gives me an advantage sometimes because riding is one of my stronger events. So if the pool of horses is a little below average, I sometimes can move up in the field with the ride.
Of course it can go the other way just as easily and, having experienced both extremes, I can say that I much prefer to get the better horse rather than have to fight my way through everything.
The best part of the ride is that – good or bad – it’s over very fast and I can start to get ready for running.
While technically we are supposed to run on a cross-country course, in reality it can be somewhat problematic to find a place big enough for this in the middle of a city.
So we often have mixed-surface runs where we can go from the track to concrete to grass all within one loop, we run loops of 750 to 1000 meters instead of one long course.
This makes for some interesting going sometimes and, because of this, the times can vary greatly.
The start order is set up according to the placing by points from the previous four events. For example, if the leader has 4400 points after four, he will start first.
If the second person has 4360, he will start 10 seconds after the leader and so on and so forth.
The handicap is one second for every four points.
This makes it easy to distinguish the leader at any point during the race because he’s the one at the front. It’s not like the track event decathlon where everyone starts at once and then have to wait for the results to be scored up before the winner is declared.
This can lead to some very exciting finishes unless the person is having a tremendous day and they start so far in front that they are uncatchable by anyone.
But if everyone is somewhat even it is very nice because the day isn’t over until you’ve fought your hardest for every extra spot possible.
That’s basically it, so if you’ve heard it before and were bored I apologize. But hopefully there will be a little more understanding of this very strange sport.
I will probably not write anymore until after the competition is over so, until then, thanks for reading and especially thanks if you’ve sent e-mails of encouragement or helped out in other ways. It means so much to me and my family and I really appreciate it.
I will be back on Friday I hope.
Sam




I’m back in the village!After a mostly uneventful trip back to Beijing and a considerably less exciting entrance through the airport, as all the media types have long since moved on, we got to the village at about 6.
Since arriving I basically unpacked and took some clothes and equipment to the wash, I will say that it most certainly needed it. Nothing really ever got the chance to dry and since the uniform for fencing is very heavy cloth, it doesn’t take to being in a hot humid environment for a week without something almost starting to grow on it.
I’m relatively certain I made someone sick when the security at the airport opened up my bag to inspect it. Serves them right, for sure.
Anyway, I said that I would go through each phase of the competition in the days leading up to the 21. So on the list for today will be fencing and swimming. Fencing is like your evil sister, if it’s a good day they are great to be around, but if they aren’t so happy I’m always wishing I could be in West Virginia or something (I have twin sisters, I’ve experienced it all, good and bad).
A good day in fencing is exactly the same, you feel so great and happy that there is nothing bad that can happen and you just enjoy the experience. If things such as timing or footwork are off a little and it’s not going so good, it’s more like the second case. I’m hunting for the eject button out of the building. Probably one of the worst analogies I’ve ever used, but I couldn’t resist getting a dig in at sisters everywhere at some point here. OK, back to the competition.
In pentathlon the fencing is one touch, round-robin style. This means that in a final of 36 men there will be 35 bouts of one minute a piece (I’ve fenced with myself and I usually win every time but they won’t give me points for it, hence only 35 bouts).
A victory has to be a single decisive hit, so if both opponents hit the other within 0.25 seconds of each other both lights will go off and the director will stop us and reset before continuing.
If no one has scored a single light at the end of one minute both fencers lose. The weapons we use are electronic and blunted (unfortunately) and if you watch there is a wire running from a box on the floor to the back of the person, this continues up through the uniform into the weapon itself, which has a pair of wires running to the tip. When the tip gets depressed a circuit is completed and the light on the scoring table will go off.
It is often called chess at eighty miles an hour. The reason for this is that to get a victory often involves getting your opponent out of position and or tricking them into doing something stupid and then taking advantage of this. I prefer a defensive style, so my whole goal is to get the other person to come to me so I can counterattack or catch them in a defensive move on their attack. Being slightly inexperienced in the art of this sometimes it would appear that I’m flying literally by the seat of my pants out there, this is totally, absolutely correct. In one touch there is a certain amount of luck involved and sometimes I basically surprise someone who is not expecting me to do something because of my inexperience.
I think it’s a very good position to be in because, basically, I don’t have anything to lose. I know they are better, so I may as well die trying to beat them than put my head in the sand and get it cut off anyway.
The fence is the longest phase and usually takes about three hours to complete, so we usually have to rush out to the next part – swimming.
There isn’t a whole lot to be said about this other than we will not be going nearly as fast as the swimmers you’ve seen so far. If I feel bad about this I only need to watch them try to walk on land and it makes me feel better about myself. We are not racing the others in the same heat (although it is fun to win your heat) but rather the clock. There is a point scale depending on the time, so the whole goal is to go as fast as possible (I’m a master of the obvious today)
If you happen to beat everyone else’s times in the process so much the better. One other thing, there has been a lot said about the new Speedo suits. It is the person in the suit swimming the records, not the suit, so even though I will wear one I’m not expecting a miraculous drop in time.
I got mine today when I got back to the village and it is ridiculous how small it is, I tried it on and after 10 minutes of grunting and straining might have achieved something close to getting it on fully.
I now know why they go so fast in them though, they can’t wait to get them off because you feel like whatever body part is under the suit is getting crushed completely.

Sam Sacksen of Somerset competed in the modern pentathlon in the Beijing Olympic Games, and wrote a blog about his experiences for The Tribune-Democrat and www.tribdem.com.

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