My brother is back from Beijing full of stories about the Olympics. He was the team mechanic for the Austrian BMX bike team. I'm enormously proud of Hamish. He's the first in our family to participate in an Olympic event as more than a spectator. The photo you see here was taken from the centre of the Birdnest Stadium during the Closing Ceremony.
As the spectacle drew to its climax 396 performers harnessed on to a vast tower structure put on the most extraordinary acrobatic performance metres from where Hamish was standing. He says the stadium is surprisingly quiet mid-field as its sound system has been designed to project noise towards the stands. However, the sound of the crowd as the national teams entered was truly amazing.
The demands of supporting an Olympic team kept him busy every day, leaving little time to explore Beijing. He made a quick dash one afternoon to Tiananmen Square which unfortunately was barricaded to prevent large crowds gathering. Hamish also met one of New Zealand's most famous gold medal Olympian, Paul McDonald, in the dining hall earlier in the week and saw many other globally recognised faces pass by. In case you're wondering, the Austria BMX team came home without a medal.
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1 comment:
Hamish is the only the second person we have known to participate in the Olympics. What a thrill for him. We had a friend ( dead now) who competed as a runner in the Melbourne games in 1956 but we have never had anyone in our family involved.
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