Ok, so I was told that my blog yesterday was boring.
Ahem. You shall remain nameless but those with their videos on YouTube really shouldn’t throw stones.
Humor has been returned to full value. Last night at the venue I felt a bit on my own as the US gang was finished and Fiona had taken them to Stanley Market. I was doing my British duties so Will Connell and I found ‘FEI Sarah’ (Hames) and Olivia Robinson. Those Brits won ANOTHER medal (Felicity – Silver) she was a total champ. Becca was in Bronze medal position until the very last minute and it broke my heart to see the German rider go ahead of her with a test that in my opinion wasn’t any better.
Becca and Steffen need to commiserate.
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| Becca and her sister |
Lee Pearson was in high demand and he did a number of interviews, he wears his causes and his dreams so clearly on his sleeve. He talks about riding in London in the able bodied Olympic Games if he could find a sponsor to buy him the right horse.
Imagine that. There is no doubt that determination breeds dreams.
John Ridley told me last night that he is very superstitious, he was finding wood to touch when he was talking about accidents at the race track. I feel like superstition is like luck or karma. Or dreams for that matter. It only is what you make of it. Many of these riders are making more of what they have, and never considering what they don’t have (in some cases that includes limbs or use of them) as being unfair. I can’t actually say that for sure… but if they do, they don’t operate with that chip visible to the rest of the world on their shoulder.
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| Keith and Pam... they WERE dancing |
The final US riders rode this morning and Barb, Lynn and Keith were all philosophical about their performances. There is always room for improvement in everything that we do. Whether you ride the horse, write about it, manage a team, run a venue – hell anything in life, we can always do it better.
But I think it has been a bit hard to swallow for all of us that we are coming home without a medal. We’ve been close on a couple of occasions. But this isn’t horseshoes or hand grenades.
That is also something that has, at times, been so obvious throughout all the Games in Hong Kong (and in the Olympic Games in general)… the line between winning and losing isn’t always very long.
Making history and making a mess sometimes don’t look very different from the outside.
I’ll stop philosophizing.
One of the friendly horses rolled in the main arena today at the end of a test which was quite funny.
I caught up with Martin and Henry last night (and another Fiona, it is weird as I only know two in the whole world and they are both here) at Knutsford Terrace. I hadn’t been there before; it was a cool place, lots of restaurants and shops up a bunch of steps. That isn’t really a worthy explanation… We sat outside and had a good laugh while they finished dinner. It is great to have Martin back. He was appalled that I have 249 unread emails on my Blackberry. He wasn’t getting the fact that I have actually read them on the computer (although at this point, I’d venture to guess that there are a few people that may argue). I was showing him pictures on his computer yesterday, his inbox had about six items in it. The busiest man on the venue only has six items in his inbox. Organization would be his forte – thank God.
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| Walking Home |
My Fiona (sisters from another mother as we have dubbed ourselves) came and found us with USOC Rebecca and Dr. Stacey. It was a very enjoyable evening.
Am currently writing in the car with Fast Eddy, just became Eagle Eyed Eddy as he just spied a cop in the place where we always do a somewhat questionable U turn to get to the hotel in the construction zone. The other driver won’t do the U turn, he has named himself Careful Ken as a result of the hell that we give him about it.
Finishing up in the hotel and just had a call from housekeeping asking me if my TV was broken. I couldn’t figure out why until I looked at the note I had stuck on it that says Reining Preview. I guess I should go write that.
