Paralympic Games

This past week, I was given a free ticket to the track and field events for the Paralympic Games. (Keep your comments about the appropriateness of this to yourselves!) Talk about amazing. The Bird's Nest and Water Cube are beyond anything you saw on television. Literally, the buildings took my breath away.





This is the start of a wheelchair race. Even though our seats were up high, we could still see and hear everything.







These are just some of my co-workers. Thankfully, they didn't mind that I tagged along with them. The trip to the stadium took us about an hour using Beijing's subway system. Olympic Village is in the North of the city. I live and work in the SW.




Even though it's the Paralympic Games, millions of Chinese still turn out to cheer on athletes. Being a host country really has meaning to these people. T-shirts list China's gold medal counts, TV is filled with inspirational commercials and Olympic logos are plastered all over the city.






Check out the little red car. It was driven by remote control and used to carry the javelin back from the field. In other words, the athletes would throw it and then a judge would put it in this car to be driven back to the starting line. Hilarious!








The medal ceremonies were squeezed in between events. We were standing for some country's anthem every 5 minutes. Anyone know the words?







America's next great Olympian? I think not... unless anyone has heard of a wine drinking competition???