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Glen Chadwick Olympic Games diary
Glen Chadwick will participate in his first Olympic Games at age 31. He is the second rider of Team Type 1 to get invited. His whirlwind Tour sees him stay in Bejing not longer than necessary. Cyclingnews readers can follow all his action closely.
August 8, 2008
Day three
The road course details
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Well, woke up at eight this morning and kicked off the routine as usual. Jumped on the net for a little bit (bloody difficult connections here, surprisingly), then headed off for breakfast.
Today we are heading off to the road circuit. Now for those of you who aren't sure of the course we basically start in the heart of Beijing at Tiananmen Square, which is also across from the Forbidden City (two birds with one stone...) So from there we head out of the city for 80 kilometres till we get to a sweet section of the Great Wall. Then we tackle seven laps of a 24-kilometre circuit, which has a steady climb for about 13 kilometres and then 11 kilometres back downhill on an open highway to the finish, which is then uphill again.
For most of the course we have the Great Wall on our left and right, way up in the hills and we also cross under it a few times on each circuit. It will be a nasty test of strength indeed. The temps aren't too bad as so far they have only been hitting 30°C but the humidity will play a big factor for sure!
After the training run we headed back to the village for some lunch, before having to head off for a little NZ official get together with our Governor General and to hear who our opening ceremony flag bearer will be. That honour this year has gone to Mahé Drysdale (World single scull champion and great gold medal chance).
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A great honour indeed and he will be at the forefront of the Kiwis wearing the respected Te Mahutonga (southern cross) and The Kakahu (Cloak) which is a symbol of the Maori traditions at the core of our team culture. After that little presentation a Kiwi music Icon (Dave Dobbin) came up on stage and ripped out a couple tunes for us. Nice work Dave!
Well that was pretty much the end of Day three on my Whirlwind Olympic Tour. I am pretty worn out as we haven't really had a lot of time to kick back and relax! Some people I guess forget that we're the first event and definitely the longest. Cyclists are not ones for standing on our pins for too long. But we're for sure the toughest ;) we'll survive! Lol
Day 3 Star Spot – Lindsay Davenport (is this like her fifth Olympics?)
Catch ya, Chady
Photography
For a thumbnail gallery of these images, click here
Images by Glen Chadwick
- We enjoyed Dave Dobbin.
- Mahé Drysdale is our Olympic Flag Bearer.
- Near the start and that isn't fog or clouds.
- The Aotearoa Warriors Class of 2008 Beijing.
- The Black Sea.
- I'm getting in an early salute.
- Tim getting in some salute practice as well.
- Up to the finish, about 400m to go.
- Yip, we race through there.
- What's China without the odd Dragon.
