Day 32: (Quite possibly) The Longest Day of my Life

Sunday 10th August, 2008

Today was the second day of competition and I scored the 14-15 hour shift day. Oh goodie. Steven and I got to work by 8am and spent the first two hours dosing up on coffee and coke to keep ourselves alert! Luckily we only had the Men’s 56kg B category to take care of which meant that we didn’t have to do any flash quoting if we didn’t want to. The competition was fierce although it was B grade, but unfortunately no one spoke any English and we didn’t have translators with us, which meant we couldn’t get any flash quotes even if we’d wanted to. After lunch (at 11am like a nanna) I had to have a snooze (like dad) to make sure I could keep awake for the next two sessions. Next up we had the Women’s 53kg A grade and the Men’s 56kg A grade and everyone was needed to keep the process running. We had some spectacular competition, which Thailand’s Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon winning Gold in the Women’s and Long Qingquan winning Gold for China in the Men’s at only 17 years of age. We even got quote of the day for both of them, so that was great. It was also Vietnam’s first medal for a male athlete HOANG Anh Tuan who got Silver, so that was pretty special too. I was surprised that I could make it through the entire day, but I did it with ease. I guess it was all that adrenaline running through my veins! Getting home was a bit of an issue though as there were no taxis and it was raining very heavy. We walked a while though and eventually got ourselves one. Steve, being the gentleman that he is, left three girls in the middle of Beijing at 11pm by themselves. But luckily we got one soon after. The driver we flagged didn’t really know where he was going, and ended up driving past our uni and not being able to turn around for about 4kms, costing another 10 yuan. We gave it to him, but he was kind enough to give it back. Once I finally got home I couldn’t sleep – must have been all the excitement. So I spent the night watching mindless tv until I fell asleep.