Olympics Diary from Kate Johnson (Part 4)
8/14/2004 12:00:00 AM | Rowing, Olympics
University of Michigan women's rowing alumna Kate Johnson (1998-2001) is a member of the United States women's eight boat which will compete at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Greece. Johnson is providing periodic updates on her trip.
Well, last night our team dressed in our Opening Ceremonies outfits and collected out on the patio for a wonderful dinner and team photo. Then we hooked up a projector and displayed the Opening Ceremonies on the side of one of our buildings. It was as close to being there as we could get for a sport that started racing this morning. I hope you had a chance to watch them. They were really amazing, and beautifully done. I scanned the faces of the other countries to see if any of our competitors were wearing themselves out marching in the parade. I saw a few.
Then the U.S. walked into the stadium. We were all quiet, so it seemed was the entire stadium, or so the commentator led us to believe. However, I heard from an insider that when the U.S. walked by the U.S. section of the crowd they went wild. There is certainly anti-American sentiment around here, but there is safety in numbers and in true Olympic spirit we are doing our best to put politics aside. I went to bed excited. And at the same time the reality of the games really settled on me. As I watched the ceremonies I remembered Opening Ceremonies from the past. In 1996 I sat at Junior National team camp and thought to myself, "I want to go to the Olympics someday." In 2000 I watched and told myself, "I will be at the Olympics someday." Now I'm here, and last night I felt all of that come back to me as I watched my Olympic Opening Ceremony.
Today racing began with the small boats. It has been decent racing so far. Tomorrow comes the big boats and lightweight events. All of our medal favorites will race tomorrow. Racing will begin at 9 a.m. our time. My race is at 11 a.m. our time. CNBC will show the events live for you all back home but it will require you to be very early risers. There is a seven hour time difference on the East Coast and a 10 hour time difference on the West Coast. I will race at 4 a.m. East Coast and 1 a.m. West Coast. We are the last event of the morning.
