Today was the big day. We all got up at 4:30 to head out to the park to make sure we got good seats for the first two events, shooting and fencing, that would be held in one of the pavillions.
We met up with Chad Senior's parent's at the park and tried to find a place with coffee and breakfast snacks. Guess the Olympic organizers hadn't really planned for a competition to start at 6:45 in the morning because nothing was open. We survived without coffee for a while and got some great seats to watch the fencing (not much to watch in shooting that was taking place at one end of the pavilion so we wanted good seats for the fencing).
Chad and Velizar both did pretty well in the shooting, but not spectacular. Chad on the other hand, had an exceptional fencing event and came out in first place. Countries with two athletes start off by fencing each other. What a way to start...fencing your teamate. Velizar won the first bout over Chad. Pentathlon fencing is pretty fun to watch. Since it is one touch fencing, the athletes get pretty psyched when they get their touch. Some of the guys got really into it, jumping up and down and the like. In the end, it was Chad that came out on top.
We did OK in the swimming event, Chad came in second, putting him in 1st place overall going into the show-jumping event. Three events down, two to go.
Next, we were off to the baseball stadium for the last two events. Show jumping and then the run. The athletes start by walking the jump course, pacing off the distance between the fences to figure out how many strides their horse will take. Then, the draw for the horses...one of the wild cards in the pentathlon is that athletes ride unfamiliar horses. All the horses have ridden the course and the riders that rode them provide a summary of the ride as well as their comments on the horse. Chad got a horse named "Riverine". Turns out Riverine wasn't one of the best horses to draw. Chad knocked down four fences, which surprised a lot of the people that know him as he is a pretty good rider. Velizar did pretty well and ended up in the lead in a tie with another athlete, so both of them would start out first in the run.
It became pretty clear that Velizar wouldn't have his best run. We found out after the event that his legs started to spasm about halfway through. Chad didn't have a great run either. According to his family and friends, he did have it in him to get into a medal spot, even though he started off fifth. Well, it didn't happen. I was told later that Chad is one of those athletes that is going for the gold or nothing at all. Once again, to family and friends it was apparent that he wasn't giving the run his all.
It ended up that the Russian, who started the run in 7th place, came in first. It was quite an upset for Chad and the US. He was doing so well early on, only to lose the momentum in the ride.
It was back to New Balance for dinner, where things were pretty somber. We looked forward to the women's event the next day.
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