Glen Chadwick Olympic Diary - Day 3 - - Bicycle.Net - cycling news, product reviews :: Interbike & UCI World Road Race Championships Varese

Glen Chadwick Olympic Diary - Day 3 -

By editor on August 8th, 2008

Day 3

Well woke up at 8 this morning and kicked off the routine as usual. Jumped on the net for a little (bloody difficult connections here surprisingly) then headed off for breaky.

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 80km till we get to a sweet section of the Great Wall. Then we tackle 7laps of a 24km circuit which climbs has a steady climb for about 13km and then 11km back down hill 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 of for NZ little official get together with our Governor General and to hear who our opening ceremony flag bearer will be. That honor this year has gone to Mahé Drysdale (World single scull champion and great gold medal chance) A great honor 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 Day3 on my Whirlwind Olympic Tour, 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!