On Wednesday morning we were all a bit bleary eyed after a long day the day before. We finally got the go ahead to visit the Bird's Nest - that amazing structure designed by Herzog and de Meuron where the Closing Ceremony will take place. With the Football and all the Athletics events taking place there during this week and the Marathon on Sunday, there will be no chance to rehearse in the venue so this late night visit, as the athletes and spectators cleared at the end of the day's events, was our one opportunity to take in the scale of the place, absorb its geography and its atmosphere and imagine ourselves out there, centre stage, on Sunday.
With almost the entire cast assembled in Beijing now, it was quite a task for our brilliant stage management team to shepherd us through the extensive security checks and the maze of tunnels which lead to our starting positions. From our first view of the structure, between Beijing's mass of skyscrapers, to the full impact of its 91,000 seats surrounding a field of play where so many extraordinary athletes are pushing the boundaries of human achievement...well, combined with the fact that we were now into hour 12 of our working day, it reduced most of us to a state of open-mouthed and wide-eyed wonderment. I tried to 'use' the moment sensibly, to visualise the path we'd take, the location in the stadium that we'd occupy, but it was hard not to keep whipping out the camera to capture this extraordinary moment in the hope that I might, post-event, be able to convey some of it to friends back home.
It was timely moment, midway through our last week: guaranteed to nudge us all into lifting our game once again, just that bit higher. If there is ever a time to go faster, stronger, higher, it has to be here, at the Olympic Games.
My Olympics
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