ASKREN OLYMPICS JOURNAL: More blue skies and a trip to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City

BEIJING, China - So I am very happy because I woke up to the second day of blue skies in a row, it looks like China's plan to clear the skies is working at least for now.

Also, my parents and my high school coach get in tonight so I am excited for that. Yesterday was a good day, since I am only doing one practice a day now I am really getting to sleep in which is nice.

I went and worked out with Max and did a quick Sauna. After that, Max, Steele, Shawn, Amy and I took off for the Forbidden City. We met up with the Porsche family (my friends from FL) for a quick minute at Tiananmen Square.

There wasn't much to see here, before heading over to the Forbidden City. There were so many people there. Shawn wanted me and him to get our pictures taken in these warriors costumes and I obliged. I started acting like an idiot as soon as I had the gear on and you should have seen the crowd it drew. After nine days here, I am convinced the Chinese are very easily amused, especially by foreigners.

The Forbidden City was the home to emperors for many hundreds of years. It got me thinking how boring it must have been to sit on the throne day after day, I really don't think I could have done it. Shawn says he would have loved it though. Then we headed over to hometown hopefuls for a bit to grab something to eat and we got this awesome spot on the couches.

To finish up the night, we headed to the Bird's Nest for track and field. I got to see fellow former Mizzou Tiger Christian Cantwell get a silver. He made it on his last throw, it had to be an awesome feeling. I have no plans today and I will probably do a bunch of relaxing.

Ben

Friday, Aug. 15

BEIJING, China - A few of my thoughts for you before I start my blog:

- Women in the Olympics have great legs

- Sometimes you will be walking around Beijing and it will just start stinking for no good reason

- Taxis are so cheap. I don't think I have paid more than four American dollars for a ride anywhere

- The Chinese language is very tough to read and speak

OK, so today we went to the Great Wall and it is just mind-boggling just to think of the time and effort put into that wall. It was very scenic, but the view wasn't that great because it was so overcast it wasn't like at the Grand Canyon or in the Rocky Mountains where you can see forever.

Today was also the last two-a-day, now it is just coasting into the Olympics. I am very ready to compete. The day before former President Bush was supposed to come into practice, but he got sick and just waved at us from the window.

Tonight, I got to go to my first Olympic event. I went to table tennis. It was very popular with the Asian crowd. It is really interesting to see how many Olympic events that are obscure to the American public - from handball to badminton to speedwalkng to water polo - it just seems that the American contingent doesn't even try to win these events.

And what is going on with the Chinese lifters. They are winning every weight and breaking World records. Seems fishy to me. Not much else exciting going on here. I am just getting ready for bed. Have a good day.

Ben

Wednesday, Aug. 13

BEIJING, China - So this morning I woke up to a huge surprise, I saw the first blue skies since I got here. Now they are just faintly visible, but at this point any blue skies will make me happy.

After rain the last two days, the temperature has gone way down also it is awesome.

So yesterday we worked out twice, a hard practice in the morning then in the afternoon I just drilled with Max. I also made another sweet purchase yesterday, it was a bicycle. Everything in the Village is so far apart and I have been extremely jealous of the folks biking around this place so I finally decided to buy a bike.

The bike is this really sweet kind that folds up all small so I can probably take it home to the States with me. Then in the afternoon Max and I missed the bus from the Village to the BNU, so we had to cab it. Well, I forgot my map and the cab driver got us lost, then dropped us off in the middle of nowhere with no map and no Chinese to speak.

Luckily, we were able to make some calls and get a translator on the line and flag a cab down and get everything figured out. Everything is getting really low key here. I am getting all settled in. I have two more days of two-a-days then I will coast into the competition.

Greco starts today so I am excited to see how Spencer does. He is so explosive - I have to think he has a good chance to take it all. We will see.

Also Alexis Rodriguez, the Cuban heavyweight defected to Spain, so he won't be competing in these Games.

OK, I think I am going to be brave and run outside. The smog scared me before, but with the blue skies my courage is getting up.

Monday, Aug. 11

BEIJING, China - I feel like such a dork because I wrote just short of 12 hours ago, but I had a rather exciting day and figured I would be busy tomorrow and I am bored now so why not write.

Today after my morning wrestling with Max a big group of us headed to the silk market. I haven't had so much fun in a long time. I got an Armani suit for $27 and Tru religion jeans for $19 (don't worry people I realize these may be knock offs.)

I am really hoping Martin posts video of this which he took because it is absolutely hilarious. The people at the silk market will physically bring you into their shops, they grab you and then won't let go. They give you a high price, say 1000 Yuan, then you offer them about 100 Yuan then it is usually settled for somewhere around 150 Yuan.

Max is a really good negotiator. I on the other hand couldn't care less to fight about a few dollars. Max loves to use the walk away technique, where he walks away then they chase him down and bring
him back.

After the silk market, we went to the Hometown Hopefuls place and it was awesome. Hometown Hopefuls is somewhere that Olympians can invite four friends/family and it is all the free food/drink you can have. They also give away free tickets to events.

I got tickets to table tennis that I am really pumped about. So I headed back to the Village, got a run in and now I am doing some errands. I will head to bed soon. Look for that video from Martin.

Sunday, Aug. 10

BEIJING, China - 8:30 a.m. Beijing time (Sun), 7:30 p.m. CST (Sat)

I really feel the need to redeem myself after yesterday's blog, because it was that bad. I just read it again this morning and I can't believe I even wrote it, just terrible.

Yesterday morning everybody woke up late. We were supposed to have an 8:30 workout, but due to not getting back from Opening Ceremonies until 2 a.m. the previous night, we smartly pushed it back until the afternoon.

When I woke up I felt like a truck hit me. My body doesn't take well to standing and especially not to four hours of it in the sweltering heat. Now I usually don't stink very much when I sweat, but the Opening Ceremonies cycle of sweating and stopping somewhere around five times left my clothes just rancid.

So the first thing I did when I woke up was to go and do laundry. Then I grabbed a bite to eat with Henry. They have these pretzel rolls in the caf that are so delicious - I could eat them all day.

After breakfast, I stopped in at the internet cafe and then headed to our press conference. It was a good press conference, except for the fact that we got the small room and not the big room.

I was asked all the usual questions, then Andy brought up the Barbara Bush story and the media ate it up, I think they are going to put me
on TV for it, so Thanks ANDY.

After the press conference, I went to get some pictures developed and then to do the unthinkable and get my hair cut. It was a very tough decision to do this, because I like my hair. But after Tsargush pulling my hair at World Cup and Lewis pulling my cornrows at the Trials I felt like I was left with no other option. However, the Chinese lady in the village that cut it wouldn't stop - finally I had to just stand up and make her stop.

Needless to say, my hair is shorter than I would perfer it to be. I got made fun of the rest of the day for my haircut. Then we headed over to work out at BNU. I rolled around with Daniel for a bit and then wrestled live with Max - overall the practice was good.

I hustled back to Max's room for a bit to rest for my next practice. Max and I went in and drilled again at 7 p.m. I felt really good, like a lot of things were coming together during this session. Then I ate some lunch and met up with Martin and Amy to hang out for a bit just down the road. After a while, I decided to stay at Max's place instead of cabbing back to the village. I slept really well and now I am going to work out.

See you.

Friday, Aug. 8

BEIJING, China - Last night was Opening Ceremonies, and it is supposed to be an amazing night. But I am not going to lie to you, I didnt have a good time. I was hot, sweaty, tired and hungry. The heat was unbearable - every American athlete was drenched in sweat.

Now don't get me wrong, there were some high points to the night. I asked President Bush's daughter, Barbara, to take my picture not knowing who she was. She did so very well, then everyone on the team made fun of me.

Daniel was getting his picture taken with every basketball player in sight. We didn't get to see the fireworks, which I heard were amazing. The highlight of the night was the torch getting lit. It was an awesome feeling to know the Games are starting.

We did a press conference today and it was a lot of fun. I have to go eat lunch because we have to practice soon. Sorry, I realize that these were random scattered thoughts put into something called a
paragraph, but I have a lot to do today.

I promise my next blog entry will be better thought out and more insightful. Let the Games Begin.

Thursday, Aug. 7

BEIJING, China - 8:30 a.m. China Time, ????? Central standard time

So here I am sitting in an internet cafe before we have our first practice of the day. Being overseas does something strange to me, I am always able to wake up early.

In the States, I can never get up before 10 a.m. and be happy about it. But on the Russia trip I was up at 6 a.m. everyday and likewise I woke up at 6:30 a.m. today and felt good.

The trip went very smoothly due to the fact that I can sleep well on planes, I slept almost 7 or the 11.5 hours on the plane here. Going through the airport was such a breeze because they had everything set up and gave us a police escort.

But that isn't to say the day was void of problems. Max, Ryan and Mike Z all missed their connecting flight because it was late out of Chicago. They had to get on another flight that went through Shanghai and landed late last night.

I still haven't seen them yet, but I heard they made it into Beijing Normal OK. Beijing Normal is a university that the American team rented out and turned into a training center called the high performance center. That is where we are headed in a few minutes. On the plane, I was sitting next to two guys from Hartland, Wisconsin, my hometown. Talk about a small world. Hartland only has 5,000 people. They said it was their 15th olympics.

So we landed at 2 o'clock and got streamlined through the airport, but once we made it to the Olympic Village everything got a little more hectic. We had to wait a while to get our keys, then the walk to the room was a ways, a few of the guys on the team worked up a sweat.

We unpacked and headed to the dining hall because everyone was starving. The dining hall was absolutely ginormus, probably the length of two football fields.

It was awesome seeing all of the athletes from different countries, everybody wears their gear. It is also cool to hear some of the other athletes talking about FLO. I have already heard swimmers talking about floswimming and runners talking about flowrestling.

We missed a shuttle to Beijing Normal, and we were all running through the Village. I am sure it was hilarious, watching all of us booking it. So we decided to work out here instead. We put on the shoes and hand fought and drilled on the pavement outside the workout facility in the Village.

Needless to say, many other athletes were staring. I think we made quite the impression the first day between that and running around the Village lost. LOL.

Well, I am going to workout now, so hasta luego.

Wednesday, Aug. 6

So here I am in my dorm room at San Jose St., we leave tomorrow from San Fran for Beijing on a direct 13-hour flight. I will be keeping you updated throughout all 20 days of my Olympic experience.

I will do my best to give you the full uncut version of what goes on behind the scenes at the Olympic Games. Now while they have already given us a full set of instructions on what not to do in our blogs I will do my best to give you the full experience.

So yesterday morning, Monday, August 4, I took off at 6 a.m. from Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee. Sunday I came back home to do a fundraiser for my parents and my HS coach's family for the trip to Beijing. It was an outstanding success as over 200 people showed up.

Back to the trip, I slept all of the first flight and almost missed the second one due to a late start out of Milwaukee because of some weather. The airline companies are really getting more and more unreliable these days, which leaves me to wonder what will happen after their demise.

In Denver, I met up with Mocco, Cejudo, KJ and Daryl Miller. I slept most of the second flight also. The summer has been plagued with a lot of traveling and lack of sleep. I woke up and chatted with Daryl before we landed. When we landed we grabbed our stuff and headed to meet the bus driver who took us to down to San Jose where we would do processing.

After we got here, we went over to the gym and played basketball. Then some strange game on the mat with the women's team, and then I wrestled with Henry. I know there is a great size difference there, but Henry and I rolled pretty well. He had a lot more "funk," than I expected. After the workout we met team leader Steve Silver for dinner. He took us to this really nice restaurant called The Grill.

After dinner, Steve, Henry, KJ, and I played some spades. KJ and I kind of steamrolled them. I went for a run, read some national geographic then went to sleep. Tuesday morning started out with the ambassador program. It was OK, but most of it was just common sense things. Sometimes I get to annoyed when people tell me things that I perceive as common sense, so needless to say I felt it was a waste of my time.

After that, I went over the the rec center for a little workout. Steve, Henry and I went to the caf for lunch and it was delicious. At this point, Daniel, Doug and Andy joined the crew. Kerry and Kemp rolled in shortly after.

Then we got to go to processing which I was really looking forward to, we got more stuff then I will ever know what to do with. I think I have Christmas presents for everyone I know. But seriously they treated us awesome and gave us some amazing gear. Then we had another meeting and packed our stuff for the trip.

Then everyone wanted to go play some more b-ball. This is probably the highlight of my trip so far but Kerry and I smoked Daniel and Henry 11-6 in the first game, and I was playing barefoot. I can't take too much credit though, because I suck at basketball. It was mostly Kerry. It is always fun to beat Daniel though because he thinks he is such a baller. Now I am going to jump in the shower and go to dinner. Peace until next time.