Athens Adventure Thursday June 30

Athens Blog Thursday
Today is the day! Moll’s first final and I am a nervous wreck!!!  Manny Team USA athletes have already had finals in their events and are starting to clink around with medals on their necks.  The problem with ribbons is not that you came in 4th place or lower, but that they don’t make any noise!!  Everybody in SO wants to clink/clank, it announces to the world that a champion is coming!  So we shall see….
The trains are running again! Hooray, so it’s an easy ride to Oaka and we get there nice and early. This way I get sweat, and feel butterflies for as long as possible!!  Race time is delayed until 10:25, and as usual we don’t see Molly before hand.  The athletes are in the under/back area of the stadium, and come out through a tunnel just prior to their event.
Ted and crew arrive from P&G, ready to film Molly’s race! This is cool cause hopefully I’ll get some footage and professional photo’s, one benefit of being “the P&G Mom” as people have started to call me!  Unfortunately, Ted asks if we can reshoot  the Mom interview that we did on Tuesday because Alli’s hard drive was stolen along with someone’s wallet. Sad for them, and what a time to talk on camera, I am very keyed up. Worried that she will fall, just super jumpy, her first real race on the world stage, and I want the best for her. She has worked so hard!  So we shoot the interview, with an SO staffer standing by watching(oh good, and extra thing to make me nervous!) but Ted seems pleased so we’re all set.  I head for that corner where you can peek into the tunnel and climb up on the seats and lean way over…and there they are! I scream Hi and wish all the girls luck, the same girl who knocked her down is in the heat. I had hoped she would be moved up, but this appears to be heat 1, so Molly will have a tough go of it.  It is about 90 at this point in the morning and as we take our places around the track sweat is pouring down our bodies!  The track is a quarter in the shade, and Christina from NJ’s folks comment that they should sprint the shady bits and jog the sunny bits!  The gun fires and they are off. Molly almost immediately settles into last place, and we just shout encouragement and tell her not to let the group get to far ahead.  The runner from Cuba quickly leaves everyone behind, she is about 5’2, weighs about 100 pounds and is pure muscle. She is wearing tiny volleyball shorts and a sports bra, and flying along!  She makes Molly look like a lumbering Amazon!!  2nd and 3rd are the push girl and Japan, and what made me mad was that as soon as push girl saw Cuba take the lead, she really stopped racing. She never tried to catch her, and mugged to the crowd as she ran down that side of the track, waving her arms to get them to cheer for her. She was only concerned with staying ahead of Japan, never catching Cuba. Just felt wrong, you know?  The other race going on was between the last three runners, Canada in the lead with USA next, Christina form NJ followed by Molly.  Molly seemed stiff at the start, and has certainly been affected by the fall, but she loosens up and is running pretty well.  Jer and I are both being good, shouting appropriate encouragement, and Danny is filming and snapping photos.  At about lap 5 she eyes Christina up ahead and makes her move. She busts out a 200, comes up on her, passes her, moves back into lane one and backs it off a bit! Awesome move! She then steadily pulls away from Christina(wish it was not a teammate, but what can you do?) and heads for Canada. She is moving too late to catch Canada, but you know what? She is racing! Giving it all she has, remembering the strategies we worked on with her all those days at Huron, all the sprints we all did around the baseball diamond and down the grass, it is paying off! HOOO-ray!!   When the races is over she comes in 5th out of 6, but has a personal best time of 15:23. This is the fastest she has ever run the 3000 in, EVER! You want to talk about peaking at the right time, well she sure did. Despite injury and worry, she races like the champion she is!  And what do you know, when we are standing around in the front row by the medal area waiting to take our pictures Ted calls down from the shade “Kerry, look at the scoreboard!” 
I look over and it has 
Heat Two-Canada1-
                 USA 2-Hincka,M
                 USA 3- Vasser, C
There were two divisions running in the same heat, but unlike in MI, they did not wear colored penneys so we had no idea!  We actually still don’t/can’t believe it, are afraid to, until she finally comes out (we have been standing in the sun, pouring sweat, for 45 minutes post race, but were afraid to move lest we miss her)  But out she comes, with Canada winning Gold, Molly winning Silver and Christina taking the bronze!  Oh My Gosh!  She is happy to see me crying, just like Coach Michelle, and the girls hold hands, wave,hug,etc. It is a beautiful moment.
And sweet relief to have it over and done with! Molly happily heads off with the team, and they go back to Olympic Village early and have a multi-country dance. What a blast!  We collapse in the parents lounge, down free cokes and bananas and purchased wrap sandwiches and chat with Jim and Addison from Oklahoma, Judith and Jamie from NY, and all sorts of other folks. This is another great part of the SO experience!   After a stop in the festival village for more free white hats and a quick email/face book post to the FOM’s we train back to Acropolis and return to the apartment. This afternoon rest thing is a great concept, Jer’s favourite spot is on the hard wood floor directly under the air conditioning unit! Later in the afternoon Danny and I climb Lykavittos Hill and take in the breathtaking view of the city of Athens. This is where the Acropolis was bombed  at one point in its history and you can see that this would be a strategic defense point. Up top we of course run into other SO families, and chat with Dana and Gary from Texas(I do the “horns up!” and it is well received!)and their son Marcus and another teammate. They are in kayaking, which I plan to start in our area (Karen, please take note!) and are a couple of nice young men.  We meet up with Charlotte, Jerry and our friend Ted from DeVries PR back at God’s restaurant for a little souvlaki,moussaka and Greek salad of course. We enjoy getting to know Ted a bit more, and it is quite an enjoyable evening. Ted told us that one of the camera men they have with them went down to Syntagma last night and did some filming and interviewing and that his piece aired on CNN today.  We are especially happy not to hear any teargas bombs tonight, though on our walk home, we again see police massing and many streets blocked off. Hopefully the night will not bring trouble.

our family at Olympic Stadium!