Olympic diary
(Editor’s note: Les Harvath of Westmoreland County, a freelance sports writer for the Herald-Standard, and his wife, Jane Ann, and son, Skylar, are in Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics. He will be writing occasional stories about their experiences at the Summer Games and their visit to China. )BEIJING – What began as a weekend whim has evolved, with a 16-year hiatus thrown in, into somewhat of a mild obsession packed with excitement, thrills and a glimpse of global cultures. On the final weekend of the 1976 Olympics, on an almost-spur-of-the-moment decision, I made the trek to one of our Canadian neighbor cities, Montreal, where I saw Bruce Jenner race to the gold medal in the decathlon. So caught up in the excitement, I was fiercely bitten by the Olympics bug and made the athletically and culturally enlightening pilgrimage to either the winter or summer Olympics for the next 20 years, as my travels took me to Moscow in the then-Soviet Union in the summer of 1980; Sarajevo in the former republic of Yugoslavia in the winter of 1984; Seoul, South Korea, summer 1988; and Albertville, France, in the winter 1992.
It was in Albertville that my wife, Jane Ann, and I embarked on a delayed honeymoon. And with the birth of our son, Schuyler, in 1993, my (our) Olympics excursions would be put on hold until this week.
Beijing, hosting the games of the 29th Summer Olympiad, and the capital of the Peoples Republic of China, population-wise the world’s largest country, is only eight hours away as of this particular moment. Of course, we have been flying five hours already.
As I write this, I am traveling, amid some turbulence, on a near-direct polar route to Beijing, from Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., at a speed of 534 mph at an altitude of 34,000 feet, with that specific information just displayed – in English and Chinese – on a pull-down movie screen 10 feet in front of us on this double-decker United Airlines jumbo jet. We have just passed over the western edge of Canada’s Baffin Island, considerably north of Hudson Bay, according a large map displayed on the same screen. Incidentally, this is Tuesday, Aug. 12, and we will arrive in Beijing Wednesday, Aug. 13.
Moments ago, “Kung Fu Panda” was the movie of choice: United’s, not ours.
Below us looms the Gulf of Boothia, with noticeable ice floes and waters glimmering in the late afternoon sun. Dulles is 2,444 miles and five hours behind us already, and Beijing 12 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. At this moment, Beijing is a 4,519 miles distant. Our pilot recently informed the passengers that we would pass over Russia and Mongolia en route to Beijing.
At 7 p.m. Pittsburgh time, we are about half way to Beijing, and 400 miles southwest of the North Pole. We have traveled 3,448 miles, with 3,517 to go.
With night beginning to fall… April Fool’s, there is no darkness on this flight, with night simply relative to time. And the time on my watch indicates that it is, indeed, nighttime in Uniontown. There has been nothing but bright and brighter because of the flight plan.
As we approach northeastern Siberia, large expanses of ice are easily visible, even from our altitude of 38,000 feet, flying 577 mph.
“Made of Honor”, the second of five movies shown throughout the flight, now is on the big screen.
With Russia now behind us, a vast expanse of desolate landscape is in front of us: Mongolia. From this altitude, it looks like it could be the harshest of winters, instead of mid-summer. Between films, a global-positioning map charts our progress, including altitude, air speed and outside temperature, which at one point was minus 67 degrees Fahrenheit. There is only 1,235 miles ahead of us, 5,744 behind us.
“Attention passengers: We will be landing in Beijing in approximately 15 minutes,” our pilot just informed us.
And soon enough, there we were, with Beijing’s massive international airport spreading out beneath us, its runways crisscrossing the plain.
Beijing and our Marriott Hotel is a 35-minute ride from the airport, comparable to Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh International Airport. By the time we inch our way through customs, wait for our luggage and are shuttled to our hotel, it is 4:45 p.m., Beijing time. In Uniontown, most people are still fast asleep: it’s 4:45 a.m.
But this isn’t just a lazy, crazy day of summer. Instead, it’s a completely overcast late summer’s day. It’s a hazy day of summer, a very hazy day of summer. All the pre-Olympic reports of a smog-covered, hazy Beijing were grossly understated. There is what appears to be the late-afternoon sun, but it’s more like a 25-watt light bulb illuminating a white wall. Beijing’s mid-August sun resembles the early morning light for a 6 a.m. tee time or a near-dusk sun in Pittsburgh. Traffic is minimal until we reach the city, where obviously more vehicles are on the incredibly smooth, pothole-free highways. Still, fewer automobiles are on the streets, thanks to the government’s decree that one-third of all automobiles refrain from entering the city each day. Only in Amer… , only in China.
According to the clock in our hotel room, it’s 18:04, Aug. 13. In Uniontown, it’s 6:04 a.m. Good morning, Uniontown!
Dinner this evening was in a 400-year-old hotel, with the main, and oddly enough, first course being Peking duck, including the duck’s head, followed by an assortment of no fewer than 10 different dishes. And as we entered our hotel for the evening, we passed three Chinese soldiers on patrol, one of whom was carrying an assault rifle. Welcome to China!
Next, it’s a visit to the Great Wall.