Two races in particular drove this latter point home. Yesterday it was the repechage of the women's quads, in which Australia lost out for a place in the final - it's particularly brutal when there's only seven boats in the quota and six final spots. The boat featured Kerry Hore, on her fourth Olympics and with a bronze from Beijing to her name. When the Australians came back to the mixed zone later they all gave interviews to the Aussie press and I managed to run over for the end of the written press bit, by which time poor Kerry was struggling not to break down. She'd given so much for so long and going out in the rep was not the ending she'd hoped for.
Today, it was the lightweight men's four, which is always incredibly competitive. On Saturday the unfancied Italians won the heat, GB made it into the semis as planned. Today the Italians got out to a rapid start which nobody could match. France, GB and the Kiwis were trading second, third and fourth through the race and the NZ sprint was too much for the Brits. Remarkably, five of the six boats in their semi were faster than all the boats in the other semi - conditions didn't change that much in 10 minutes so it'll be fascinating to see what the final result is. It's always disappointing when a British boat loses and more so when you know someone in it even a little bit. The crew came back later and were calm, measured and gracious in defeat, which was somehow just as heartbreaking as watching Kerry Hore's tears the day before.
Apart from that it's been a weird few days. On Sunday we hung around at Lagoa watching the wind blow until they finally decided to cancel racing for the day, at which point it got even windier and I was dispatched to help out at the swimming. Not, of course, that I saw much swimming or even the inside of the pool; after a long journey on a media bus trying to avoid the roads closed for the cycling I saw only the mixed zone.
But it was good to experience a different sort of mixed zone where they have the luxury of picking the people they speak to in the knowledge that they'll all have to come by straight after the race - unlike in rowing, where we usually don't know which athletes will respond to the request for an interview or when they'll do it. It was also weird to be back in a swimming environment after so long away from the sport and I was reminded how different swimmers' bodies are from rowers'! Chad Le Clos was probably the biggest name to come by, but we got some great quotes from British swimmer James Guy too about Adam Peaty and his 100m breaststroke world record in the heats. ("I said to him, 'Peaty, don't smash it'. He said 'no, I'm going to effing smash it'.") The subs edited out the effing.
Sunday's cancellation at the rowing meant that FISA decided to squash two days' racing into one, which made sense as yesterday was originally a short day. It was a fairly standard sort of day racing-wise with no major upsets really apart possibly from the Danish Olympic champion LM2x who didn't make it straight to the semis.
We weren't done until about 2.30pm and then I had to hightail it up to Deodoro to help out at the hockey. Rio's Olympic 'cluster' system means that venues are in four zones; Deodoro is miles away from Copacabana and hosts equestrianism, rugby sevens, volleyball, canoe slalom, mountain biking and hockey (and probably something else I've missed). I thought I had public transport sussed but clearly not as they've helpfully closed the station nearest to the Deodoro Olympic Park and you have to walk back from the next one along. That meant I was lost, outside the park without the right accreditation, and late, which wasn't a brilliant start to the evening. I'd also not had time for lunch, which at 5pm was fine but was less so later.
My colleague Will had to go to the rugby which was why they needed another hand, so he left me with instructions and extremely accurate match predictions and I watched some hockey. International hockey is fast, aggressive and good entertainment and I quite enjoyed it although I couldn't work out why teams were penalised or anything like that! I also got to watch Britain comprehensively beat India, which was nice.
It was, however, a long old day by the time I finally got back to Copacabana and today was another long hot day in the mixed zone. We got some good stuff today though. I finally managed to talk to the Danish LM2x who are only in Rio because the Belgians decided to race Hannes Obreno in the M1x instead of their LM2x who won the final qualification regatta ("we're very lucky to be here," Rasmus Quist admitted). Czech Olympic W1x champion Mirka Knapkova told me that when she sank in her pre-race warm up it was the first time she's ever fallen in (!) and Kim Brennan, who'll probably be the new W1x champion later this week, revealed she likes doughnuts and especially the ones with pink icing someone gave her for her birthday. It's that sort of personal chat which makes things fun.
Tomorrow, if the weather gods are kind, is our first finals day. Woohoo!
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