Sara In Rio: Wednesday August 10, 2016. Rugby Game!

Before coming to the Games, a few people asked me what I would want to go watch at the Olympics. I might have surprised them greatly with my answer: it was either Golf or Rugby. Two sports that were just added to the Olympic program for Rio. Golf because I absolutely love watching that game more than anything (ironically because I’ve never swung a club once in my life, except for mini golf but I don’t think that really counts… it’s just that I respect the game so much and believe that it takes such incredible skill for them to do what they do). The second was Rugby. That was because I have heard that watching Rugby games are just incredibly fun, and everyone who went to watch it at the Pan American Games said they had a wonderful time. With Golf, well, all the good players decided not to come to the Games, and the venue is difficult to get to, and I don’t think it’s the top sport that most people here are jumping to go to. So, when my boss was talking about going to the Rugby games, I said yes without hesitation. And, in fact, it was the General Counsel who wanted to go the most. We had talked with the Rugby team a few days before (since they practice at Flamengo) who hooked us up with some tickets (we still had to pay, but it wasn’t much). Despite the unpredictability here, we planned this in advance and nothing took away from us going.

The Rugby stadium was out in the “Deodoro cluster.” In Rio, there are 4 main “clusters” where events take place: Copacabana, Maracana, Barra (pronounced Ba-ha), and Deodoro. Several events take place within those clusters. Deodoro is by the far the farthest one away from us, and the most difficult to get to. We were aware of this before, so at least we didn’t have any expectations of a quick trip. We left at 8:30am for a 11:00am start time. And, it took us that entire amount of time to get there! We had to walk to the metro, figure out how to buy our tickets, get off at Central, then transfer to the train (and figure out how to buy tickets there), for a very long train ride to Deodoro. Then, it was about a 40-minute walk to the entrance of the Park, then wait in line, then find the Rugby stadium. Other events at Deodoro include Equestrian, Field Hockey, BMX, mountain bike, Shooting, Modern Pentathlon, Whitewater/Slalom Kayak (my mom’s event), and women’s Basketball. Most of the stadiums there are pop-up stadiums, just to be used for the Games so as to minimize the expense of building a permanent one. It was a massive place, decked out with a music stage, bouncy castle, badminton courts, food areas, and stands to purchase souvenirs. I walked in and felt like I was impressed, but that was just because that’s what I had expected to feel. I mean, this is the Olympics, it must be impressive. I had convinced myself that it was incredible. But in reality, it really wasn’t. I don’t want to let you down, but it wasn’t all that amazing with all the scaffolding from the pop-up stadiums. I heard London was like that as well at some of those venues for the non-prime sports. It was still nice by all means, just not as incredible as I had originally thought.

Despite the set-up of Deodoro not being up to par, I cannot tell you how much fun the Rugby Games were (we actually watched 6 games). Rugby Sevens are only 2 halves, 7 running minutes each, with a 1 minute half time. Yes, that’s right, only 15 minutes total for a Game! This was something up my alley. And for those 15 minutes, those players went full force. Running up and down and doing plays and tackling and just being aggressive in every play they made. I had never watched a Rugby game before in my life, and I didn’t know any of the rules, but I figured them out slowly. I got the general gist of things, although I would never understand all the fouls or strategies in those few short hours. We had one person trying to explain it to us, but I tried to just watch and enjoy it for it. It is not hard to keep focus for 15 minutes even when you don’t know what’s going on! USA played the last game, against Fiji who was ranked number one. Our Men’s team actually wasn’t even expected to get to the Games, but qualified in a last chance tournament and have been killing it ever since. A new coach of the US National Team has turned the program around. We took the first lead against Fiji, they came back, and it was a back and forth game the entire time. We kept on watching U.S. number 11 fly down the field, passing many of our own guys to stop Fiji from scoring. Who was this guy? Well, it turns out, that yes, he is indeed quite fast. He runs a 10-yard dash in 4.34 seconds. He just missed the London Olympics in the 100m sprint. And, he was drafted by the Eagles to play football, although it was short-lived due to an injury. A true athlete. And it showed. In contrast, another player wasn’t all that good in our opinion. He had a huge knee brace on and was literally hobbling around the whole time! We had no clue why the coaches weren’t taking that guy out… we thought we were smarter than the coaches in those moments, but I highlyyyyy doubt we were. Another guy who scored a “try” (that’s the synonym for a touchdown) is actually a current player on the Patriots. After his incredible performance, I think Rugby should be on the sidelines of football practices recruiting, recruiting, recruiting. The game was so close, but we ended up losing by four points, which cut us out of the further elimination rounds. We would only have to play in the 9^th-12^th place bracket. Shoot. And we were so close to beating the #1.

Bridget and I left after those 3 games, but my boss and the General Counsel decided to stay for the next session because the US would be playing Brazil for 9^th place. It was starting to rain (it was a very overcast, chilly, rainy day), I already watched for a few hours, it is beyond a trek to get there and would be the same on the way back, and I had a dinner to get to, so Bridget and I decided to get back. The way back was much quicker since we knew more about where we were going (okay, okay, I admit, Bridget knew where we were going and I followed… if you know anything about my directional skills).

The General Counsel and Gary decided to stay for the later Games, and it turned out, they couldn’t make it back in time for the dinner, so we had to cancel and reschedule that. I wasn’t too disappointed however. I was starting to get pretty tired and worn-out. Although we spent the day at an event, it’s still go-go-go here. Since July 22 when I first started my journey in Houston, I haven’t had a single day where I didn’t have to be somewhere by 7:30am (and for the majority of those days, I always run in the morning prior to that). Not even one morning to just turn the alarm off. So, it does get a bit tiring. I was thankful to just stay in and get caught up on work from my room and get to be bed at a reasonable hour. Earlier that day, someone asked me if I felt homesick. Although it’s tough every day being away from Tony, it has been such an incredible experience already that I am so thankful to be a part of. I fell asleep thinking about how fun it was out there watching the event… for my job.