Day 8: Rio

Day 8: Rio

Weather: Best day of the trip: clear with a few high clouds,low humidity, temp in high 60s

Repaired rings, up higher for photo ops

At sunrise

QOTD:

When my Baby, When my baby smiles at me I go to Rio De Janeiro 
My-oh me-oh 
I go wild then I have to do the samba, then la Bamba 
Now I'm not the kind of person with a passionate persuasion for dancin' or romancin' 

Ground Hogs Day! Okay, not the official whistle pig holiday, just a mash up of the last few days:

Walk before breakfast

Breakfast

Our seats 5 minutes before first serve

Coach holding etch-a-sketch while player practices ballet move

Commute to Maracanazinho for Men’s VB.

Brazilians of Iranian heritage

Celebrating; Cuba has fallen hard in world standings

Egypt not in Russia's league 

Watch two matches: Iran mauls Cuba and Russia puts a hammerlock on Egypt. The Russian team is missing the two big hitters from the 2012 Gold Medal team, not sure what happened to those guys, especially the young one that carried the team in the 2012 finals. Let me check...Vlad: Do you know what happened to Dmitry? What? He quit the team? Vlad, you know NOBODY quits your team, give me the straight answer.

Pre-meat meal

Post-meat drink

Lunch at the upscale skewer spot a few blocks away that we ate at two days ago, the exact same meal except we have mini-coffees (very good) after lunch.

 

Our seats 20 minutes before the match starts. The stands are 85% full by the time of first serve, which is about as full as they can get given how many tix go unused

Lots of team colors in the stands

This is the final score. What happened: the score was 36-35 and the point was awarded to Argentina (36-36). Poland challenged and won, so the final score of the set was really 37-35

Back to the venue to watch 1 2/3 matches and the game of the tournament. While Poland bests Argentina, 3-0, the last game goes way past 25, with set and match points galore for each team. The final point is decided on a challenge, with Poland winning the set and match when the replay overturns the call on the court. Along with the game being played at a very high level, the arena is full, with many wild Argentines and a decent number of Poles all cheering maniacally throughout the last game. This is a great example of what the O’s can be and hasn’t show up in the first week until this afternoon.

France won game 2; THB and DA left

France is pummeling Canada and we leave after two games. Bad news for the USA: they got crushed 3-0 by the Canadians. UH OH!!

THB has no idea where they've been or what they've done

Dinner is purchased in the last metro station of the day:

THB's dinner; the chocolate sort of melts into a syrup around the ice cream

DA' s dinner

THB thinks they've posted the fat content by calories % of our dinners; why would they do that??????????