by Susan Stafford-Pooley
Early this morning I was thinking I wouldn’t have a whole lot to write about today, as it was only the first day of dressage and we only had one rider going. Boy, was I wrong!
First of all, Megan Lane and Caravella had a wonderful, relaxed test, certainly a testament to the 25-year-old’s poise and focus in her first Olympics. She credits her long history with this horse – they practically grew up together – with giving her the confidence to handle the scary stuff. You can read the interview with Megan here.
I was stunned when one of the few horses on day one that I had actually heard of and was eagerly anticipating watching – Parzival, ridden by Adelinde Cornelissen of The Netherlands – was abruptly retired partway through the test. I’m sure the rider was bitterly disappointed, but I applaud her decision to consider the best interests of the horse. You can read the reason here.
I awoke to news this morning of bullets being fired at a media bus coming out of the Deodoro area. This is very disturbing; the “stray bullet” incident in the media tent here was likely an an anomaly, whereas taking aim at a bus full of people is a deliberate act of aggression and puts the threat at a whole new level; not quite DEFCON 1, but getting there. The police scrambled to spin it as rocks being lobbed, but one picture I saw clearly indicates a small hole with web-like breaks in the glass. (see article) If anyone can throw a pebble hard enough to break a window, I think the Blue Jays should seek him out and sign him up!
More random ramblings:
Generally, the venue food is awful, and not just at the equestrian site. I was told by many others that universally at all the sports venues the menu is the same and the hot dogs are worse than in Sochi – and those were famously inedible. The daily fare is extremely limited at the kiosks to:
– some kind of dry chicken sandwich
– some kind of dry brown meat in a bun
– deep-fried round things
– more deep-fried round things resembling cheese puffs minus any cheese flavour
However …. the Deodora Diet went off the rails this afternoon when my boss, Jennifer, went on a scouting mission at lunchtime and found not only beers (delicious) and burgers (not great, but better than most things I’ve had so far). There is hope after all.
The beers come in nice souvenir cups – there were no “Hipismo” equestrian cups left, so Jennifer wisely chose the shooting icon, which seemed oh so appropriate right about now.
I do feel slightly embarrassed that I have not made the slightest effort to learn the language here. This is unlike me, as I took Spanish classes prior to going to Latin American countries and generally pride myself in my attempts to embrace the local culture as much as possible. It would seem logical that Portuguese should be a lot like Spanish, but it isn’t. Portuguese, a Romance language, is a slightly gutteral language (to my ear) that sounds like a mix between Latin (Wikipedia says that it evolved from several dialects of ‘Vulgar Latin’) and French to me. I took the trouble to download Google Translate onto my phone before I left, but have not used it once. And it’s not like everyone here speaks perfect English. I had better get on the ball with this one.
