London
You gotta find a pace. That's the word. Otherwise it will snap you in half, an Olympic Games, two weeks of nonstop athleticism, joy and heartbreak, and enough fussy pageantry to make a head of state blush.
Blast too fast out of the blocks, and soon you'll be located face down in a rainy gutter, clutching a crumpled program and muttering insensibly about medal tallies, Pippa Middleton and Mr. Bean.But it's tough to stifle the enthusiasm. Consider that Opening Ceremony Friday night. Sure, it may have looked loopy on television, but please know it was transfixing: lush English pasture transforming into a smoke-stacky Industrial Revolution; menacing puppets and winged cyclists; in-jokey doses of British madness, comedy and gloom. It was as if the Tony Awards had been hijacked by Roald Dahl, though the clever mind behind it was "Trainspotting" director Danny Boyle, breathing whimsy into an impossible task. It wasn't perfect. Some stretches were draggy (of all things, the tribute to British pop music felt dull and VH1) and the parade of nations needs an espresso—countries should only be represented at the ceremony by their 400-meter runners—but overall it was an absorbing, eccentric night. The Queen goofed off with James Bond! It rained Mary Poppinses! What do you want? America's got talent, but it doesn't have that. (Yet.) The Opening Ceremony serves to fuel-inject the fortnight, reminding that despite all the overbearing Olympic hype and commercialism, it is still an irresistible spectacle, one of those rare moments when an unwieldy globe can feel like a tribe. But there is no resting on laurels. By Saturday afternoon the host country was fending off complaints that there were too many empty seats at venues—some events resembled the barren VIP tundra behind home plate at Yankee Stadium—and bike-crazed Britain got a cool letdown when its heavily favored cycling team failed to deliver sprinter Mark Cavendish for a gold. Where was the squadron of Poppinses when they needed it?
But perspective is necessary, especially on the debut weekend. Later Saturday brought the first duel between star U.S. swimmers Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte, an intrasquad rivalry that's been erroneously cast as the legend versus the upstart, since Lochte's already a multiple medalist and, well, older. But entering London, a transition appeared to be looming, and in the 400-meter individual medley, Lochte laid down the hammer, routing the field, including Phelps, who finished off the podium in fourth, in what he brusquely described as a "crappy" race.
"It's weird not having Michael next to me," Lochte said. "Michael to me is still one of the world's greatest and no matter what he'll go down as one of the world's greatest."
Whether he meant it or not, the "one of" hung in the air—Phelps has more gold medals than any Olympian in history. But Lochte's triumph was convincing enough to signal a transfer of power. The U.S. team had a new pool alpha. Still, Lochte and Phelps weren't enough to lift the U.S. to gold in the men's 4x100 relay, won instead by France. Power transfers were everywhere.
These moments are just fractions of the view. London is in a flurry. On Sunday afternoon the U.S. men's basketball team dominated France in a 98-71 victory, lining up to hug first lady Michelle Obama as they left the court. Shooter Kim Rhode won gold in skeet, the fifth consecutive games she has medaled; she's only 33. Current world champion Jordyn Wieber failed to qualify for the women's all-around competition; one of the two U.S. slots was unexpectedly taken by her Olympic village roommate, Aly Raisman. Swimmer Dana Vollmer set a world record in the women's 100-meter butterfly.
Wherever you are, there is an unmistakable sense that life-changing things are happening nearby, even if the gaudy commerce of the modern Olympics is always creeping in. (On Saturday I was asked by a security guard to remove a label from an empty water bottle because it wasn't the official Olympic water bottle. The sponsor didn't like it, the guard said.)
Even the biggest moments here contain little victories. On Sunday Britain captured its first medal, a silver in the rain-drenched women's cycling road race, taken by Lizzie Armitstead in a race won by Marianne Vos of the Netherlands. Shelley Olds of the U.S. lost a chance at a medal when she flatted in a four-rider breakaway, an agonizing bit of mechanical misfortune.
Coming off the course at the finish was a soaked rider from New York City, Evelyn Stevens. At 29, Stevens is a latecomer to the sport. Four years ago, she was working on Wall Street when she tried her first bike race in Central Park. Since then she's become one of the best riders in the world, but this was her first Olympics. The last one she'd watched on TV, back when she spent her life locked at a desk, working 90-hour weeks. Her family was in London, wearing T-shirts that had re-customized the famous I (Heart) NY logo as E (Heart) IE, a homage to Stevens's nickname, Evie.
It had not been a perfect day. But it was close. "It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life," Stevens said. "I will never ever forget doing this race."
She was already talking about coming back for the next Olympics. But first she was going to explore these Games, trade commemorative pins, be a "superfan," as she called it. London right now is a hard place to leave. And it's just getting started.
