An inspiring performance

I WAS privileged yesterday to be in Beijing’s University of Aeronautics & Astronautics Gymnasium to watch Michaela Breeze produce an inspiring performance in the women’s weightlifting.
She didn’t win a medal, but it was her bravery and determination that impressed me and the audience.
The Ivybridge Community College teacher suffered a back injury going into the competition and aggravated it further on her second lift. She was clearly in a lot of pain and required intensive treatment, which was shown on the stadium’s big screen.
But Michaela refused to quit and ended up seventh in her pool and 15th overall, which would have been a good achievement without injury.
Due to the big screen and the way she almost collapsed after her second lift the crowd were fully aware of her problem and really took her to their hearts. She had the entire audience cheering her on and to see her lift every weight she attempted was really inspiring. For me that is part of what the Olympics is about, representing your country and doing your best.
After witnessing Michaela win over a few thousand fans, I made a quick dash by bus over to the National Aquatic Centre to see city diver Tonia Couch make her Olympic debut. Tonia and her partner Stacie Powell also showed plenty of Olympic spirit.
They smiled all through their event, even though they rather harshly finished last of eight finalists. It did look like they were going to finish fourth but some strange marking in the final round saw them miss out on that position by just seven points. It was incredible to think five pairs were separated by just seven points when you are talking in totals of 300+. But they were delighted with the way they dived, even if they did not get the result they wanted.
Former Plymouth pupil Cassie Patten will be next to experience ‘The Water Cube’ when she takes part in the 800m freestyle, alongside 400m champion Rebecca Adlington tomorrow.
I have been in Beijing a week and have now picked up a couple of words of Chinese. I can now say ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’. But the language issue is still quite a big problem, especially with taxi drivers.
I just cannot understand why no taxi driver appears to have a clue where they are going, even if I give them a map or an address.
No taxi driver has taken me the same route twice from the media centre to my hotel and the cost has varied from 12 Yuan to 25 Yuan.
Three times I have been in taxis where the drivers have got lost totally and had to pull over to either ask for directions or study a map.
On the way to see Tom Daley’s family the other day, the driver tried to read the map while driving, with a magnifying glass as he had poor eyesight.
Yesterday at the media centre I also had a funny experience in the food hall. I walked passed a counter where they were serving Peking duck. Yet they were making little parcels with the duck and putting something else in with it. I asked what were the white strips they were putting in with it.
The two food attendants start disagreeing whether it was garlic or leek. They said garlic at first and then after much debate decided no it was leek .Eventually someone else came over and decided it was onion. I didn’t want it anyway, but it was funny watching them arguing about what it was called in English.