The End is Near

It's now Thursday and - including today - only 4 days of competition left. This also means that a lot of the athletes are done and are now enjoying a small holiday in Athens.

The Village is turning more and more into a Club Med. It must be horrible for those athletes that compete on the last day. 80+ % of the people around them are done. They go sightseeing, flirt around and party at night. Try to stay focused in those surroundings!

And yes, they party! According to our guest columnist some already do it during their games, but most definitely do it after their games. The HHH (now know as the Holland Homesick Hut) crowd is getting fitter by the day. Not because the crowd is heavily into aerobics, but because the crowd consists more and more of athletes. Of all nationalities.

The pioneers were obviously the Dutch, followed quickly by the Aussies, who will always show up where there is a party. They probably remember it from Sydney 2000. They also bring along their inflatable mascotte. There are now almost as many plastic kangaroos as people in there...

The next nationality to appear massively were the locals. Only supporters though. No Greek Athlete spotted yet. This resulted in two night of massive Euro2004 chanting ("Hellas, Ole Ole!") and the logical general ban for large groups of Greek boys at the HHH.

Now that the focus is back on the Olympics, the next bunch of sporters arrived: the Green and Yellow Brazilian Army. I already reported on Xuxa and his pool posse, but now the handballers have found their way too. First there was their coach, who I had a brief chat with about the status of handball in Brazil. He is very confident that Brazil will have a real shot at a handball medal four year from now as the sport is developing quickly in Sambaland. Onno, another bet for Beijing 2008?

After the coach tested and approved the beer on Tuesday, the entire handball team appeared yesterday. Imagine 15 Brazilian men and dozens of Dutch blonde party girls in one room. Not a good combination! Or maybe a very good combination, depending on your viewpoint...

After having celebrated Rene's birthday at midnight two nights ago, I left the HHH around 01:00 as my alarm clock was set at 05:20 for the morning shift. The next morning I arrived at the village at 07:00 and as I was waiting for the security check, I look around with sleepy eyes and behind me in the queue was a Dutch volleyballer who just arrived at the village in the same bus. And he was in the HHH when I left! (they're not hard to spot as they're not really tiny).

I guess he was doing the "Walk of Shame". That is the early morning trip back home after you've had a really good night the night before, when you share busses or trams, smelling of beer and smoke, while everybody around you is freshly showered.

Our desk now also turned into some sort of TIP (Tourist Info Point) as many people - now done with their events - pass by to ask us what to see around the city and how to get there. I sent the Antillean delegation yesterday to (obviously) the Acropolis and to Pireaus to catch a boat to the nearby islands. I also suggested the HHH to them and to my surprise they had never heard of it. Phew, at least the real Antillean delegation did come here with serious performances on their mind. As opposed to the baseball team, according to our guest columnist.

(I just had to mention this of course...)

Tonight I'm actualy going to a hockey match. Yesterday I bought a ticket to the ladies final. I know absolutely nothing about hockey, so I'm going for the atmosphere and to hopefully witness a Dutch gold medal live!

Roberto

PS for my colleagues: Don't forget the Caipirinha party in the Old Dutch soon!