My Closing Cermony

Sunday was the end. All good things must come to an end (so they say). Sunday, after a few hours of work I left for the stadium to witness the Closing Ceremony. It was a bit surreal. Everybody around me was anxious to see the ceremony, but also sad at the same time as these magical "Dream Games" (quote from Jacques Rogge) were coming to an end.

You saw the ceremony on TV. What you probably didn't see where the tears in the eyes of the volunteers when the flame was blown out. I was sitting in between 4 Greek volunteers who all cried. Yes, so did I...

What you also didn't see was an Aussie waterpolo player being taken off the pitch by security right in front of me, because he kept lowering his pants, especially when pictures were being taken. Some sort of exhibitionist. Security jumped on the pitch, grabbed him and dragged him through our stands off the pitch, with his pants still around his anckles. Too bad he was out of range of my mini-flash, otherwise I would've had the funniest picture! :-)

An Aussie newspaper did notice. Check out this article.

Before the start of the ceremony, they showed the marathon on the large screens in the stadium. What a shame about the incident with the Brazilian runner and the Irish MALAKA. I read somewhere that they think it's the same guy that jumped on the F1 race track at Silverstone last year while Schumacher was passing him at 240 km/hr. No more Guinness for that dude!

Whether the Brazilian would've won, we will never know. I and everybody around me however hoped so, because of the incident. Still I'm happy he got a medal and the Coubertin award and he looked happy when entering the stadium as third. I saw that his appeal after the race was denied on Monday (as we get to inform the delegations about the decisions of the jury). The jury informed all that they 'regret the incident and appeal to the local authorities to identify and punish the person accordingly, but that the result would not be changed'.

Monday was my last day on the job. It was a bit hard getting up early in the morning as we had 'celebrated' the closing the night before. I thought that it would be a quiet day, but many delegations came by for the last bits of information (like Marathon results and split times) and some still needed to arrange pick-up and transportation of the poles. Most of this is not even our job, but we've kind of built up a reputation of arranging anything (Sorry I'm probably saying this a bit too often, but I am so proud of our team and what we have achieved. Feel free to skip this part).

Many also came by to just thank us and say goodbye. The Surinam Chef de Mission came by to say goodbye. So did the Brazilean Team Leader Paolo, Derek from Canada, Seif from Egypt (who's sister-in-law works at Rabobank Utrecht...), the team leaders from Portugal and Antigua & Barbuda and Dianne Huxley from Australia (who's partner used to work in the legal department at Rabobank Sydney). Small world huh? Or large bank?

At 14:00 hrs we closed the desk and started cleaning up. Souvenirs were taken off the wall, the last books and guides brought back to the basement and then it was over. My colleagues and I had our last "Greek" meal in the cantine, said goodbye to everyone and turned our back to the Village for the last time. Well at least I did, as most of my local colleagues will also work during the Paralympics starting next week.

As we left the place our supervisor received a call saying that the merchandise store at the Olympic Complex was selling their stock at 33% discount for volunteers. We rushed over and left with bags full of shirts and caps. You'll probably see me wearing Olympic shirts for the next 4 months... :-)

Rene joined us afterwards for a few drinks on a Greek terrace outside the hectic centre. The rest left around midnight and Rene and I just sat there with a beer and without saying much. Now that it is really over, we all of a sudden got really tired, but very very very satisfied. It was nice and quiet and we agreed that for the first time we had somewhat of a holiday feeling, sitting in the warm evening on a foreign terrace enjoying a beer.

Today it's some shopping for me and some tanning at the beach for Rene (he is of course Dutch, so no holiday can be successful without a tan). We'll meet up later with my colleagues for a farewell dinner and then we're off to the airport around 01:00 hrs, arriving in Amsterdam at 06:00 hrs. There the Rabobank awaits us. Allready today we spent an hour working as someone from the Sales Desk required our help. The Games are really really over...

Roberto

PS: This was my next-to-last posting. The only posting left is with the pictures. As I have some 700+ photo's it will take me a few days to sort these out and publish them. I'll promise to do this before next Monday.

PS2: Please refer to Onofre Pereira for the DOG party, to be held in the Old Dutch before the end of September. DOG stands for Dutch Olympic Glory and is the result of our little side bet. Brazil and Holland tied on gold medals, but Holland outperformed Brazil with 6 more silver and 6 more bronze medals. It was closer than I thought orginally and definitely closer than four years ago in Sydney. We'll enjoy a few Caipirinhas on both performances!

PS3: It was great and I hope you guys enjoying reading the blog as much as we writing it. Thanks for the comments and until next time at http://beijing2008.blogspot.com :-)