Men's Aerials

Today was the first day we really didn't need to be up early to catch a bus to our event. However, we were up early anyway as Chloe wanted to goto the Olympic Superstore (aka The Bay). All week we've walked by and the line was blocks long. It was no different at 8am when we showed up. Ugh. I really didn't want to wait in a line to go shopping, I do everything online!

The store hadn't opened yet, so I said we'd wait to see how fast things will move since the place is empty right now. When they finally opened things moved really fast, I think we waited less than an hour. A wait record. lol.

Anyway, once inside I was surprised at how big the Olympic selection was. It was impressive. However, I knew this meant it was going to take Chloe much longer to get through. Ugh. I did my usual run through, and was surprised how many great items there were. I wanted about 6 different jackets or shirts. In the end I settled on one nice track/spring jacket and a few items for the family. An hour or so later Chloe was finally done and we were out of there.

Shortly after lunch we headed out to catch our bus at Lonsdale Quay. We were a bit early as it didn't take as long to get there as we had planned for, people traffic was a lot less than expected. Anyway, they let us on the next bus - we were off to Cypress for the Men's Aerials Qualification.

It's a short bus ride, only 30 min. However, as we got off the bus we were now at the back of the biggest event line up we've seen so far. Actually, we've never really been stuck in any event line up until now, and we were 3 hours early! It took about 45 min to an hour to finally get up to security. Once through we headed for the stands and our seats, the only time we were to get official seats.

They turned out to be pretty good seats, but in the end I would have rather been standing. They were cramped aluminum benches, with knees in your back and no leg room. I was in pain after about 2 hours, it really wasn't fun.

I fought my way through it and enjoyed the aerials. Those guys are crazy. Jumping 50 feet high and doing 3-4 flips with another 3-4 spins, it's crazy. Very impressive. Even though we were early there was lots to see. The men had warm up jumping the entire time, slowly working up to the big jumps. Apparently, they must do so otherwise they are not allowed to compete. You must also have a license of sorts to compete. Interesting, but kind of makes sense, you could get hurt pretty damn easily.

We did see a few spills, but nothing major, thankfully. In the end it was pretty exciting to watch, but I could see it getting boring as everyone pretty much does the same thing, and even if it was different, the average joe would never know - they spin so damn fast!

Getting out of there was total chaos. 12 thousand people trying to fill 100s of buses. It took about 40 min to finally get on one. We made it home after a stop for more thai chicken bites. Super fun night. Only one more event to see. Time flies!