Day 3: China's National Sport Ping Pong, old Beijing University Stomping Grounds

I decided since I was in China I had to shell out the cash to watch basically the national sport of ping pong. They even built a stadium just for ping pong:


Since the game is so compact I decided to get fancy tickets and ended up like 3rd row!
It was a lot of fun - the chinese are really passionate about their table tennis, people were starting chants and cheers like people would do at an American football game. I cracked up whenever the players would walk in to get ready for their match, they would come strutting in led by their entourage of coaches, trainers, etc, sorta like how boxers walk to their fight, and the crowd would just explode. Check out the video:


It was pretty ridiculous how fast paced the game was...these guys are pretty athletic to have that sort of hand eye coordination and reaction time. Video:


Verdict? Well worth going. The other benefit was the ping pong stadium (yes, they built a stadium just for ping pong) was right next to Beijing university, which is where I studied/lived for almost 2 months last summer. Got to meet up with my good friend John and check out the old campus again...its very pretty:














So after a packed day at ping pong and visiting Beijing University, was on to the main event of track! A very good night of track with the main events the men's 400 meters, women's 200, and the men's 110 meter hurdles. Some more pics/video of the Olympic Green, including where they were filming the "Today show":


















The medal ceremony of the Men's 200...Usain definitely knows how to play to the crowd! So the previous night, the night he actually won, we all sang happy birthday to him but this night during the medal ceremony was his actual b-day, we sang it again - pretty cool 22nd birthday, to have 91,000 people sing to you:






Unfortunately I did not get many other pics of the actual events as the finals were so exciting I was just concentrating on watching. A 400 meter US sweep for the men, an easy 110 hurdle win for Robles (and heartbreaking not to have Liu Xiang in the race), and ANOTHER Jaimica victory in the women's 200. A disaster for the US though in the 4X100, both men's and womens, as both teams could not get the baton around and did not finish to make the final. Unacceptable.
Good video of a prelim finish to my old HS race the 800:
















Not sure why every picture I am holding my backpack straps. Unoriginal.