Olympic Volleyball

The younger daughter and I attended our first Olympics event yesterday and had a really good time. We watched the Russian team beat the crap outta Great Britain, winning the first three sets so there was no need to go through all five games.   


Here is the youngest daughter standing in front of a female volleyball player in the arena before we found our seats.  It's eye catching, but kinda in a creepy way because she resembles some sort of alien trying to pass for a female athlete... or maybe an Austin Powers fembot since this is England, baby.

Here is the volleyball court before the players arrived for the match.  On the opposite side of the net, you can just make out a couple clusters of people.  Surprisingly, they were cheerleaders who entertained the crowd before the game started and cheered throughout the games.  

I never heard where the spirit bunnies hailed from, but it was a very American thing to do.  And they looked like any cheerleader you would find at the local football fields every fall cheering on the team back in Texas, even down to the high ponytail with the big oversized bow.  A bow that sits way up there and is close to flopping into your eyes with its trailing ends.  

Above is a clip of them doing some of their stunts and then waving at the crowd and then doing another stunt and then waving some more.  What a great opportunity for them to perform at the Olympics, especially if they were imported from the states.


And then it was time for the games to begin - couldn't resist that!  Here come the volleyball teams for Great Britain (red and blue) and Russia (blue and white).

I took a pic of the referees pictured in navy on the left side of the net because the lady ref was from the US.

Here is a pic of the two teams.  The Russian ladies were Amazons.  After we got home from the games, I went online to check out their stats. The shortest player on their roster is 5' 9"... the only one less than 6' tall.  The average height was 6' 3" and the tallest was a freakish 6' 8".  Makes you wonder what their basketball team looks like.

I have two funnies from the volleyball games.  First is the wave and second is the high school age students running commercial sized dust maps over the court in unison during a time out.  A group of high schoolers from the girl's school are serving as ball girls at beach volleyball.  My oldest was asked to participate in this since several of her friends are doing it, but she wouldn't arrive home from her language program in Spain in time to train or attend the games.

Last, but not least, is a pic I took of our Olympic paraphernalia from the day.  I also toted home my Coke Zero that I bought at the arena before the game.  I was about to toss it in a recycle bin on our way out when I realized the Olympics pic on the front is a volleyball player.  Was this on purpose or just blind luck that I was sold one with a graphic of the event we were attending?

Today the youngest daughter and I had every intention of walking the 1.5ish miles to watch the women's Olympic road cycling race pedal through our town. About the time we were ready to start walking over there to claim a spot on the sidewalk for race viewing, it began to rain and even thunder.  Therefore, the daughter vetoed walking since she's not a fan of the rain.  And I'm not a fan of being a human lightning rod.  So Wednesday we'll walk to the other end of our neighborhood to watch the cycling time trials, even if it means I'm juggling a brolly while trying to snap a quick pic as they zip by us.