Chapter Twenty-Three: Village life leading up to competition
Our building in the villageOne problem I always suffer with dieting is the inability to sleep. This was compounded by the fact we had travelled into a different time zone. On Friday morning 26th July, again I woke up at 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Finally at 5.30am after listening to Meagan snoring (which thankfully was unusual for her) I decided to get up and check my weight and watch some TV. I didn’t want to wake Meagan by telling her to stop snoring. She hadn’t been sleeping too well since Melbourne, so I didn’t want to disturb her now that she was obviously sleeping heavy. So I got up, left the room in my flannel teddy bear PJ’s and headed towards the common room where the scales were. I noticed the fire door to our section was shut as I went out and I let it close behind me and headed towards the shut door of the other unit where the common room was. It was locked. Oh-oh. I turned around and went back to the door to our unit and tried it. It was locked also. As I stood in the small entry foyer between two locked doors, it dawned on me I was locked out. I started panicking, as I was in my PJ’s and I realised the only place I could go was outside. I decided to go around to outside the window of our room and wake Meagan to ask her to let me in (thank goodness we were on the ground floor). Ironically I was in this predicament because I didn’t want to wake her to make her stop snoring and here I was about to wake her anyway. So I popped my head outside, looking right and left to check if anyone was around to see me in my PJ’s, and snuck outside. Careful, to make sure I found the right window as they all looked the same, I tapped softly on the window, careful not to wake anyone else in nearby rooms. No response. I tapped again a little louder. The curtains finally pulled back but I couldn’t see in, all I could see was my reflection in the window. I looked to where I thought Meagan would be standing and signalled towards the door mouthing the words “let me in please”. Thankfully she saw the funny side. As she opened the door she burst into hysterics and we giggled our way back into our room where we burst into more fits of giggles. Apparently when she heard the tapping at the window, she was waiting for me to get up to answer it, because she didn’t realise I wasn’t in the room in the bunk bed below her. Then she thought it was the security girls she had been talking to the night before who she had invited to tap on the window if they were going past to say ‘hi’. She had thought “God they’re early” and then as she pulled back the curtain to her disappointment she saw me standing there in my PJ’s looking totally in the wrong direction to where she was (she was still in her top-bunk).
The queen visiting the dining hall in the villageOther village events that occurred early in the piece include two royal visits. First, the Queen came to have lunch in our village dining hall. She was so close to me I could see her thick layers of make up and I managed to get a couple of really close up photos of her. She was stopping and chatting with athletes and asking polite questions like “and what sport do you do?” All the weightlifters were sitting at one table and she spoke to a couple of them (they were so stoked!). After walking around and greeting the athletes, she sat down and started eating at the head table along with her entourage. I went over and started to take a couple more photos until one of her ‘staff’ came up and told me not to take photos while she was eating. I felt like a scolded school girl! I didn’t realise the royal protocol! I suppose a fork in the mouth isn’t a good look for royalty.
Prince Edward and Sophie came a couple of days later. I was actually surprised at how handsome Prince Edward was. I didn’t even recognise Sophie until after she went past. They had hardly any entourage around them, unlike the Queen’s visit.
Lifeguard dutyAside from royal visits, the village was also entertaining. Comedians were randomly set up around the village. One day we were walking back from the dining hall and come across a lifeguard tower telling people to “walk, don’t run” as though we were at a public swimming pool. Bizarre, but made us giggle nevertheless.
Passing time watching TVOnce the games started, we had a live TV feed for every sport so we could watch everything that was going on. On the first day, I was watching Australia winning Gold medals in other sports and suddenly realised that 4 years ago I was watching the Games from my living room and watching the portable telly in the gym as Mehmet cart-wheeled his success, and here I was now part of it. I decided then that I would try to avoid watching the other sports as much as I could until after I had competed. I didn’t want to get caught up in all the hype and I wanted to just focus on weightlifting and my competition. I knew I would have time to relax and enjoy myself after I competed.
On day 4 of the Games, the day before the weightlifting competitions started, the official start lists came out. A couple of days earlier we had bumped into Maryce Turcotte (from Canada) in the village and were pretty confident she wasn’t competing at 53kg as her legs and face looked much fuller than mine. The start list confirmed this. There were only 6 lifters entered at 53kg (including Seen Lee and myself) and only one Indian lifter ranked above me. I was pretty happy!
Last chance trainingThe day before my competition, I felt pretty tired. My weight was coming down nicely (53.5kg), however consequently I had very little energy. We watched Mehmet compete in the morning in the Men’s 56kg category. He looked really flat and didn’t lift as well as he wanted. I went straight back to the village for a rest afterwards, before heading to training for a light session. I knew Steve was arriving in Manchester that day and had arranged to meet him in the evening to watch Yourik’s competition (Men’s 62kg class). I briefly considered not going to watch Yourik compete and staying at the village to rest but I felt much better after resting earlier and, besides, lying around is not what I would normally do, all the thinking would just drive me up the wall. Also I was looking forward to seeing Steve after not being with him for the last 3½ weeks. So I checked my weight (still 53.5kg) then had a quick bite to eat on the way to the MICC to meet Steve and watch Yourik. The Men’s 62kg session was great fun to watch, with a battle between Yourik and Marcus Stephens from Nauru. Seeing Yourik win 3 Gold medals for Australia was very inspiring considering his injuries and preparation. I hoped I would be able to do something good the next day too. I congratulated Yourik, said goodbye to Steve and left before the medal ceremony so I could quickly get back to the village to rest some more as it was getting late. Strangely, I didn’t feel as nervous as I thought I would the night before competition.
