Aug. 11, 2008

Contact: Wally Morton

This is my 8th Olympic Games and China has the most spectacular facilties I have ever seen.

The Olympic Green combined nature,technology, art and designin a beautiful way. Every part of the city looks great.

But the Olympics are always about the aboutpeople. We started the day by meeting Doug Ingram of the USOC, who picked us up with his private driver at the hotel and arranged for us to get tickets throughout the week by taking us to the USOC headquarters and USA House for hospitality.

While he was doing this, he was also on the phone making arrangements for former President George H. Bush to attend events and see the Village.

Doug could not have been nicer and remembered his days at Cleveland State hosted eventsas a Coach for Southern Illinois.

We then were helped repeatedly by Olympic Volunteers (mostly Chinese and one Canadian) that went out of their way to make sure we got wherewe needed to go. Every person we have met today could not have been nicer.

One Chineseman rode with us on the subway to insure that we arrived at the correct place.

We talked to Nedim (Nisic) today and he is having a lifetime of memories. We will go to the Olympic village after Beach Volleyball tovisit him and get him psyched up and prepared to do well on Thursday.

We truly lovedinteractingwith so many people around the world.

How about theweather. Well it rained all last night and the air was good. It was cloudy but cool.

I am exhaused after lots of walking , riding crowded buses, modern subways and taxi drivers that do notspeakEnglish.

We have our USAhats and gear on and will be on our way to cheer on CSU's Bosnian hope- Nedim.

I will check in with you soon with an update.