Treasure islands
Although absent from Beijing, Macau helped athletes from five different countries grab nearly 20 Olympic medals, eight of them gold. In the run-up to the Games, Taipa and Coloane looked like paradise.
Macau, without representation on the International Olympic Committee, was unable to participate in the Olympic Games, but this did not stop the territory playing a significant role in the competition. In the weeks leading up to the Games, several sport teams set up training camps in Macau to engender in their athletes the calmness and concentration needed to obtain good results in the Beijing Olympiad.
In all there were about 500 athletes and technical personnel from 10 Olympic delegations preparing for the competitions at 10 local sport facilities. The United Kingdom, with nearly 300 athletes and managers, was the largest delegation to train in Macau, followed by the delegation from Brazil, which brought to Macau a team of 150 Olympians. Delegations from Argentina with 40 members, Portugal with 30, Russia with 18, Cape Verde with 15, Mozambique with 10, East Timor with five and Angola with four also stayed in Macau. Last but not least, the US national male basketball team, known as the Redeem Team, came to Macau for preparatory games against Lithuania and Turkey, the ultimate goal being to recover the gold medal lost at the Games in Athens.
After a long search for the ideal training centre in this part of the world, the British said they found a “treasure” in Macau. The territory was the preferred choice over Bangkok, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Seoul, Hong Kong and half-a-dozen other options in Mainland China.
“As soon as I came to Macau, I thought we had found our treasure, not only because of the facilities, but also because of the warm welcome we received from both the Sport Development Board (IDM) and the Government,” said camp director Bernie Cotton.
Initially, the demanding British Press was sceptical. With its reputation as a ‘sin city’ would Macau be the right place to prepare for a mission with such a big responsibility? With such temptations near at hand, who would be able to ‘control’ the souls of three hundred athletes, coaches, managers and other logistic personnel?
With the exception of a much-commented-upon visit by three members of the US basketball team to a Macau sauna resulting in a mini-scandal in some of the American media, this concern proved to be largely unfounded. After dozens of additional visits, Cotton put his doubts aside and made – well in advance – the necessary bookings at the Westin Resort in Coloane, previous host to the Portuguese national football team and the Barcelona football team.
“It’s a peaceful environment, close to the best facilities available,” he explained. “We have taken over the whole of the second floor and converted it into a home away from home.”
British Olympic Association (BOA) Chief Press Officer Graham Newsom added: “We looked at a number of countries in Asia and about six cities in China, but we realised that Macau was the best one for us. The conditions are similar to Beijing, so our athletes can come here to acclimatise and only have a short flight to Beijing. They can leave here in the morning and be in the [athletes’] village by tea time. But just as important for us was that Macau has great sporting facilities after recently hosting events such as the 2005 East Asian Games.” These were facilities that could be booked at prime time, contrary to what would have happened if they had moved earlier to Beijing.
Of course, casinos were strictly off-limits for the athletes, and, presumably, other entertainment venues were as well, due to the rigid discipline imposed. Nevertheless, the athletes seemed pretty happy with the BOA’s choice.
“The holding camp in Macau was great, although we played the weather game every day, not knowing if we would get time outside,” pole-vaulter Steve Lewis said after finishing his preparation. “I’ve only good things to say about my time at the camp; the hotel and food were amazing. The BOA had things set up really well and everything went smoothly.”
High-jumper Tom Parsons agreed and added a funny note in his blog: “There has been little drama over the last few days here in Macau and everyone looks in fantastic shape... probably due to a mixture of healthy eating, hot weather and the scrupulous monitoring of body weight. However, some of the team coaches seem intent on making the most of the abundance of free food and are struggling to maintain their Spartan bodies!”
The camp was visited by Princess Anne and Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe, an indication of the huge support and high-level of expectation surrounding the team. There had been a “massive investment” in them, and it was payback time. “Success is vital,” the Minister told reporters.
As British media envoys pointed out, “They’ll probably never again match the haul of 50 plus gold medals from the London Games of 1908, when Britain finished top of the medals table. But 2008 promises to be the best since then, quite an achievement if it happens considering the team won just one gold in Atlanta 12 years ago.”
Sebastian Coe, the London 2012 Organising Committee Chairman and former double Olympic champion in the 1500m track event, was among those believing in a memorable result.
“The performance of Team GB this time around is based on a very simple concept,” he wrote in his column in a leading English newspaper. “And the British Olympic Association created a pre-Games environment at the training camp in Macau that has left the competitors at the top of their mental game.”
Mission accomplished
The stakes were high. British sports officials set the target at 35 medals (41 in a stretched version), 12 of them gold. The reality is that Team GB exceeded expectations by securing 47 medals, 19 of them gold, finishing only behind sport superpowers China, USA and Russia. Some are even afraid now that British sport might become “a victim of its success,” as it further raises the bar for the contests on home soil in London 2012.
The majority of the British medal winners did not stay at the camp in Macau, because sports such as rowing, cycling, swimming, modern pentathlon and sailing – all quite successful for the UK – had to stage their last training sessions in other spots. Even so, British athletes who trained or were based in Macau attained 11 medals including two golds.
In track and field, world 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu stood in tears atop the podium at the National Stadium in Beijing after adding an Olympic title to her brilliant résumé. Despite all the controversy surrounding her participation (she had a ban overturned after failing several drug tests in 2006), Christine claimed she “didn’t feel the pressure,” because she “was able to concentrate in Macau.” In a dramatic finale, the Englishwoman came from behind to beat Jamaican Shericka Williams by seven hundredths of a second and relegate to third place her American arch rival Sanya Richards, who had earlier impolitely
remarked that Christine Ohuruogu was “lucky to be competing” at the Olympic Games.
That said, the British athletes’ performance in the Bird’s Nest did not lack for disappointment as well.
The men’s 100m relay team, which spent days practicing their baton changes in Macau, were confident of repeating their previous gold medal performance in Athens against the mighty Americans. “We’re not as fast as the Americans, but we’re better with the baton,” team member Simeon Williamson claimed. Nevertheless, both the British and USA teams made a mess of their semi-final races and didn’t even reach the final. Team Jamaica, ignored by Williamson as a genuine gold medal contender despite lining up the two fastest men in the world, won the Olympic title with a new world record. Not much of a surprise, was it?
British athletes were also absent from the 800m final, a distance at which they reigned supreme not so long ago with the likes of Steve Ovett, Sebastian Coe and Steve Cram. In Beijing, their biggest hope, Michael Rimmer, seemed to be feeling the effects of the stomach bug that hit him while at the Macau holding camp, and he was eliminated in the semi-finals.
Also hit by food poisoning at the camp, Goldie Sayers finished the javelin final in fourth place, just 38 cm short of the bronze medal. She did not complain about her days in Macau, though.
“My time in Macau was very well spent,” she told reporters before the final. “I did a few Personal Bests in training, so now I am in the best physical and technical shape of my life. Unfortunately I picked up a tummy bug, but with the help of the doctors, nutritionists and a few antibiotics I have managed to get over it pretty quickly.”
After the final, she had to admit: “To be beaten by two people who have thrown 70m, I can’t do any more. But fourth is a difficult place to finish.”
Triple jumper Philips Idowu, the freshly crowned world indoor champion and world leader who was also in the form of his life, twice led the competition but at the end of the day fell five centimetres short of the gold-winning result of his Portuguese rival, Nelson Évora. Such was his disappointment that Idowu didn’t even smile on the podium.
Disappointing but predictable was the poor result from world record holder Paula Radcliffe in the marathon. Recovering from serious injury, the 34-year-old struggled to finish 23rd on the Great Wall road circuit, in what the British press described as “another drama without a happy ending.” Her race ended in tears, as it did on many previous occasions: Paula Radcliffe has never ascended the podium through five different Olympic Games despite being always among the best.
Sebastian Coe praised her effort in Beijing: “No encouragement would have made a significant difference to the outcome of Paula Radcliffe’s valiant efforts in the marathon. Radcliffe was climbing a mountain of hope, seeking to triumph over objectivity.” Fellow marathon-runner Liz Yelling, less known in the world of athletics, left for Beijing with high hopes of achieving Olympic Glory after a fortune cookie tipped her for gold. “Would you believe it?” she wrote in her blog. “It said: ‘Remember, endurance makes gold.’ I hope that’s a good omen.”
Still, gold would prove to be just wishful thinking, as would silver and bronze for that matter. Liz finished a distant 26th, after falling on the rigorous road circuit in the Chinese capital. “I enjoy the pain. The harder the race is, the better I am,” she said before the race started. Well, not this time.
In boxing, Team GB savoured victory on the very last day of the competition, thanks to veteran fighter James DeGale who won the middleweight class by defeating Emilio Bayeux of Cuba. After winning the gold medal, he was ecstatic: “All the messages from home gave me the strength to do this. I’m so proud to be British and win a medal. I was dreaming of this four weeks ago in Macau, and now it’s all coming true.”
It was a happy ending for a tumultuous adventure. Britain’s brightest hope for a gold medal, lightweight world champion Frankie Gavin, had to take a plane back to the Old Albion with no stopover in Beijing after failing to make weight. No one has offered a rational explanation for the fiasco yet, but the case is being treated as one of lack of discipline. Another boxer, welterweight Billy Joe Saunders, was suspended following an investigation into his behaviour at a pre-Games training camp in France. Shortly before the team flew to Macau, elements from the Amateur Boxing Association threatened to withdraw the boxers’ licenses and pull them out of Beijing, in a row over funding with UK Sport, according to British media reports.
In Beijing, before DeGale helped save the day for British boxing, two other athletes were defeated in the semi-finals, one of them unable to hide his frustration after a 15-0 defeat against Chinese superstar Zou Shiming.
“There’s no way that I lost 15-0,” Paddy Barnes blasted. “I hit him with clean shots. The way the judging is out here, it should be the judges being drug-tested, not the fighters. I don’t care about the Olympic medal. They can keep it for all I care. Bronze is for losers.”
The boxer would later retract the emotional statements, admitting he had been too rash, after British newspapers ridiculed his attitude. Some unfortunate episodes aside, the pre-Olympic time in Macau was considered a huge success, and, interestingly enough, it may even project its effects on the performance of Team GB in London 2012.
The British media reported that some 127 young athletes who missed out on Olympic selection but who are considered hot prospects for 2012 have been flown out by the BOA for a taste of what to expect in four years’ time. Their programme has included two days at the GB acclimatisation camp in Macau and
three days in Beijing, where they’ve received a tour of the Olympic village and tickets to watch their sports in action. Why? Because the mentor of the so-called ‘Olympic Ambition Programme’, Team GB chef de mission Simon Clegg, discovered that 70 percent of all British gold medallists had attended a previous Games. So, “the lesson was clear. Remove the surprise element, and you remove one of the key obstacles to a medal-winning performance.” Wait and see.
Training to the Rhythm of Samba
From near disillusion to euphoria – there could be no better introduction to a documentary about the stay of the Brazilian Olympic team in the MSAR.
Fábio Gomes da Silva, a pole vault athlete, found controversy awaiting him on his arrival in Macau: his name had been included in a manifest for the independence of Tibet published on the webpage of the “Sports for Peace” organisation, and his signature was on a letter sent to the Chinese President, Hu Jintao. The jumper denied having signed the letter.
The names of other important Latin-American athletes also appear on the list, among them Cuban Darion Robles (winner of a gold medal in the 110m sprint hurdle in Beijing) and Panamanian Irving Saladino (who trained in Macau with the Brazilians and won the Olympic gold medal in the long jump). “I don’t have anything to say about Tibet,” Saladino declared on his arrival here, and the controversy faded right away.
Once this problem was solved (remember, it could ultimately have led to a ban from the Olympic Games, as athletes are not allowed to get involved in political activities), the attention and hope of the Brazilians turned to the Taipa Olympic Complex, to the jump box at Macau Stadium where long jumper Maureen Maggi was training and to the complex of swimming pools where the Brazilians were betting heavily on César Cielo Filho, one of the fastest swimmers in the world. Brazil imported an Olympic champion from Australia to assist São Paulo’s César Cielo in winning a gold medal in the Beijing Olympics.
According to Brazilian media, Cielo gave the impression whilst in the Macau Stadium that he already knew he would win and make history. Not that he had history on his side: after wining the 50m free-style in Beijing, he became the first Brazilian swimmer ever to receive a gold medal in the Olympics. “I was thinking before the race: ‘I will do the best I can in the pool, and if God so wishes, it will be gold.’ And thanks to God, it was exactly that,” he said.
Only after having won the gold medal did Cielo come to know that his grandfather, Alcides, had died from Alzheimer’s. The death occurred after the swimmer had already departed for Macau and, to avoid his losing concentration, the family decided not to tell him what had happened until later.
With much the same attitude as British officials, the leader of the Brazilian swimming team, Romulo Noronha, expressed satisfaction with the days spent in the territory. “The acclimatisation in Macau could not have been more beneficial,” he said.
As for the athletes, they were amazed about what they saw in Macau. “The city has a shopping mall so big that we could ride a boat inside,” said a surprised Allan do Carmo, one of the swimmers, in his blog.
Another milestone: Brazilian athletics saw its first woman ascend the Olympic podium in Beijing. The sport that has brought the second highest number of medals to the country (13, just behind 14 for sailing) has always had men on the podium. This time it was Maureen Maggi, long jumper, who had the best record of the year and won the gold.
In Macau, Maureen Maggi said the training sessions were “going better” than expected, as she had adapted well to the climate and the time difference. In her blog Maureen wrote about a good augur foretelling the glory awaiting her in Beijing: “Our hotel [on Taipa Island] was next to the Olympic Avenue – yes, that’s what’s written on the street sign! I’m pretty sure it’s a sign of good luck!”
Panamanian Irving Saladino, world champion in the long jump, won the first-ever Olympic gold medal for his country in Beijing with a ‘modest’ mark of 8.34 metres. Saladino has lived and trained in Brazil for four years with Nélio Mutola, the same coach who trained the Brazilian jumping team. That’s why, out of nowhere, the Panamanian also enrolled in the 10-day acclimatisation programme in Macau. “This medal is 50% for Brazil and 50% for Panama,” said Saladino after the competition.
Macau also watched Mozambican middle-distance runner Maria Mutola (no relation to the Brazilian coach) do some hard work on her way to the Beijing Olympics, where she would face a very emotional farewell after more that a decade among the elite. “Macau did everything to make me feel at home,” she said thankfully before leaving on a high note to the Chinese capital. Nevertheless, the 800m gold medallist in Sydney 2000 could not do better than 5th place this time around.
More successful was the Russian synchronised swimming team, which received two gold medals in two Olympic competitions (duets and teams) in Beijing. Always very polite, Russian coach Tatjana Pokrovskaya praised the excellent conditions they enjoyed in Macau but refused the media access to any of the training sessions, as she was adamant to keep choreographies under strict secrecy.
The strategy worked, and as her team was about to leave Macau, a very confident Tatjana sent a warning to competitors from other nations: “We are Russia, beware darlings.”
Apparently, there was little their opponents could do.
