USA! USA! USA!

Molly woke up at 6:30. We were not in a rush, so it worked out well.

Today is Jim's first day of competition. He is competing in the shot put, 100 meter (metre) dash, long jump, and 400 meter (metre) sprint. Dani admitted that Jim was so nervous last night that he had to straighten up their apartment before he could go to sleep. With the eye of the tiger, Jim headed to the track early so we met up with Dani and had breakfast before Cheryl and Molly joined her on the shuttle to the athletic fields.

I needed to get Cheryl's bike to the Gold Coast Triathlete bike shop to have broken down for shipping. GCT has been the unofficial bike shop of Team USA. Most of the team took their bikes there for assembly and breakdown and we all got to know Noel and his crew. GCT is an elite bike shop (see e.g. the $8,000 Cervelo P4 frame and fork on display), but they quickly adopted our team and went out of their way to support the athletes (one employee used his day off to come out an cheer Team USA and take photos). While I was chatting with Noel about the Games and Cheryl's results the phone rings. After finishing the conversation, he apologized and explained that it was Rebekah Keat wondering whether her bike would be ready by Tuesday when she leaves for Hawaii. Rebekah recently finished second behind Chrissie Wellington at the Challenge Roth, taking 6 minutes off the previous world Ironman record for women. She is heading to Hawaii to start focusing on the Ironman Championships in Kona. This is not your average bike shop. They used to catering to the world's best professional athletes and yet were willing to treat our transplant cyclists like the rockstars we know they are.

I made it back to the track and field venue in time to watch Jim accept his gold medal in the shot put. Jim put on a show of USA strength by besting strong competition from Hungry and Greece. In the 100 and 400 Jim was very proud of his effort, but will admit that running, much less sprinting, is not his strongest event.

In the long jump Jim took a very respectable 7th which is very impressive for an event that he just took up earlier this summer.

The US had a very strong showing all day long in track and field. The men's 4x100 dominated and we took home at least one medal in nearly every event. Even in the unorthodox cricket ball toss, Brandon dominated the field to bring home a gold.

After a long ride back to the serviced apartment, Molly decided it would be best if we just ordered pizza in for dinner. The Surfer's Delight was a little bland, but Molly loved her cheese pizza. And we didn't have to worry about dragging her off the stage this evening.