Rio 2016 – best archery quotes

21 August, 2016

Deepika Kumari & samba girls. #Rio2016


“There’s an expression here that says, ‘If you’ve got ginga, you can do anything’.”

– Ane Marcelle Dos Santos (BRA). Google ‘ginga’. Go on. 

“I don’t have to say anything to them, because I know just how much hard work and effort I’ve put in.”

 – Deepika Kumari (IND), on what she would say to the notoriously harsh Indian media about the team’s performance.

 

“Very proud, just to put on the green and gold every morning, remember where I come from and how lucky I am to represent the country that I love.”

 – Taylor Worth (AUS) on representing Australia

 

“I was feeling great and enjoying every arrow, so there was no reason for me to stop smiling.”

 – Alejandra Valencia (MEX) on smiling all the time while competing

 

“I have never imagined that I wouldn’t shoot an arrow everyday.”

 – Choi Misun (KOR) on whether she will continue as an archer after Rio

 

[wry smile plays across her face] “That is something I’ve never thought about.”

– Chang Hyejin on whether she is going to retire after Rio

 

“I have been shooting since I was eight and now I’m 28, so with my 20 years of doing this, I feel like I’m the king and I have the crown.”

 – Florian Floto (GER) after winning one match. One.

 

“It means everything, it’s a part of my life. How I am is because of archery.”

 – Antonio Fernandez (ESP) on his relationship with the sport

 

“New world record.”

 – what Kim Woojin said out loud, in English, half a second after putting in that final arrow to make the 700

 

“There are many athletes that dream about competing at the Olympics but only a few of them get the chance to do it at home. If there’s anything I will remember, I think it would be the match with the team where I shot a 10 and the crowd went crazy. Hearing my name and Brazil so loud, wow, that will remain with me forever.”

 – Bernado Oliveira (BRA)

“Despite the results, I feel satisfied with my performance. I think I will always remember the support of the people in the stands. That sound, if I close my eyes, I can still hear it.

“This journey has been amazing and completely different from what I thought it could be. It’s been more exciting than any other international event. There’s hope, there’s a future and there’s the capability in Brazil to make archery a great sport.”

 – Marina Canetta (BRA)

 

“My goal is to do my best to tell them: it’s not over, they can still fight with the situation and do great things. Don’t let your disability defeat you. Sport is the best means to defeat disability.”

– Zahra Nemati (IRI), on what message she would like to send other Paralympic athletes

 

“I didn’t need my glasses today, therefore everyone saw the evil eye.”

 – Sjef Van Den Berg (NED) on competing with a burst blood vessel in his eye


“I prepared a lot, and it’s all gone now.”

– Kim Woojin (KOR) on being knocked out in the 2nd round

 

“It’s the most respectful way to give thanks to the spectators who cheered for me.”

 – Ku Bonchan after him and his coach getting on their knees on the field after his individual win

 

“I’ve had it told to me before, even when I was younger. I personally don’t see a huge resemblance, maybe besides the facial hair. He is a good-looking dude so I guess it’s a compliment.”

– Brady Ellison (USA) on dozens of frivolous international press articles suggesting he looks like  – or possibly even is – Leonardo DiCaprio

 

“Who ever wins, wins: it’s archery. It’s not life and death.”

 – Zach Garrett on going up against Brady Ellison

 

“Bowing is in their culture, they bow as we shake hands. We respect them so much and they would always do the same for us.”

 – Jake Kaminski (USA) on the USA men’s team bowing to the Koreans on the field after the win

“Yes, if I go back out there and do it.”

 – Park Sung Hyun, archery legend, on whether she believes that her 1405 FITA world record will ever be broken. (She was there to commentate for Korean TV along with husband and fellow legend Park Kyung-Mo). 

 

“When it´s time for me to sleep, I always think about archery. That is why I can stay on top.”

– Ki Bo Bae (KOR)

 

“For me, it tastes like rainbow coloured candy.”

– Chang Hyejin on what her first gold medal tastes like

 

“I’m still hungry.”

– Choi Misun on what her first gold medal tastes like

 

“I did cry. You just couldn’t see me.”

– Choi Misun on why she did not visibly cry on winning team gold

 

[Made no statement after crying and remaining silent for 16 seconds]

– Choi Misun after her individual early bath

 

“The important thing is that you have to fight until the last arrow, with your heart and mind.”

Ilario Di Buo (ITA) – six-time Olympian and Italian women’s coach

“Every athlete’s dream is to come to the Olympics and to become an Olympian in their life. Whether I win or lose, I want to compete with champions.”

 – Karma (BHU)

 

“We just thought that all the cheers were all for us.”

 – Guendalina Sartori (ITA), on the crowd cheering against them and for Brazil

 

 “Perfect is hard to beat. That was a world-record performance that they put on. You’re not going to see three sets going that high probably ever again.”

 – Brady Ellison on the Korean men’s team performance in the final

 

“I see Korea as a challenge, not a threat.”

 – Tan Ya-Ting (TPE)

 

“Everybody that I meet along the way, everybody you meet adds something to your life. My mother is my coach, my team manager, she’s my everything. She has always been there for me in archery, she is my biggest rock.”

– Shehzana Anwar (KEN) on her heroes

 

“If I fail, I fail my whole country, so I need to play my part and do it good.”

 – Yessica Camilo Gonzalez (DOM), on representing her country

 

“Shooting one point more than your opponent.”

 – Rick Van Der Ven (NED) on what it will take to win the gold medal here in Rio. Yeah, thanks Rick.

 

“It’s a dream, like a little boy, when you start practising archery and you’re getting better and better and (at) a little young age you are dreaming about shooting at the Olympics… so yeah, dreams come true.”

 – Mitch Dielemans (NED), on dreaming

 

“It’s a joke. I think it takes away from our sport. I don’t know any other sport where you can make a huge detrimental mistake and still win.

“It’s no longer ‘the best team wins’. It’s a beautiful sport and I don’t think you should be able to make big mistakes and win. Individually, we’re used to it (the set system). In the team rounds there’s no place for it.”

 – Brady Ellison on the set system in team rounds

 

“We’re the first Britons competing with the newly designed GB kit on. If you think about it historically, archers in battle were always the first people to attack, because of the long-range aspects of the weapon. So that fits in quite nicely with Britons leading the charge.”

 – Patrick Huston (GBR), on being the first Olympic sport out of the gate

 

“There’s no one I fear. I don’t want to meet a Korean in one of the early rounds of the tournament, because they won’t be nervous and will be whitewashing everybody. So if I rank well in qualification, that’ll keep me avoiding them for a while. But in the last 16 or later? They’re probably more nervous than I’m going to be. I’ve mentally rehearsed beating them all, so (in my mind) I’ve beaten them before and I’ll beat them again.”

 – Patrick Huston on the mental game

 

“I’d like to watch Usain Bolt run the 100m. And the rhythmic gymnastics.”

 – Kim Woojin on other sporting events he would like to go see at Rio 2016. Why didn’t I follow this up with “Rhythmic what now?”

 

“My Korean colleagues.”

 – Ku Bonchan on who he fears facing most

 

“Any one of us has to win the gold medal. It’s kind of a competition among Korean archers. So I’m very grateful to my friend Chang Hyejin, she has fulfilled her responsibility.”

 – Ki Bo Bae, one of several quotes illustrating that Korea consider Olympic archery gold medals manifest destiny

 

“The only real difference is the silence for archery when you shoot. You do samba with your feet. Archery with your hands. The emotion and the excitement is the same.”

 – Ane Marcelle Dos Santos (BRA), samba dancer, on the difference between doing samba and archery in the Sambodromo

 

“Archery is my life, and I was born for only archery.”

– Bombalya Devi Laishram (IND)

 

*Thanks to all the archers;  Kendra, Catrell, Chris, Andrea, and Ludi.*

Rio 2016 Olympic Games – men’s individual

13 August, 2016

Last day in the Sambodromo. I’ve been here every day for nearly three weeks. Will be back for the Paralympics next month. Thanks for following along. – John

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Taylor Worth, Ku Bonchan

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Mark Dellenbach (FRA coach), Jean-Charles Valladont

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Sjef van den Berg

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Atanu Das

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Brady Ellison

 

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Shh. Samba time.

Ku Bonchan

Ku Bonchan

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Jean-Charles Valladont

Ku Bonchan

Ku Bonchan

Brady Ellison

Brady Ellison

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Ku Bonchan, JC

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Ku

Rio 2016 – women’s individual finals

12 August, 2016

Chang Hyejin

Chang Hyejin

That was just extraordinary.

No-one, no one conceived anything like that. Unruh taking out the much-fancied Tan Ya-Ting who collapsed in the last 16. Unruh? And then that fabulous, unreal match when Alejandra Valencia, the giant killer, thumped Choi Misun 6-0, to deafening roars across the concrete, and everything turned upside down.

Both Choi and Ki seemed to have every expectation strapped to their backs like a millstone. Neither of them seemed entirely comfortable in any elimination match. I predicted earlier Choi would not get the final gong, but I thought Ki would step up and deliver like she has so many times, when it seems effortless.

But the pressure on them, internal or external, was just ridiculous. Chang’s shot was on point leading in to the business end and seemed to have so much less on her shoulders, although you could see the fear in her face backstage when Misun fell apart. I like to think that I’m a sympathetic, empathetic soul, but I’m still bummed that this flash quote, taken immediately after by my GSOH student reporter, got spiked by the desk:

It’s a lot of time to be out here, a long, long time to maintain concentration. Worse, there was a four-hour gap between the 1/16 rounds and the machine-gun rounds of the quarter-finals onwards, the train that goes where it goes with no more time to think. I’m guessing a lot of brooding went on in that gap. Too many thoughts, two weeks of being away in Rio, too much waiting, too many ghosts. And it left time for a capricious, djinn-like wind to grow strong and start throwing things about even more.

Choi and Ki left it somewhere else. The team medal means a great deal, but the individual title is everything to the Korean women. A chance to step up with the gods. Collectively, they still top the world; individually, the pressure to live up to the legacy was too great.

Ki kinda, almost guardedly acknowledged as much in the soft-soap press conference afterwards, at which the only minor frisson came when Chang was asked if she was going to retire after these Games. A wry smile went across her face, before she replied, in the flat tones of the translator, “That is something I’ve never thought of.”

Lisa Unruh and Alejandra Valencia brilliantly derailed the train, and Chang Hyejin, the ‘third’, the hard worker, the unlucky one, a deeply religious woman and an proud, gutsy athlete, went out there and did it. There was an aggressive snap to her shot today, a sense of power. She knew it was good.

And a special well-done to Lisa Unruh. Kept her head when all about were losing theirs, and picked up a big gong for it.

And they’re still letting me in the call room. I guess I’m there for the duration now. Last day tomorrow. Thanks for reading.  -John

Wu Jiaxin

Wu Jiaxin

Ane Marcelle Dos Santos

Ane Marcelle Dos Santos

Naomi Folkard

Naomi Folkard

Chang Hyejin

Chang Hyejin

Kang Un-ju

Kang Un-ju, coach

Lisa Unruh

Lisa Unruh

Choi Misun

Choi Misun

Alejandra Valencia

Alejandra Valencia

Ki Bo Bae

Ki Bo Bae

(Colour version of the above pic here).

more pictures from the call room

11 August, 2016

The call room is a tiny area underneath the east stand of the Sambodromo where the archers wait for their match, wait to go on stage. There’s a lot of thinking – or maybe trying not to think too much – in a very small, unglamorous space. They actually moved one ‘wall’ of it inwards due to the winds a few days ago, which makes it feel a bit more like a prison cell.

For some reason, I’m allowed in there, with a camera. I’m trying to make the most of it.

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David Pasqualucci, Areneo David

 

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Bernado Oliveira

 

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Tan Ya-Ting

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Marco Galiazzo

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Zach Garrett

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Caroline Aguirre

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Deepika Kumari, Kristine Esubua

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Yessica Camilo

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Choi Misun

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Patrick Huston

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Choi Misun & coach

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Le Chien-Ling

“Describe archery in a single word.”

10 August, 2016

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Samba lady, Sambodromo

At the Sambodromo, during Tuesday and Wednesday’s eliminations, athletes were asked to describe archery in a single word. This is how they replied:

 

Marina Canetta (Brazil)

“Knowledge.”

Antonio Fernandez (Spain)

“Surprising.”

Lisa Unruh (Germany)

“Precision.”

Tan Ya-Ting (Chinese Taipei)

“Enjoyment.”

Florian Floto (Germany)

“Concentration.”

Alejandra Valencia (Mexico)

“Perfection.”

Juan Rodriguez (Spain)

“Perseverance.”

Gabriela Bayardo (Mexico)

“Serious.”

Zach Garrett (USA)

“Focus.”

Crispin Duenas (Canada)

“Counterintuitive.”

Ku Bonchan (Korea)

“Enjoyable.”

Karma (Bhutan)

“Everything.”

Guendalina Sartori (Italy)

“Difficult.”

Robin Ramaekers (Belgium)

“Pressure.”

Le Chien-Ying (Chinese Taipei)

“Steady.”

Choi Misun (Korea)

“Dream.”

Patrick Huston (GBR)

“Epitome.”

Laxmirani Mahji (India)

“Not easy. Oh, that’s two words. But it’s not easy!”

Comments made during Olympic 1/32 and 1/16 eliminations at the Sambodromo, Rio De Janeiro on Tuesday 9th and Wednesday 10th August 2016.  Thanks to Kendra, Catrell and the many volunteer translators who helped with this piece.

 

Olympic archery memorabilia collection

9 August, 2016

Some pictures taken in Shanghai this year but never published: the Olympic memorabilia collection of Mr. Song Tao, a bequiffed Chinese dude who has been collecting for nearly eight years.

It was on display in the entrance to the Yuanshen Stadium where qualifying took place, and was the first time the whole collection had been out in public.

Take a look below:

AWCShanghai-0821 copy

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AWCShanghai-0157

AWCShanghai-0159

AWCShanghai-0161

AWCShanghai-0162

AWCShanghai-0163

 

AWCShanghai-0166

AWCShanghai-0167

AWCShanghai-0173

AWCShanghai-0176

AWCShanghai-0180

AWCShanghai-0181

AWCShanghai-0183

AWCShanghai-0825

AWCShanghai-0827

AWCShanghai-0829

AWCShanghai-0833

AWCShanghai-0836

AWCShanghai-0843

AWCShanghai-0845

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The proud owner with some of his favourite pieces.

Rio 2016 Olympic Games day 2 / 3

8 August, 2016

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Taipei recurve women

So I was really pleased that Chinese Taipei women got a medal. I’ve become a bit of a fanboy of their team. They seem to want it just as much as the Koreans, with just as much to prove. Their technique is spectacular, effortless.

The match of the day on women’s team Saturday was the Chinese Taipei v Mexico semi-final. 4-0 down, Aida Roman blew it with the last arrow due to time issues, and Taipei pulled out an absolutely blistering, confident comeback. No match after that on Sunday was better – and some were downright terrible.

The ladies in blue never really mounted enough of a challenge against Korea in the semi. You could feel there wasn’t enough under the hood. If they’d qualified second, hammered their bracket and met them in the final maybe the story would have been different – even just a little bit.

In the interminable press conference afterwards the Korean women were keen to listen to what Taipei had to say and shot them respectful glances, reminding me of how the USA men bowed to the men in white after the final on Saturday. I really enjoy the respect shown at the very highest level.

Russia lucked their way through some inconsistent opponents to get to the last match, but the way they were shooting, you knew they were going home with silver. Unlike Saturday’s top seed action, this was a coronation of the Korean women. Although some questions remain; individually, there are just a few chinks of light in the armour. I can’t see a clean white sweep of the podium.

I’m writing this on Day 3. I just walked past Kim Woojin, tanked by serial giant killer Ega Agatha Riau in the day’s biggest news story. He was laughing, although someone said they saw him crying too. I was in the OBS pen when Aida Roman broke down in tears, on camera, after her first round loss to Alexandra Mirca. It was agonising to be there, nearly set me off too when transcribed the tape.

I was willing on Ane Marcelle Dos Santos, as was everybody else in the stadium. The best ever Olympic result for a Brazilian archer. Pandemonium. Mobbed by the crowd afterwards. She’s awesome.

Anyway, enjoy some backstage pics from today and yesterday. Keep following along wherever you are. I’m still hoping this Games is remembered for all the right reasons.  – John.

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KOR – recurve women’s team

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TPE call room

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ITA call room

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Lin Shih-Chia faces the media

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KOR call room 2

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RUS arrows

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KOR face the media

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there was more samba – new costumes

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Shehzana from Kenya’s turn to shine.

Rio Olympic Games 2016 – Day One

7 August, 2016

The day belonged to Ku Bonchan, Lee Seungyun, and Kim Woojin. It didn’t belong to ‘Korea’, that archery monolith. It belonged to those three guys who looked like what they were; a team. Distinct personalities, distinct styles – but indisputably a team, and delivering the most sublime, confident high-level target shooting the world has ever seen. Literally on another level.

The USA were great, on point, delivering the goods, and just as close. They bowed to the Korean lads afterwards. That was nice. Australia punched up.

There was samba dancing. On the field. A lot of it. TONS of it.

A lot of today’s pics are mostly about athletes in that weird limbo period in between doing the deep magic. The waiting. Who knows, tomorrow’s pics might be too.

Cheers.

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Jean-Charles Valladont

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Zach Garrett, Brady Ellison

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Lee Seungyun

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Taylor Worth, Ryan Tyack

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Alec Potts

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Samba Lady

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Lee Seungyun

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CHN RM

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Ku, Kim

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KOR RM

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Deepika Kumari + samba girls

7 days to go… archery and Olympics news

29 July, 2016

We’re in the countdown zone. Teams are arriving, the Sambodromo is being rapidly polished up for the debut next Friday morning, and there’s a growing air of anticipation. On Monday this was just a training field, this weekend it’s starting to seem like an Olympic venue. We’ve now got a steady stream of broadcast media coming in; today, we had Aida Roman being interviewed by Mexican TV.

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Aida Roman does press

Some more pics from the last two days:

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TPE arrahs

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Areneo David of Malawi

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MEX RW

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TPE RW

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IND RW

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TPE RM

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Marcus D’Almeida

And look who turned up late this afternoon – not to train, but just to have a look around. There’s been three Korean camera crews hanging around the Sambodromo for two whole days. When the Great White Sharks finally turned up for a nose around it was like watching shipwrecked men suddenly find a barrel of water.

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KOR turn up, hit the social media

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Hail Woojin, King Of Media

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Choi Misun. “Win it? Yeah, probably.”

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“So I put one in there, right, but the next one went in there…”

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This pic of Park Chae Soon actually taken by Ku Bonchan. He snatched the camera off me.

Some external news: Ki Bo Bae sticks to the script in a video piece on MSN, and feel free to enjoy the youthful exuberance of the Korean men’s team.

Turns out Atanu Das collects stamps. Who knew? A rather charming story in a tidal wave of media hype coming from the notoriously tempestuous Indian media. The Indian team have been out here working damn hard all week. If they don’t bring something home, watch the furies being unleashed.

Marcus D’Almeida in a rather flowery news piece (in Portuguese).  The Brazilian team have been working really hard out here, and I’d love to see them go deep.  Rather pleased that my piece on Bernado Oliveira and the Brazilian squad made it onto the front page of Rio2016.com.

Patrick Huston has made another video about his journey to Rio:

I’ll do my best to keep blogging over next week, but it really depends on how busy I am. Stay tuned. Thank you!

Sambodromo

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looking north (away from the archery)

The Sambadrome Marquês de Sapucaí was built in 1984, as a parade ground for the samba schools in the annual Rio Carnival; there are now ‘Sambadromes’ in several other Brazilian cities. Nearly a kilometre long, it was made by converting an existing street and adding bleachers along its length.  One end is a large square, where the parades finish; this is now the ranking round and practice range. Immediately next to that is the finals field, where the magic will happen. This is walled off at two ends and much more enclosed than previous Olympic archery venues. A little theatre. I think it’s going to be noisy.

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what it looks like at Carnival time. Photo: Nat. Geographic

Unlike all the other Olympic venues in Rio, it’s resolutely urban, stuck in the middle of a working-class neighbourhood called Cidade Nova, currently crawling with police. Bounded to the north by an eight-lane highway, another long freeway runs right down one side, only about twenty yards from our press tent. All around are unclosed roads.

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Past the arch, to the south, lie three large favelas, the oldest being Morro da Mineira. It’s an oddity that in most places in the world, the rich live up the top of the hill, with housing getting grander the higher you go. In many (but not all) parts of Rio it’s exactly the opposite.

It’s the only Olympic venue where you can see Rio’s most famous icon, the statue of Christ The Redeemer built in the 1930s, merely by looking up from the range – which should give succour to the several Catholics with a shot at an archery medal.

It’s difficult to say it’s a pretty place. It’s designed to come alive with colour and people and music; a neutral space. It’s a vast, monumentally brutal bit of concrete surrounded by more crumbling concrete, and much of it is in dire need of a paint job. When you hear it was made by Brazil’s most famous architect, Oscar Niemeyer, at first I thought, well, everyone has a bad day at the office.

Niemeyer is famous for many great buildings in Brazil, and one of his last in the 1990s was one of his most lauded, the MAC Contemporary Art Gallery in Niterói, a short ferry ride across the bay from central Rio. I went there last week:

MAC 5

MAC 4

I absolutely loved this landed-UFO-cum-Bond-villain-lair showing off on a short spit of land overlooking Sugarloaf Mountain, although it’s almost too outré for it’s own good.  No-one visiting seemed bothered about the rather confusing exhibition currently on display. They’d come to see IT, not what was in it.

Niemeyer, who died in 2012, was famous for his curves – rather like another late Olympic architect, Zaha Hadid, who designed the aquatics centre for London. His most famous quote on the subject goes like this:

I am not attracted to straight angles or to the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. I am attracted to free-flowing, sensual curves. The curves that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuousness of its rivers, in the waves of the ocean, and on the body of the beloved woman. Curves make up the entire Universe, the curved Universe of Einstein.

Which seems a bit at odds with the squared off, boxy concrete lines I’m currently spending all day, every day in. But once I started nosing around the Sambodromo, I finally started seeing a little of the architect’s vision; the detailing, the shaping and yep, the curves.

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I think it’ll be a memorable outing – and I hope for all the right reasons. Our thing, our little corner, has the potential to be something very special, if the weather holds out and the soft winter sunshine makes the concrete glow.

I’m glad it’s here, in this defiantly real part of town, and not in some gleaming new arena that’s going to be broken up in a few weeks. It’s a spot with a bit of soul. Let’s watch what happens together.