Fifth & Sixth day in Nanjing

Nanjing Diary Day Five and Day Six

Hello everyone; Sorry about the delay in getting this diary updated for you. The facts are that time is racing along here in Nanjing now since the night of the wonderful Opening Ceremony. Now the early days of events and the commentary of them (my main purposes here) have started up and that is the job on hand now for the about 25 or so men and women who have been assembled here from around the world to report and commentate on them.

[I also have very much come to the conclusion that in New Zealand as far as connection to email, twitter, face book and emails etc goes our country (or is it the whole of the Western world?) is way ahead of China.]

I definitely think so. Getting things connected has not always been easy this week.

Still never mind - I am not complaining one jot. It is great to be here for the Second Summer Youth Olympic Games and the event is running along just great. The whole event and the city's reaction to it feels just like all of the other 'Olympic' events I have been lucky enough to go to in my time.

In the first days I am here to broadcast as the sport of rugby sevens returns to the Olympic scene - and that all  is going well. My commentary colleague is a likable Englishman, the Birmingham-born Mark Tompkins. He and I are getting along like a house on fire; he listens patiently to my myriad of 'Back in the Good Old Days' stories while totally and utterly I rely on him to find our way through the maze and haze of life among eight million people. I just follow...

Here's how a typical day unfolds; (I feel like I've lived here a lifetime, honestly)

Mark and I meet in the foyer of the hotel at about 6.40am. We then catch the 6.50 bus from down the road a bit. We get off and change to another bus line and there we can settle back a little. The ride takes about 50 minutes! To the point where just when we are getting sick of sitting or standing our rugby arena rises out of the morning grey and mist to great us.

The rugby fields are part of a sports hub built especially for the Summer Youth Games. Situated 20 kilometres from town it is an amazing complex. There are arenas with grandstands, playing fields, BMX tracks, Volleyball courts of the indoor and beach variety, restaurant halls, medical rooms and hospitals, an admin block, a cycle track, walkways, weight rooms, gymnasia of all kinds; you name it is all here - and it is not the biggest Sports hub - IN THIS CITY - let alone the biggest in the country!

The rugby event is going so well I wonder if the NZRU is now looking at the Youth Olympic movement in a new light and is perhaps saying to itself - 'shouldn't we have found some monies to perhaps have found 12 promising boys and girls to have represented us in Nanjing in the rugby. (We did qualify to be here via our teams in Moscow last year). Instead now a dozen young Aussie kids will have learned how to merge themselves into the unique Olympic way and will perhaps therefore be better prepared than our kids at Rio in 2016?'

We shall see I guess.

In the meantime, let me try and file this on keithquinnrugby.com and I'll talk to you here tomorrow.

By the way; I'm picking China's women and Argentina's men to win the rugby gold medals here. With the Aussie girls right up there.

You see if I'm right here in two days time!

 .....