Beijing / Xi'an 2008: Day 7 - Wu Di Gets Gold! (11/8)

It was the last day of competition for the Men's nationals.  Just two more events left in the morning and then the Women's Nationals would start on the next morning. 

Zane had left early for the competition and so Shahaub, x2 and I quickly grabbed our breakfast at the hotel and headed out to the venue to catch Wu Di's spear competition.  We saw a bit of the staff (cudgel) too, which wasn't bad, but I was mainly hoping that Wu Di would do well.

And, as you probably know by now, Wu Di managed to secure a gold medal 9.72 score for his spear performance.  Second place went to the last guy who got 9.71 and the third place was a 9.67.  I'm sure Zane will be posting the video at some point in the near future.  I'm having issues with my video camera's hard drive not being accessible by computer so I will have to figure out the cure for that problem after my travels have concluded.  Its a good thing that there are two of us here filming all of this.

Wu Di walking on to the carpet

After Wu Di's competition we hung around on the floor of the arena while he got his gold medal.  No fan fare or anything -- he just got it in an envelope with a certificate.  But we took pictures of videos to commemorate the occcasion. 

Wu Di and Coach Liu

wushu male models

zane interviews wu di

The other nice thing about being on the floor is that the Shandong Team was there practicing so I got to say hello to Coach Yang and some of the folks that I trained with while I was in Shandong back in 2006.  Its great to see them and its nice that they remember me.  (I suppose that Goodbye Shandong Wushu Team video I made for them probably didn't hurt.)

The four of us went back to our hotel and did some computer geeky stuff before three of us (sans Zane who opted out) went to grab some lunch and check out a nearby touristy alley with lots of little trinkets to buy.  We had a nice time walking around and checking things out and then made our way back to the hotel.

delicious dumplings

zhong zhi on a stick

street market with trinkets

Then it was time for the traditional afternoon of napping (for x2), rendering video (for zane) playing games (for shahaub) and blogging/computer stuff (for mark).  Later in the evening three of us (Zane opted out as he wasn't feeling well) went to go meet up with HK Collin and a couple other HK Team folks for some more lamb dumpling soup in the Muslim Quarter.

Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera to that so you'll just have to take my word for it that we had a good time.  Afterwards the four of them decided to go check out a Salsa Club near the Parkson and KFC, but x2 and I were not in a dancing mood and she watched TV while I did stuff on my computer.

Tomorrow the Women's Nationals starts with broadsword and straightsword in the morning.  I'm not a huge fan of those and am mostly curious about nanquan and nan dao so I might opt out and get some rest.  Its almost 3:00 am right now so I will probably be too tired to go.  Its a good thing Zane is here with his video camera ...