I was assigned as a referee for an international cycling race at the Olympic velodrome in Beijing, China, during the weekend of January 17-19, 2009.  And, although the trip was quite abbreviated, it was my first time inside China, so I wanted to try to get a look at it as best as I could.

Glimpse of the entry to the Forbidden City

One word I could use to describe Beijing is “big”.  It took a long time to get from the airport to our hotel, which was not very far from the Olympic Velodrome. On the way, we passed directly through the north edge of Tiananmen Square and in front of the famous picture of Chairman Mao Tse Tung that hangs in front of the entry to the Forbidden City. I just had to take a photo as we passed by.

Another word I could use to describe Beijing is “congested”, because the roads were quite busy with traffic.  Although I heard that the roads are often quite busy in town, it’s likely that the roads were unusually burdened because of the approaching Chinese New Year’s: everyone wanted to get home to spend time with their family over the holiday. Still, it seemed to me that the best plan for getting around town would be to use the subway, which cost a mere RMB 2 to board (at the time of writing, equivalent to USD 0.29). Sure, at peak times they shove people onto trains, but at off-peak times the ride is plenty comfortable.

About the Cycling

The race to which I was assigned as a referee was the third in a series of four races, called the 2008-2009 World Cup Track Cycling Classics.  This was the first international race held at the Olympic velodrome since its use during the 2008 Olympic Games, and we were lucky enough to have live television coverage for the evening sessions’ race finals.

As Race Secretary, my job was to set up all of the seedings, rounds and repechages for the race meet, to record all of the results, and to homologate any World Records that might be broken during the meet (alas, none was broken). By the time the event had ended, we’d generated 150 separate reports on the various races that had taken place [see full results for details].

Though the crowds were not huge, the Chinese fans were definitely motivated. Whenever any of the home country players were on the track, you could be guaranteed of a really good cheer from the backstraight, where this group of supporters was seated (see photo, left). Moreover, they were really good sports about cheering the winning team, even in the face of a Chinese loss.  In fact, what impressed me most was that nearly all of the spectators would stand and actually pay attention during the playing of a foreign national anthem at the awards ceremonies. That isn’t the case in many parts of the world.

As to the audience, while there were supporters in the evenings on the back side of the track at evening sessions, the number of spectators on the home straight was, unfortunately, not overwhelming—around 20 or so. The velodrome area is huge both in terms of area and (think ceiling height) in terms of volume.  That means it is likely expensive to run, both for power and for temperature control. I hope that it remains an important center for cycling and that it doesn’t become a white elephant that falls into disuse. If it is an integral part of cycling in Beijing, and if events are held there regularly, then it stands a good chance of developing supporters and others who will fill the seats at events both big and small.

Due to some last-minute reshuffling, our team of International Commissaires was smaller than usual, consisting of Wayne POMARIO, the jury president; ZHAO Jinshan, the Starter; Walter Ka Lok YUE, the Judge-Referee; and myself, the Race Secretary.  We were assisted by 22 National Commissaires from the Chinese Cycling Association, who took care of numerous tasks such as equipment checks and assisting in the track refereeing.  The race organization itself was quite large, including logistics, technical support, facilities management and transportation.

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It’s very common for Japanese companies to own a resort house for its employees to use as a “getaway”, much like having a subsidized company-owned hotel put at the disposal of the employees. The Shimano corporation has just such a place, called Kita Komatsu Villa, a stone’s throw away from Lake Biwa, the largest lake in Japan. And, thanks to one of our number who works for Shimano, we were able to secure sole use of the resort house for our small group’s party.

Shimano’s two-story resort house has a staff that tends to the kitchen (for a dining room that seats about 30 people), cleaning and administration. I didn’t count the rooms, but I would guess that there were about 8-10 rooms, each one a Japanese-style tatami-mat room sleeping about 4 on futons.  The centerpiece of the resort is a large “living room” style area, complete with tables, chairs, sofas, and an immense television.

Our bounenkai was really tiny — only five people — but we had a really enjoyable time.  First off we had a nice and very delicious Japanese-style dinner with all the trimmings. Naturally, that was followed up by the obligatory watching-of-cycling-videos from the year, accompanied by beer and, later, sake.

After completely dissecting all of the Japanese cycling events we could handle, we all took to the ofuro (Japanese hot bath), which seems to be where all the serious talk happens.  After that, with everyone pretty well exhausted, we retired to our large sleeping room, laid out our respective futons and crashed for the night.

In the morning, I experienced my first actual Japanese breakfast — in other words, one that involved eating raw eggs.  I must say it was much easier to deal with than I’d anticipated.  The key is in knowing how to mix the eggs with the soy sauce and that the eggs go into the rice while the rice is still quite hot.  It doesn’t completely cook the egg, but it is much more palatable than I’d imagined.

After breakfast and packing up, we checked out and headed to Kyoto to spend some time visiting cultural heritage sights sights before going our separate ways.  All in all, it was a remarkable couple of days!

This was my first trip ever to Okinawa, a really beautiful sub-tropical island that is Japan’s southernmost outpost. Part of the Ryūkyū island chain that extends southward in an arc from Kyūshū, Okinawa is about mid-way between the southern tip of Kyūshū and Taiwan. [map]

The weather was quite pleasant when I arrived there, with short sleeves being the rule. That was a far cry from Osaka, whose weather had long since turned to long sleeves and jackets by then. However, the good weather was not to last, as the forecast was for rain, sometimes heavy, on both days of the two-day race.

However, despite the gloomy forecast, I thoroughly enjoyed the good weather while it lasted. The race was headquartered in Nago City, about 70 kilometers north of the main international airport at Naha. The trip took about 1-1/2 hours by car each way.

The race consisted of two stages: a criterium stage on Saturday followed by a road race stage on Sunday. The criterium started without a hitch, but quickly fell apart when a brief but heavy burst of rain struck at about 1/3 of the way into the race. As is always the case at criteriums, rain produces crashes, and this event was no exception to that rule.

As a result of the rain, the results team had a difficult time keeping track of which riders were on even laps and which riders had received lap neutralizations.  This kind of confusion, of course, is the very reason why the UCI does not normally permit criteriums to be used as part of a professional road stage race. And I doubt it will be allowed in future editions.

The road race on Sunday, by contrast, was run on a very nice course that wound its way through the mountains on the north end of Okinawa island, effectively making one very large loop before returning to the finish in Nago City. The only blemish on the race was that the rain continued throughout the day and the winds became quite gusty at times — so much so that the locals even remarked that it was highly unusual. However, the occasional unobstructed view of the ocean from the race course was simply breathtaking.