Learning New Sports & Seeing the Medal Ceremony

If you’re looking for a random, off-the-wall Olympic sport, then judo is a pretty good one. The matches are quick, you get to see several of them, and there’s a large number of different countries competing. In fact, I believe judo has had the most number of different countries win medals than any other sport. Every time a judoka came out, there was loud blaring rap music and it honestly felt like an MMA fighter set to enter the ring in a UFC match.

When I sat down though, I realized that I didn’t quite understand the rules to judo. I turned to a woman next to me and asked: “Are you a big fan of this sport?”

“I am athlete,” the woman said in broken English. It turned out she was a Romanian Olympian named Corina Caprioriu, who was set to compete the next day in the 57 KG judo event.

I then asked her how you scored points and she said “get on the back” while pointing to her back. After realizing her English wasn’t strong enough to help us too much, we wound up reading the rules to judo on Wikipedia on my iPhone, and it was pretty easy to figure out from there.

At one point during the matches, a group of 12 people wearing Team Finland polo shirts claimed we were in their seats. We moved over and I wound up chatting with a man from Luxembourg who was cheering on Marie Muller from his home country. She lost a bronze medal match to Italy’s Rosalba Forciniti and he left to go back home disappointed. After about 45 minutes, the Finnish delegation left too, and we took their seats. I’m not sure how many people would have wanted those seats that the Finns took for 45 minutes of action, but I guess that’s what happens in an Olympics.

When it finally came for to the gold matches, I witnessed Kum Ae An of North Korea defeat Yanet Bermoy Acosta of Cuba in the women’s 52 KG. That’s probably the only time I’ll ever cheer for Cuba in anything, and the North Korean women had the smallest support of anyone fighting that day.

There was a large contingent from Japan at the event, but the rowdiest fans came from the Republic of Georgia who boisterously cheered on Lasha Shavdatuashvili in his exciting win over Hungary’s Miklos Ungvari in the men’s 66 KG gold medal match. Watching Shavdatuashvili was probably the highlight of the day, and we stayed to see him and An of North Korea receive their medals.

The medal ceremonies are one of the coolest parts of an Olympic Games, and I’m glad we got to see them. If you’re buying Olympic tickets in the future, then make sure you go to at least one event where medals are distributed. The London 2012 organizers played some kind of random remix of John Williams’ Olympic theme, Black Eyed Peas, Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger,” and a few other pop songs. Then we heard the national anthem of the winning nation (North Korea first, and then Georgia later), followed by the playing the “Chariots of Fire” theme as the medalists circled the arena. It was definitely an emotional moment for all involved, and a real treat to see.

Check back later in the week with more of Phil’s updates from the ground in London.

For more Olympics travel, check out our London 2012 coverage:

• Peter’s  Video Travel Tip on What to Know Before You Go: London 2012
• Peter’s Travel Detective Blog on Olympic Myths and How Travelers Can Benefit
• Our news coverage, Could London Lose Money from the Olympic Games?
• 4 Last-Minute Olympics Accommodation Ideas
• Peter’s Video Travel Tip on Olympic Planning & Peter’s Travel Tip: Free & Affordable Olympic Events

By Phil Wallace for PeterGreenberg.com. Phil Wallace is the founder and president of Picktainment.com.