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Scots' Cassidy: Live from Beijing
Ed. note: Sid Cassidy is the swimming coach at Saint Andrew’s School.
By Sid Cassidy
Special to the News
The Olympic Dream …what a long strange trip it’s been … on both the short and the long terms. To put it into perspective, let me first explain where we are now: its 4 a.m. local time and I’m sitting in my room on the 12th floor of the Landmark Towers Hotel on 3rd Ring Road in Beijing, China.
My son Quinn and I arrived here 13 hours ago following a weather-induced travel saga that totaled more than 47 hours from the door of our home in Boca Raton to our hotel lobby 12 time zones away.
Because of the route that my wife Kara and daughter Kate took on separate flights, they managed to miss the hail in north Jersey that thwarted our plan to arrive together. They arrived on time and have managed to already witness Michael Phelps collect gold medals (and world record) No. 4 and 5 of this Olympiad as he continues his onslaught of aquatic history.
In a few more, hours the reunited Cassidy family will join the throngs lucky enough to be inside the Water Cube on the sixth day of this incredibly momentous swim meet.
I am so very grateful to the staff at FINA (the international Governing Body for all aquatic sports) and especially Executive Director Cornel Marculescu for allowing us this fantastic opportunity.
However, it is not pool swimming that brings me here, it is my duties as the Chairman of the FINA Technical Open Water Swimming Committee as we debut the Olympic Marathon Swim here at the XXIX Games.
The big picture goes back more than 35 years when a budding young distance swimmer learned that swimming a straight line over the 200-meter lengths in the Avon-Lake Boat Club paid immense dividends.
The team that Coach Bob Mattson of Wilmington Aquatic Club had built up by the early 1970s consisted of many older and faster freestyle specialists.
The Sea Tigers were known for their incredible training sets, and those summer days at that quarry hole in the mushroom country of southeast Pennsylvania will always mark a turning point in my life. It was there that I learned how to rise to a challenge and shatter my own belief system – it was there I learned that anything is possible with a vision and persistent application of superior effort. It was there in that open water that I first dreamt of an Olympic Marathon Swim.
Fast forward to the early 1980s, when as a young coach attending my first U.S. Aquatic Convention in Snowbird, Utah, I learned this newly formed National Governing Body of United States Swimming had a committee working on “Long Distance Swimming.”
I gladly joined in with leaders Dale Petranech of New Jersey and Penny Dean of California, and soon found myself loudly extolling the virtues of this most natural swimming event to anyone who would listen in the aquatic world. There were not many ready for the message.
Another decade has passed and hundreds, if not thousands of supporters from around the world have joined in with us to promote this great event. We sit here on the edge of what is truly an historic moment, and yet much drama will certainly unfold in the days that are soon to follow. I am optimistic that the FINA partnership with BOCOG and cooperation with the International Governing Bodies of Canoe & kayak and Rowing will provide our debut event with a great inaugural event. Certainly the Shunyi Center is an outstanding venue, but there are considerable challenges ahead. Perhaps the most significant will likely be the extremely warm water that our athletes will face. I will continue to update our adventures here as the days pass … for now it is off to the Water Cube!
Entry #2 - Aug. 15
It's 6 a.m. here and soon we will be off to another day of adventure. It is so strange to be going to a swim meet where preliminaries are at night and finals in the morning – it may be great for you folks back home, but it is not well liked here at all.
I did spend a full day at the Cube and witnessed some fine swimming plus we are starting to have some preliminary meetings for the Olympic Marathon Swim.
Kara, Quinn and Kate were all delighted to learn that the passes provided to them were of VIP status.
They feature a passport photo, a personal barcode and a special hologram that provides electronic approval when entering a venue.
Most importantly, they discovered that these passes also display an infinity symbol and the letters PEA – Prime Events Access – it is the big daddy of all credentials that allows access into any event and seats in VIP sections at ANY event!
Last night while I took care of some business at the Water Cube, Kara and the kids enjoyed the “Redeem Team” dismantling of Greece over at the Basketball arena.
Today Kara will take Kate to witness her new idol Shawn Johnson in the gymnastics all-around competition.
What a treat! We also plan to visit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City today so we must get rolling. More soon.
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