We went with the family to the Commonwealth Games on Saturday. Glasgow was busy, but the zillions of Games volunteers and staff not only made everything go smoothly, they went about it in a really warm and familial way. I’ve heard of some logistical problems, and we had an issue with one of our tickets (it seemed to be double-booked), but generally everything was really well thought-out. I can’t imagine what it takes to pull something off on that scale.
Getting tickets was a lottery in which you take whatever’s offered. We got the women’s weightlifting competition. I’m not a sports person in general, and this event was totally off my radar, so the last thing I expected was to be completely riveted through the whole show.
They call these “the friendly games”, and that was certainly true throughout this particular event. No matter who was on the stage, the whole crowd rooted for them to lift the weight successfully. Just seeing another human being try so hard at something, you can’t help but identify with them, and their nationality is immaterial.
The young English woman who won gold was cute and charming, and the Welsh woman — 35, a full 15 years older than the youngest competitor — was a crowd-pleasing personality who reminded me of k.d. lang. The silver went to a woman from Nigeria who, unfortunately, wore a very pissy expression throughout the medal ceremony (much as we’d seen the Scottish men’s swimming “poster boy” do when he only got silver to his teammate’s surprise gold win).
I just tried to do some sketches of the event, which didn’t come out very well — but hey, that’s what makes it practice, right?
I fell into the Uncanny Valley here, not quite drawing realistically, not quite cartooning. Drawing specific people is a bitch. I keep finding myself doing it, but it’s not really my thing. And the page wrinkled early on while I was erasing. Ah well…