Hello, everyone.
We are in the Olympic Village getting ready for the Opening Ceremonies. We just got issued our Opening Ceremonies hats. We got issued everything else last month in San Diego, so we are searching our luggage for everything else.
We did boat work all day. Bob has been coloring the Olympic flag onto our spinnaker, and I sanded the centerboard trunk to get the CB to go up and down better. Bob says the 50 stars are very hard to do.
We leave for the Opening Ceremonies at 5:45 p.m. and don't walk into the stadium until 9:00 p.m., so it's going to be a long wait. In the meantime, we are watching last Sunday's football game on TV. The USOC taped it for us, and we get to borrow the tape.
Well, we start racing in five days.
Talk to you later.
Paul and Bob
Team 2000
NOTE FROM BEANARD: Paul shared a very special moment with us this morning by phoning us directly from the floor of the Olympic Stadium at 6:30 (Dallas time), just after he had marched in with all the other athletes. We could hear great joy and excitement in his voice, amid the din of background music and fireworks, as he described the lighting of the torch. This quiet gesture of thoughtfulness in the midst of one of the most exciting events in his life, typifies Paul's personality. Together with his attitude of total commitment to high ideals and standards, not for personal gain or glory, but for bringing pleasure and pride to others and honor to God by applying his God-given talents, makes Paul a very special American ambassador of goodwill and a formidable opponent on the racecourse. He is, indeed, a national treasure, and we wish him and crew, Bob Merrick, all the best as they enter into the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
GO, TEAM 2000!