LONDON, ENGLAND – AUGUST 3: Woo Young Won of Korea and coach celebrate match point winning the gold medal during the Men’s Fencing Team Sabre Gold Medal Final Day 7 of the London 2012 Olympic Games on August 3, 2012 at the Excell Center in London, England. (Photo by Donald Miralle) Nikon D4 Lens:200-400mm Fstop:4 Shutter: 1/1600 sec ISO: 2500
After falling asleep at 4am, backing up files and talking to my family, I really needed to lie in bed and catch up with sleep. My plan was to go to trampoline gymnastics in the morn and fencing finals in the evening, but after hitting snooze a couple times I slept until noon which felt unreal.
I used the rest of the early afternoon to do laundry, get a run and a workout in (my biggest paddleboard race of the season the 32mile Catalina Classic is two weeks after I return) and update some of my photo editing software. With one week down and another to go, it’s good to recharge your battery and prepare yourself for the second week of nonstop work. I then packed up my kit and went to the Excell Center to cover the Men’s Gold Medal Sabre Final.
The last time I shot the event was in Athens which was an unreal venue, with theatrical spotlit piste and the white outfits against pitch black backgrounds. As friend and photographer Chris Trotman reminded me when I arrived of my shot from Greece where both competitors are mid air and one sabre is hitting the chest of the one and appears to go through the head through the other. “Why are you even shooting this, there’s no way you’ll get a better shot than that one in Athens.” Very true, but I needed to get a good jubo and also wanted to try out the multiple exposure setting on the D4 like all the rest of the photogs as the Olympics…
At fencing, I ran into some old friends and met some new, and it was great to see the photo marshall was Allessandra Del Bene who I met at the Rio Pan American Games in 2007. South Korea’s Fencing Team had some ups and downs today as the men’s team won the gold medal, defeating Italy, Romania, and Russia and won all but one of the nine bouts in the final. They are amazing group of fencers and made for some nice photos.
I then shot over to the weightlifting venue and Poland won their first gold of the London Olympics on Friday because of weightlifter Adrian Zielinski. Zielinski defeated Russia’s Apti Aukhadov due to the fact that both athletes tied on a total of 385 kilograms but Zielinski was 130 grams lighter in bodyweight.
The great thing about the Excell Center is that there are several sports in the building that you can cover at different times of the day. I walked into I walked into table tennis with 5 minutes to spare in the final team match of the day and got the standard and clinched ball and face shot. Then jetted back to the flat via the underground to edit the images.
Tomorrow will be a long day with the Women’s Tri in the morning and the Women’s Final in Tennis at Wimbledon, which I have never been but always wanted to see. Enjoy the pics and keep the questions and comments coming!
Despite his shortcomings in the 400-meter individual medley, Michael Phelps was able to grab gold in the 200-meter individual medley with Ryan Lochte getting silver. Phelps won with a time of 1:54.27 with Lochte right behind him at 1:54.90. By receiving Gold in the 200 meter individual medley, Phelps is now the first male swimmer to win the same swimming event three Olympics in a row. In the women’s 200-meter breaststroke, Rebecca Soni broke the world record with a time of 2:19:59 and received her 11th gold medal in just the first 6 days. Soni won this same event 4 years ago in Beijing and now is the first woman to defend a breaststroke title in the Olympics.
It was another great day at the swimming pool as the USA dominated once again and luckily my underwater worked without any problems. I was finally happy with some of my underwater shots, and the only downer of the day was catching a photographer (who will remain unnamed) trying to steal my finish line spot which I had reserved immediately after the morning session with about $40K of camera gear, which he decided he could move over. Luckily nice guy and great snapper Andrew Mills of The Star-Ledger stuck up for me. I don’t know how photographers think they can move other people stuff around, lie to your face, and not think karma will get them in the end. The same kook photographer was talking smack about another photographer in the media room unaware that people could hear him, and then skyped to his family on speaker so everyone could hear say to his wife that “it is harder for me at the Olympics than you at home with all the crying kids.” Are you f’in kldding me? If I said that to my wife the locks would be changed when I got home. Three strikes and you’re out buddy! As a photographer, writer, media member or a human being for the matter, you to be aware of your surroundings and what you say to people.
Anyways, thought that was worth a mention, and hear are my favorite pics from the day, hope you enjoy and love the feedback!!!
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