For the first time ever, nylou.com shows you what ALL others only tell you. See more than 30,000 photos of more than 2,500 hotels, 58 destinations, 300 beaches, 125 museums and sites, 150 restaurants from all over Greece.
The cycling road race enters Syntagma Square, just in front of the Parliament Building.
The Good...
The South African 4x100 men's relay team blew the US out of the water and won gold with a new world record.
China has already won 5 gold, after only 2 days of competition. Traditional medal powerhouses like the US and Germany are not on the Top 5 list of medal winners yet.
The Bad...
The US basketball team lost, hands down, to a great Puerto Rico side.
Most Athenians stayed at home while their city was turned into a giant street fair.
And the Weird...
The Fire Department put out a blaze at the wooded area around the villa of Yianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, the President of the Organizing Committee. The fire was ignited by fireworks used during a party Mrs Daskalaki threw for the members of the IOC. Reportedly, the Fire Department had advised Lady G not to use fireworks because of the weather conditions and the dense vegetation around the house.
nyloo's daily Olympic Diary
What will we remember of the second day of the Olympics?
The former Dream Team, turning into the Nightmare Team in these Olympics. Losing to Puerto Rico is not that bad per se, since many of its players are NBA professionals and you could stumble onto a bad day, blah blah blah. Losing by 19, though, is a whole different ballgame (pun intended).
What is these guys' problem? Don't they know that they are at the Olympics? Don't they know that it's USA on their jerseys, not Jazz or Knicks or Kings? Haven't they figured out yet that every team they play against treat the game as the last they are ever going to play?
Where is the pride? Where is the drive? Where is the fun of the game?
Bring back the college kids, we say. At least they sweated for the flag. And leave this and every future bunch of millionaires home, where they apparently belong, to spend August tax planning and trash talking.
Enough of that.
For the second day in a row, Athens was turned into a race circuit, yesterday, this time for the women's road race. It lasted for about 5 hours, and took the athletes nine times around the city, which was, of course, blocked to car traffic.
It was a glorious sight, for the few Athenians that watched it and for the many foreign visitors that lined the road blocks. Especially for the locals, seeing Olympic cycling go past city spots like Kolonaki Square was bordering on the surreal. The Photo Gallery captures some of the sights around Athens on Sunday.
Sadly, most Athenians were absent. The city was for too long unfriendly to its residents, who are not used to taking to the streets to participate in mass events. For too many years the sidewalks were mostly broken, mass transportation was substandard, traffic was bad and finding parking was a nightmare. Athenians learned to stay mostly home.
Things have changed of course, but people have not adopted to the new reality yet. And the streets of Athens yesterday were mostly empty.
