Rio Notebook: Reconciling the Olympics bubble

RIO DE JANEIRO (VN) — Early each morning, I stepped out the front door of my Airbnb apartment and turned right, walking in the shade of drooping tropical trees past two doormen guarding gates, a high-end pastry shop, and a woman with her small child, asleep beneath a covered stoop on a thin mattress of wadded blankets. I walked one block then another toward Copacabana’s white sands and the big green sign that indicated a media shuttle stop, where I flashed my credential, stepped into a blue tour bus, and sat in plush, air-conditioned, Wi-Fi-enabled comfort as the driver pointed us down special Rio 2016 highway lanes, away from the woman and her child, past stacks of stalled traffic and bright hillside favelas. We sped through a developing city inside a first-world cocoon.

Inside the Olympic bubble I met Brian Babilonia, Puerto Rico’s lone road race starter. He showed up to his event three hours early, already kitted up when I arrived, his number pinned. He didn’t want to miss a moment of his Olympic dream, he said.

I stood in front of a devastated, tearful Mara Abbott barely 10 minutes after a gold medal slipped through her fingers 150 meters from the finish line, then wrote and re-wrote, and re-wrote a story that I knew could never truly capture anything.

Inside the Olympic bubble I felt the temporary beach volleyball stadium sway with the potential energy of a bellowing crowd as Brazil defeated the Americans in two sets. I watched Fabian Cancellara jump on the podium and shake his fists at a drizzling sky with the joy of a first victory, though it was likely his last. I marveled at the grace of a pair of synchronized divers, the pace of two table tennis players, and soaked in the roar of a tennis crowd more accustomed to the chants of soccer. I laughed with Dan from Nam’, because that’s what Dan does.

I felt my heart thump as British and American team pursuit teams stole the world record from each other ride after ride after ride. I felt my stomach drop as the Americans lost in the final. As the velodrome’s eyes turned to the podium, I instead watched Ruth Winder, the fifth American pursuiter, stand in her Team USA tracksuit and hold back tears at the edge of the crowd. Her teammates stood before the world and collected silver medals while her neck remained bare. My heart broke for her, as it did for Abbott, standing close enough to touch the most important …

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