Day 3, World Championships

There were no morning competitions on Day 3 of the Championships, so I decided to go check out the Kulturstadion or Culture Stadium, which was basically a big international festival being put on in conjunction with the Championships. It was right next to the Brandenburg Gate.The Brandenburg Gate.

A sign for the Kulturstadion - to the right is a stage, to the left is various food stands. There was a Polish food stand, Korean, Russian, and French food stands, Jamaican and African food stands, and many others. The funniest one of all though, was...

the American food stand! You could get a cheeseburger, ribs, hot dogs, Budweiser, Sam Adams, and plenty of other American food. I was going to see what it was like, but it was EXPENSIVE. It was 7 Euros, or about $11 for a cheeseburger! On top of that, the Polish food stand had Polish people working in it, the Korean food stand had Korean people, but the American stand had Germans, wearing American flag aprons. I decided to pass on the over-priced, fake-authentic American food.

This was right next to the Kulturstadion - I guess its supposed to say "The Kennedy Museum" but the grammar got messed up in the translation. President Kennedy is revered to this day in Germany. In the 60's (1961, I believe? Correct me if I'm wrong, please) John F. Kennedy spoke in Berlin about how the Americans weren't in favor of Germany dividing over communism, and he sympathized with the residents of West Berlin who were surrounded in East Germany and closed in by the Berlin Wall. This was when JFK made his famous remark, "Ich bin ein Berliner."

A funny side story...the literal translation for "Ich bin ein Berliner" is actually "I am a jelly donut". Kennedy obviously wanted to say "I am a Berliner," for which the correct translation is simply "Ich bin Berliner." But in German, "ein Berliner" means "a jelly donut." Nonetheless, the German people understood what he was trying to say, and there are some Germans who cried when he said that. Just by saying those words, Kennedy showed such significant support for the German people, and they remember it to this day. If you're wondering, the picture of Obama is advertising for when he'll be speaking at the museum in November.

This is showing the track they had laid out around the stage, which is to the right. The kids running around the track are part of a world hunger benefit that was going on that day at the Kulturstaion.
This is the Reichstag, the German Parliamentary building, just a short walk from the Brandenburg Gate. This is where Hitler became the Furor, where many battles were fought during WWII, and where the now re-unified German government operates from. So much history happened here that I can't even begin to remember it all, much less write about it all. It is fascinating though, and is worth looking up if you're a history buff. If you get up close to it, there are still some bullet holes in the building left over from WWII.
I don't remember exactly what this building is called, but its essentially Germany's Whitehouse. The Chancellor is entitled to live there, in its living spaces (though the current Chancellor chose not to live there). On top of that, there are many offices for different functions in the Chancellor's job and for the rest of the government to use.
Right next to the Kulturstadion, at the Akademie der Kunste (Academy of Art) was an open-air exhibition featuring 125 Years of Athletics (what they call 'Track and Field' in the rest of the world) in Photography. Here are some highlights.

Back outside, Nadine Kleinert was being interviewed on the stage in front of a very enthusiastic German crowd.

Opting to forgo all the foreign food stands for the time being, I ventured a little outside of the Kulturstadion and found a food stand out on the street, where I got some Currywurst.
I'm not sure exactly what kind of sausage it was but it was more similar to a hot dog, and cut up into pieces and covered with curry sauce. No bread, you just ate it with that little fork. Obviously, a Berliner Pilsener went right along with it.

So after that quick meal it was off to the Olympiastadion for the evening session. Waiting for the train I snapped a picture of this ad:

It says something about how a good goal for a hammer thrower is 86.75m (which is one centimeter over the current world record). They had these ads for just about every different type of track and field event, I just took a picture of the one event that really matters.

EVENING SESSION PICTURES

This is the original bell from the Bell Tower, now sitting outside the stadium. Of course, on this night I was much more excited for what was happening inside the stadium...

THE MEN'S HAMMER FINAL!!!! This is the view of the cage from my seat. I wasn't zoomed in at all...I was in the 9th row on the field level, right next to the sector. It was more expensive, but I had to treat myself on this particular night.
Primoz Kozmus of Slovenia became the first Slovenian to ever win a gold medal in track and field at the Olympics last year, and instantly became one of his country's biggest celebrities. Hammer throwing is now huge there, thanks to him. This is a picture of a small group of Slovenian fans who came to the World Championships just to see him throw.

That was one of the cooler things about being at the World Championships, seeing smaller country's fans cheer on their athletes. Kozmus might have been the only Slovenian at the championships, I'm not sure, but these fans were there anyway. There were tons of Jamaicans there to cheer on their sprinters, and lots of Finns to cheer on the Finnish javelin throwers. Seeing a small country cheer on the one or a few athletes they might have competing gives you a different perspective than you get growing up American. I'm used to seeing a massive American contingent at every Olympics or Worlds, and I'm used to seeing a lot of medals being taken home. As Americans we seem to kind of take that for granted, where as in some countries, simply having one athlete participate is a source of great national pride. This leads me to the unfortunate segue back in to my hammer final coverage, as there were no Americans in the Men's hammer final...
...but I wore this shirt with pride anyway!!! (Click on it to zoom in if you can't see what it says).
Here's Libor Charfreitag of Slovakia taking a warm-up.

Here's Nicola Vizzoni, 2000 Olympic Silver Medallist from Sydney, taking a warm-up.
Krisztian Pars of Hungary, the favorite, being introduced in the hammer final. Things would not go too well for him...he finished 4th!

Markus Esser of Germany taking his first competitive throw. It wasn't even 70m/230' (no, 230 feet is not even close to far when it comes to world class hammer throwing) so clearly Esser was struggling at this point. He would finish 6th.
Sergej Litvinov of Germany taking his 1st throw. He would end up placing 5th with a 76.58m throw - pretty good for a 23 year old.

Szymon Ziolkowski of Poland, 2000 Olympic Champion, taking his first throw. This was 77.44m - he'd go on to throw 79.30m/260'-2" to take the silver medal here.

Krisztian Pars, the favorite, taking a throw...I'm not sure which one. He had 8 throws over 80m this year vs. Kozmus' 1 up to this point, yet could only muster 77.45m for 4th place here at the World Champs. If you know what you're listening for, you can actually hear him screaming...he has a frightening yell, its even better than mine!
Kozmus taking one of his bigger throws, this might have been one of his 80m ones...it was close if it wasn't over. He was the only thrower over 80m that night, and would go on to win with 80.84m/265'-3".
Berlino driving the hammers back to the circle!

Left: Aleksey Zagornyi of Russia, who laid low the entire competition, then on his last throw displaced Pars to get the bronze medal! He has always thrown far but never managed to win a medal at a major championship until now. In the middle, Ziolkowski just recieved a Polish flag to celebrate his silver medal. On the right, Markus Esser and Sergej Litvinov are applauded by an always enthusiastic and appreciative German crowd.
Kozmus, meanwhile, stands alone as the World Champion!
The Slovenian fans went NUTS for Kozmus as he walked by.
A Chinese athlete getting advice from her coach during the Women's Triple Jump final...I just thought it was a cool picture.
The other big news from this night was that Elena Isinbaeva of Russia, the woman pole vaulter who is widely accepted as unbeatable (and has been for the past few years in which she's won every single competition she's been in and set over 20 world records), no-heighted in the pole vault! She didn't clear once! This left the competition wide open and Chelsea Johnson of the USA tied for the silver medal! Woohoo!
Closing out the night, the medal ceremony of the men's hammer. I'll see an American on the top of that podium some day, even if I have to get him/her up there myself...