5th Military World Games - Rio 2011

[gotosy]

Strong showing by Kenya at the World Military Games in Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janiero, Brazil - Fourteen competition records fell at the fifth 5th CISM World Military Games whose track and field programme concluded on Saturday (23) in Rio de Janeiro.

...

Strong Kenyan presence

The main track and field program kicked off on Tuesday 19 July, with just one final, the women’s 3000m Steeplechase. Kenyan Mercy Njoroge, who qualified for the upcoming World Championships the week before, won in 9:36.92. “I was not planning to run faster and set records," said Njoroge, who has a personal best of 9:16.94. "I only wanted to bring victory to my team.”

Iríni Kokkinaríou of Greece was a distance second in 9:39.53, a season's best.

As expected, Njoroge's Kenyan teammates performed well in the middle and long distances. Olympic champion Nancy Langat won a tactical 1500m race in 4:18.15, just ahead of Germany's Denise Krebs (4:15.87).

Kenyan men collected the 1500m, 5000m and 10,000m titles, also in primarily tactical affairs. Gideon Gathimba took a comfortable 1500m win in 3:40.62 ahead of Moroccan Mohamed Moustaoui (3:41.04) and Imad Touil (3:41.24) of Algeria. In the 5000m, Mark Kiptoo and Vincent Chepkok took 1-2, clocking 13:06.17 and 13:06.31, respectively, fighting off Bilisuma Shume of Bahrain, who notched a 13:06.73 personal best. Josephat Menjo won the 10,000m in 28:36.92 ahead of Bahraini Hasan Mahboob Ali who clocked 28:37.08.

The men's 800m was however a different story. Poland's Marcin Lewandowski, the reiging European champion, produced a strong run to win in 1:45.77, ahead of Kenyans Jackson Kivuva (1:45.93) and Geoffrey Matum (1:45.94), a personal best for the latter.

Good showing for host Brazil

There were several victories for the host nation. Ana Paula Silva won the 200m with a 23.01 career best in 200m, two days after finishing second in the 100m where she clocked 11.37. Ukraine's Mariya Ryemyen took the victory there in 11.34, and finished second in the 200m (23.27). Geisa Coutinho notched a 51.08 PB to take top honors in the 400m. On the infield, Jefferson Sabino took the men's Triple Jump title with a 16.89m best effort while Keila Costa took the women's Long Jump with a 6.41m best. Brazil took both 4x100m Relay titles, winning the men's in 39.53 and the women's in 43.73. The women also prevailed in the 4x400m Relay, winning by more than six seconds in 3:32.42.

Wojciechowski tops 5.81m

The highlight on the infield came in the men's Pole Vault, where Pawel Wojciechowski improved his outdoor career best to 5.81m, to move up to the No. 4 spot on this season's world list. The 22-year-old, who was fourth at the European indoor championships in March and gold medallist at the European Under-23 Championships, is steadily narrowing the gap on his absolute PB of 5.86m which brought him into prominence indoors this season.

Teammate Lukasz Michalski was second, topping out at 5.65m.

Qatar's rising star, 20-year-old Mutaz Essa Barshim, who improved to 2.35m when taking the Asian title earlier this month, was content with his 2.29m clearance to take High Jump title. "There are several competitions ahead and the soonest and most important is Samsung Diamond League. I must save my energy for them."

The top performance in the throws was produced by China's Zhang Wenxiu, the 2008 Olympic and 2007 World bronze medallist in the Hammer Throw, who took her specialty in 74.29m. On the men's side, Finland's Ari Mannio won the Javelin Throw with an 82.48m effort, the 2006 World junior silver medallist's second best result of the season.

Elsewhere on the infield, China's Yu Zhenwei reached a season's best 8.05m to take the Long Jump crown.

Sprint double for Ogunode

Femi Ogunode was the only double winner in the competition, taking the sprint double home to Qatar. Most noteworthy for the 20-year-old was his 10.07 dash in the 100m, a significant improvement over his previous best of 10.25 set last year. He prevailed in the 200m in 20.46, like his 100m performance, a competition record. Finishing runner-up in both was Aziz Ouhadi of Morocco, clocking 10.17 and 20.62.

Sajjad Hashemi clocked an Iranin national record of 45.81 en route to the 400m title, comfortable ahead of runner-up Mark Mutai of Kenya, who clocked 45.91.

The athletics portion of the programme opened on Sunday 17 July with the Marathon competition, held in conjunction with the Caixa Rio de Janeiro Marathon. Patrick Tambwe of the Democratic Republic of Congo took the win in 2:18:17. The women's victory went to 22-year old Kum Ok Kim from North Korea who clocked 2:35:22, who beat China's Yanan Wei (2:36:19)

IAAF

[gotosy]

Rio 2011 final top 10 medal winners:

1- Brazil

2- China

3- Italy

4- Poland

5- South Korea

6- France

7- North Korea

8- Kenya

9 - Germany

10- Ukraine

complete medal standings:

http://www.rio2011.mil.br/results/ENG/ZZ/ZZM195U_@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ENG.htm

[DannyelBrazil]

Wow!!!! Brazil got 1st!!!

Playing as home team does count much in Military games or Brazil become a military sports power? Any info?

[Citius Altius Fortius]

thanks Antonio junior for posting the two links to the videos

It was interesting to see how Brasil handles an Opening Ceremony - in a way I liked the ceremony, but I have to admit that I prefer the Opening Ceremony of the PanAmerican Games...

[DannyelBrazil]

thanks Antonio junior for posting the two links to the videos

It was interesting to see how Brasil handles an Opening Ceremony - in a way I liked the ceremony, but I have to admit that I prefer the Opening Ceremony of the PanAmerican Games...

I liked both, but the Military opening was "smaller" than PanAms and had less sentimental appeal.

Also PanAms was more original, meanwhile Military got the same Vancouver idea of the projections in the floor.

Both were great spetacles, but I agree with you CAF. PanAms was better =]

[Rominger]

Ok, guys, sorry I didn´t reply to this topic before, but was too busy the past week and I couldn´t write a decent piece of text here.

I actually WAS at the OC at Engenhao Stadium AND I went to see one sport (Modern Pentathlon) last Saturday. I was really interested to see about how prepared we are for 2016.

If you can´t read the whole thing, here is the summary: we are not ready (and by miles...), although I´ve seen some progress in some areas.

Here is my report:

Opening Ceremony

For the OC, I did a "family program", as such an OC should actually be. So I went with my wife, mother and father-in-law. Since it was free, I wish I didn´t ask for 2 more tickets to include my father and sister, but it was too late. (FYI: There were only 2 free tickets per day per person to apply at the website)

Anyway, I wanted to do the whole "tourist point of view", also because there wasn´t another option available (no spectator cars were allowed to go inside the stadium perimeter). So I did as they recommended: using public transportation, which was in this case subway and train.

First mistake: lack of communication

When I applied for the tickets, the website said clearly that the OC would start at 6PM and end at 8PM. Then, when my wife went to pick the tickets (by the way, the hours available for picking up the tickets were not very friendly, but as they say here, it is free, so don´t complain...), and on the tickets it was written that OC would start at 4PM. This was on a Tuesday and until Saturday morning I wasn´t sure when exactly the OC would officialy start since, as we all know here, there is always the "pre-show" for OCs. Not only after I went to my deepest resources on Twitter I was able to know that the OC would start at 6pm, but the pre-show would start by 4pm. I imagine those who arrived there at 4pm and waited 2 hours until the real start of the OC, with the countdown and the other procedures.

Transportation

I am glad to say that it actually worked pretty well. I can´t say it was 100% due to some small mistakes, but it was a HUGE improvement. Supervia (company who runs the train system in Rio), scheduled some special non-stop trains from Central Station and, at least the one I took, left on time. The trains were the most modern of the fleet and everything went smooth until the arrival at the Engenho de Dentro Station, in front of the Engenhao Stadium.

Arrival and Volunteers

After we left the station, we had to split in due, because the tickets I booked were for the East Side and the ones my wife booked were for the West Side. Apparently, since we booked in a space of days, they selected the seats in a "first served" basis. As I didn´t know which side was better, we went by luck and I stayed with my mother in the East Side, which had the best view since most of the OC was oriented to the autorities side, the East one.

When we arrived at the stadium a volunteer was actually helpful to explain which side we had to go. However, when we went inside the stadium we were a little dissapointed: although there were no seat marked in the ticked, it clearly said 'level 1', which is the lower level of the stadium. "Great", I thought, "because my mother has a little hip problem and although she could walk, the least the effort to arrive at our seats, the better". But when we arrived at level 1 entrance, one of the volunteers said "it is full".

What? How come? If they reserved X number of tickets to level 1, if it was written level 1, so there were supposed to have seats available to level 1. So we started to walk to level 2, also full, then level 3, box seats, so we ended on level 4. And that wasn´t the end of the journey. At level 4 was also the space for the autorities and they closed the middle sector due to security reasons. Fair enough, but because the volunteers simply ignored this fact, and because of the flow of people who arrived from the same place (the train station) EVERYONE went directed to the same side of level 4, the right one, which was almost completely full by the time we arrive, while the left side of East level 4 was almost empty. If only they were a little bit further and reserved the seats.

After some walking up and down the stairs (the stadium upper level has less space to walk across the seats), we were seated almost at one end of the stadium, very near the Cauldron.

The Ceremony

The Ceremony itself was nice. Some points though should be mentioned. 1 - During the first part of the artistic presentation, there were some patriotic sentences showing at the screen which sounded a lot like "propaganda" (and it was). 2 - The parade of the athetes were made in some order that I still didn´t get it: it should be in Portuguese, but besides one reasonable fact that was separating by far North and South Korea (in Portuguese they should march one after another, and when we consider there were militaries from both of countries, it was better to put them apart), some countries didn´t follow the alphabetical order. 3 - It started late, 15 minutes to be exactly. If it was an OC, it would be unaccetable.

Lots of use from "interactive projections" on the floor of the stadium, which almost all of them were nice, but some actually didn´t work out (they mixed the projections with a white pieces of paper that were strange). For WMG, it was OK. If it was an Olympic Ceremony, it was bellow par. Lack of fireworks was noticed (very, very few).

One thing though. My mother went to the bathroom during the Ceremony, and she said it was filthy dirty, without any place to put toilet paper, which by the way, was already empty (she used a piece she brought because she is used to this in public bathrooms here). People actually throwed on the floor of the bathroom, because there was only a plastic sack for each toilet. Hopefully we won´t embarass the tourists when 2016 arrives.

Returning Home

Although it was scheduled to finish by 9pm and it started late, the cauldron was lighted around 8pm. After the lighting of the cauldron, there was a final music piece of samba, but apparently lots of people were already full of it, because everyone left the stadium when the samba started, and I don´t think it was because they didn´t like it. As for myself, I also left at this stage because I´ve seen enough and don´t like samba a lot either to stay in the stadium.

When we were returing to the train station some fireworks started but I was glad I didn´t waited because it didn´t last very long. We met again with my wife and father-in-law and went back to the train station. One thing that should be done by now, but didn´t have yet was the use of single public tickets to be used anywhere. We used our subway card to go to the train, but we couldn´t use the same card on the return and had to buy tickets (which we did in advance).

We arrived at the platform and had to wait for some 30 minutes until the train started to move, because Supervia said the return trains to Central Station would only start at 9pm. Apparently they didn´t imagine that the OC would finish EARLIER than expected. From them on, cruise control until home, tired at watching an event like this should be.

I will write later today about the other experience at Modern Pentathlon and wrap up my experience.

[Rominger]

Now, onto the second part. I promise it will be shorter

Modern Pentathlon

One of the reasons I have chosen to watch this sport is because they changed the rules to become more public friendly. Which means that instead of doing cross country running as the last sport, it would be a mix of running and shooting, just like winter biathlon. Although I don´t think they actually got the hand of it, I won´t talk about it since this is not the scope of this thread.

Onto the "experience": I went with my father by car because of 2 reasons.

1 - I had no idea where it was, because the website (more on this later), only gave the name of the venue and there was only the address printed on the ticket, and

2 - I was afraid to walk too much from the train station, because Google Maps didn´t give me much hope on this, and we were already going late on the day, to watch the final 2 sports. So, arriving late and found out that we would still have to walk 1 or 2k until we arrive at the destination would be a total fail.

So we went by car and then came the first problem: no signs to the venue. There were plenty of signs until we arrive at Deodoro district, which also have a Milltary Base, but there were at least 4 or 5 different venues nearby. So we asked directions for at least half dozen soldiers and volunteers until we arrived, almost by accident, at the venue (I was looking for the shooting venue, just to find out to my surprise, that all Modern Pentathlon was being held in the same place, something that the website actually showed but I didn´t trust).

Since we left home later than expected, because it rained during the morning and we were afraid of having no protection for the spectators (which there was) and having nothing to eat at the venue (although there was a restaurant over there, also something that the website didn´t inform) we arrived almost at the end of the final sport, the running-shooting combined event, although this event started EARLIER than was told at the website. However, I can´t complain on this. I only wished (again) that the website was more informative regarding the venues.

Onto the combined event then. The venue was inside a horse polo open field, where also hosted the equestrian jumping event. So they put the spectators in front of the equestrian event and the media and VIPs in front of the combined event. Considering they changed the rules to be more public friendly onto the last part of the sport, I think they totally blew on this, because I barely saw the shooting part, which was very frustrating, even though I think they still should change the dynamics of this last event.

The most surprising information was when we were leaving the venue. At the parking lot we found out that there were a train station RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE VENUE!!!! We probably missed when we arrived because we were already late, but if this info was available at the website, I would definetly consider taking the train again, although obviously that going by car would take half the time it was if we took public transportation.

Anyway, I left with a bitter sentation that, although the WMG can´t be compared to an Olympic event, there were lots of details missing, which I will write on this a little later.

Website

With all the misses that I´ve already told in the earlier post and this one, there shouldn´t be more problems regarding the website, right? Wrong. Although the website was OK regarding the results and news, it actually went offline for almost 3 days (Friday night until Sunday). I wanted to confirm some information and I simply couldn´t access the pages. I don´t know what happened, but considering the low demand for such an event it should run perfectly from start to finish. Also, they claimed to watch live events. During the first weekend, there wasn´t anything available to watch and I only watched something yesterday, when the page was barely working.

Final Score

Although the experience from previous events is something that is visible during the WMG, which shows the importance of hosting other events before the Olympic Games itself, there were lots of details that were missing, like I wrote before. Most of them is related to pure and simple information and would be so effective if they showed at the website. Even though, the education from the 'carioca' is something that needs to be, ahem, tweaked, that doesn´t mean you simply forget that this was a world class games. I don´t mean that 2016 would be a total fail, but there is a need to improve in those problems I mentioned, to make the event more spectator friendly.

If I give a grade, it would be 5 out of 10 (or a C for those american-school based). Hopefully, by 2014, I could watch World Cup matches with a better sensation.

[gotosy]

^ seems that some improvements are needed, thanks for the very informative report

[danfla]

As i said, about organization i believe that we shouldnt compare Rio 2011 with 2014 WC or Rio 2016, because the organization comittees are diferents, Rio 2011 Comittee is completely militar. What we can compare is the city itself, things like transportation, security and etc.

[DannyelBrazil]

By reading your post rominger, I can see the overall is nice. Some small things needs to be improved about information, and I think we should learn somethings from it too.

About late start of parade of nations. Every single OC of Olympic games gets delays... I can remember Beijing OC, the commentators saying the ceremony was delayed in more than 30 minutes... It's hard to control hundreds of people doing artistic numbers... And 15 minutes of delay is Ok for me.

About numbered tickets, this is a HUGE problem in Brazil. I'm not sure we will achieve a change 'til the WC or Olumpic Games. Although, during PanAm I seated in my market tickets when I watched a match in Maracana, I'm sure I was pretty lucky.

Media should help in campaigns asking people to seat in the marked position or we will have a problem.

About big walking distances from Parking lots/public transportations to venues, this is really common abroad. During the World Cup in Germany train stations were placed up to 2 Km far from the stadium. So, you shouldn't be worried about that. This can be common during the games in Rio.

You should also trust more in the website. You reported at least three things you didn't believe on information shown... And now-a-days, addresses are pretty enough to find your way with a GPS or Google Maps...

I think the overall of what you reported was nice. But for sure, small things (specially about signing and ticketing in Brazil) should be improved a lot.

But, for me, there is no excuse to the website be offline during 3 days. This CAN NOT happen in 2014 or 2016.

I can't believe that organizers let this happen!

[Citius Altius Fortius]

Media should help in campaigns asking people to seat in the marked position or we will have a problem.

The World Cup in 2014 will become a first test if the media were successful

[Rominger]

As i said, about organization i believe that we shouldnt compare Rio 2011 with 2014 WC or Rio 2016, because the organization comittees are diferents, Rio 2011 Comittee is completely militar. What we can compare is the city itself, things like transportation, security and etc.

You are right to say that organization committes are different, but it is obvious that one OC learns from the previous events. Some problems were seen at the PanAm Games (when I was a volunteer) and it doesn´t seem to be fixed this time.

About late start of parade of nations. Every single OC of Olympic games gets delays... I can remember Beijing OC, the commentators saying the ceremony was delayed in more than 30 minutes... It's hard to control hundreds of people doing artistic numbers... And 15 minutes of delay is Ok for me.

I didn´t say that the parade of nations was late, I mean that ceremony itself was late. I can´t recall that Beijing OC was late. On the contrary, I arrived home to watch the OC a few minutes after the scheduled start and I already missed the first minutes.

I could imagine what it means for TVs Worldwide 15 minutes of difference.

About big walking distances from Parking lots/public transportations to venues, this is really common abroad. During the World Cup in Germany train stations were placed up to 2 Km far from the stadium. So, you shouldn't be worried about that. This can be common during the games in Rio.

That it can be common, no doubt about it, but without ANY signs in a desert place (there was only the soldiers in front of the venue and no one else in a radius of 500 meters that showed the way to the venues is not a good thing.

Communication should be visible for anyone, or at least have someone at the train station to explain where to go.

You should also trust more in the website. You reported at least three things you didn't believe on information shown... And now-a-days, addresses are pretty enough to find your way with a GPS or Google Maps...

Really? Wow, why didn´t I think of that?

OK, here is a challenge for you: here is the link of the venues Venues page (in Portugues) Now, search it on Google Maps the EXACT place of the Modern Pentathlon. Then reply here...

2nd Challenge: Here is the link of the INFO page regarding all information INFO page Move the cursor over Opening Ceremony and see the time scheduled to start the OC.

Not convinced? Go to the Tickets webpage Tickets Go to Opening Ceremony and see what time they say they will start the OC.

Still didn´t believe it? See this article for example Article. See a trend?

If you need, I can also show you a couple of other articles saying the OC would start at 4pm and 6pm.

By the way, the OC started at 6pm.

Don´t you think I have a point not to believe in what the website was informing?

I think the overall of what you reported was nice. But for sure, small things (specially about signing and ticketing in Brazil) should be improved a lot.

This is a case of glass half-full, half-empty. Since I went to other Winter Olympic Games, plus the PanAm Games here, I can make a little comparison to what I´ve seen in both places. For me, the details is what make the good impression to the spectator. Is the fact that he won´t complain about things like a clean bathroom, good visibility of the event, seating in the place you ordered in advance, not having to ask the same question for dozens of people until you know where you arrive. In Salt Lake and Torino, in the condition of a regular spectator (since I had some privileges being part of the workforce), there were signs and informed people everywhere, my seat was free when I seated and I was able to go back and forth without having to worry about transportation (the only problem was related to public portable bathrooms, which seems to be the same worldwide). This is what makes the good impression and that is what I think it should be done here.

I am not saying that 2016 will be the same (and I really don´t want to be), I am just writing for the sake of comparing to what I saw here in past and, in a way, I can compare in 5 years when the OG arrives. Obviously that WMG is smallr and doesn´t need to be the same as an Olympic event. However, considering is less complicated than OG, it should have less problems when it comes to logistics.

[DannyelBrazil]

Hey Rominger, I've just checked the links you asked me to see and I agree with you, very incomplete information for places less-known, specially in Deodoro, and more specially, because many of them are placed inside huge military area.

About the OC schedule, I see that OC would start at 6PM but you are required to arrive at stadium at 4PM. Ok, this got not much clear as it should be, but it was what I understand.

The website they did for the event is very poor. I remember the site of PanAms was much better and we totally agree in one thing: SIGNING.

I don't understand what is the problem of Brazilian people and organizers with signs!!!

When will we have some event (small or big, public or private) with nice signs like we see abroad?

About the delays in OC, this very case of CISM shows me a better situation compared to PanAms Games, when the OC started almost 45 minutes delayed. And, for me, the big test will be saturday in Preliminary Draw for World Cup. All International TV (from more than 160 countries) will be focused LIVE in Brazil for the first time in history. No delays will be allowed. Let's cross fingers.

I was waiting something not big for the Miliary Games, and that's why I see a OK overall based in what you've reported. Admitely, I was waiting something really small for the event and indeed, got a bit surprised with what I saw.

And, you'right I always see the glass half-full, I admit. I'm a bit positive...

[Rominger]

About the delays in OC, this very case of CISM shows me a better situation compared to PanAms Games, when the OC started almost 45 minutes delayed. And, for me, the big test will be saturday in Preliminary Draw for World Cup. All International TV (from more than 160 countries) will be focused LIVE in Brazil for the first time in history. No delays will be allowed. Let's cross fingers.

I was waiting something not big for the Miliary Games, and that's why I see a OK overall based in what you've reported. Admitely, I was waiting something really small for the event and indeed, got a bit surprised with what I saw.

I don´t think that Saturday´s event will have a huge consequence on Brazil´s reputation, in any case. Did you remember the last Preliminary Draw in 2007? Me either.

I agree with you that WMG was bigger than I expected (until I read they´ve spent R$ 1,5 billion, then I realized it would be a bigger event) looking at the event itself, not the athletes´ quality (Brazil was the first at Medal Table and USA was...never mind, which summarizes how good it was). If WMG was the only event in the next few years, I would agree that it was reasonable considering the previous events, but since they called the WMG a 'test event', even if it wasn´t organized by the same organizing committee, they should have raised the bar a little.