LONDON — Officially, it is Day Three of the Olympics and,unofficially, my body has just realized that it’s crossed the Atlantic.
You can tell the Americans in the media venues. We’re the ones who are yawning and wondering what exactly they’ve done to the mashed potatoes.Coming from a late dinner Saturday, I dozed off and nearly missed my train stop on the way back to East London. I have no idea where I would have ended up — West Ham? East Ham? Hogwarts?London’s famous underground railway may be one of mankind’s seven wonders. You can get anywhere on the Tube.Except maybe somewhere that serves proper mashed potatoes.Wrestling with new friendsThe hour was late, and the line at the taxi stop was Olympic-sized long.I had been working. They had been — hmm — reveling in the Olympic spirit.We were headed to the same place, the dormitories at the University of East London, and so the three American gentlemen kindly offered to share their cab.They said they were wrestling coaches, and that’s when I realized that I was sitting across from probably the greatest amateur wrestler America has ever produced. John Smith, now the head wrestling coach at Oklahoma State, won four world titles and two Olympic gold medals (1988 and 1992).But they didn’t want to talk about wrestling. They wanted food, they told the taxi driver. Food at 3 a.m.Did you know that at the McDonalds in the UK, they go clockwise through the drive-thru lane? On purpose?My new wrestling friends — coaches Smith, Mark Manning and Lou Rosselli — all ordered simultaneously. The only response from the poor McDonald’s guy was, “Do you want ‘meal’ with that?”Something must have gotten lost in the translation from takedowns to fried taters, because when the taxi finally pulled away we had burgers, we had fries, and we had about 25 little packages of ketchup. Don’t ask why.I know it was at least 25 because I had to clean up the little ketchups from the back seat when we all arrived at UEL. Must be a wrestling thing.Manning is the head coach at Nebraska. Rosselli coaches at Ohio State and was an Olympian himself at the 1996 Atlanta Games. He was on his way to a gold medal when he broke his arm while winning a match and had to withdraw.The U.S. wrestling team is in good hands.Lunch: a sinking feelingMy quest for an edible lunch took me the other day to the blue-collar neighborhood surrounding the Canning Town train station.Barking Road, I was assured, would bring me to “many restaurants.”Or maybe not.A half-mile down Barking, I found myself yearning for a Pizza Hut.Instead, my eye caught a sign that read, “Dallas Chicken and Ribs.”A banner advertised “Peri Peri Chicken,” which was described to me as “Portuguese style.” Don’t ask.The big sign on the front, however, was highlighted by the head of a big chicken wearing a cowboy hat. I know. Jerry Jones is probably wondering why he didn’t think of that.Since I didn’t travel 5,000 miles to eat Portuguese chicken with Dallas subtitles, I opted for next door.The sign read: “Titanic Cafe.”What could possibly go wrong?It was a small place, but clean and unassuming. The walls, sure enough, were decorated with framed memorabilia of the RMS Titanic, the ill-fated ship that was built by, I think, Celine Dion.In one frame there was a photo of the Titanic leaving the port of Belfast. Next to it was a copy of a poster that advertised tickets on the Titanic for a voyage the ship never made — New York back to England.Who named the restaurant, I asked?“My dad,” said Beritan Gun, who was manning the register.But why name it after a ship that’s synonymous with a doomed voyage?“I don’t know,” she said. “I think he just likes it.”It was 100 years ago that the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank. I think I finally understand why after seeing the Titanic Café’s breakfast special:“Titanic Breakfast — Egg, Bacon, Beans, Sausage, Tomatoes, Hash Brown, Black Pudding, 2 Bread with Tea or Coffee.”It wasn’t the iceberg. It was the beans and black pudding breakfast.Bela comments, not surprisinglyGymnastics. Always with the drama.And always with the Karolyis.One of my best memories of covering nine Summer Olympics is from Seoul in 1988. A controversial, rarely-invoked rule about a spotter not leaving the podium in time had imposed a penalty on the U.S. women’s gymnastics team and cost it a bronze medal.And in the hallway outside the room where his appeal was being denied, then-coach Bela Karolyi was livid, shaking his fist, blaming East German politics and calling for the head of international gym chairman Ellen Berger.“I want to see Berger a hamburger,” Bela said, memorably.Thus, in the midst of Jordyn Wieber’s failure to make all-around finals Sunday, we found an old voice of reason. Karolyi doesn’t officially coach the U.S. women’s team anymore, but his wife is the team coordinator and Bela’s stamp is everywhere on the American program, official or not.Bela’s argument is that the lineup order for the U.S. women Sunday was what led the judges to underscore Wieber and enable surprise Aly Raisman to finish ahead of her in the all-around standings.“The way it goes is lowest score to highest score,” Karolyi explained. “The judges are expecting that.”Karolyi hinted of conflict in the coaches meetings that led to the lineup.That hint, however, was quickly defused by USA Gymnastics head Steve Penny who, cell phone in hand, was frantically calling for someone to come retrieve Bela.Penny called the lineup meetings “a collaborative effort” and that process is “designed to build consensus.”“I don’t know if Bela and Martha see it the same way right now,” Penny said, suggesting that Karolyi’s wife was OK with the lineup.Bela also doesn’t like the two-per-country rule that will keep Wieber out of the finals.But of course not. It was the powerhouse teams that Karolyi put together that partly led to the rule in the first place.
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