Olympic Journal, Day 8: Bracing for the weekend crush

By Gil LeBreton

Star-Telegram

LONDON — They call it Super Saturday, and it’s been an anxious halfway point for Olympic organizers since man invented the concession stand.

Super Saturday, not to be confused with Super Sunday which comes tomorrow, is when the predicted heaviest influx of tourists, bus drivers, fatigued media and event ticket holders will descend upon the Olympic venues.

Roads, train stations and portable toilet facilities are going to be cluttered to the max, they fear. Much like we do back home with an approaching thunderstorm, the BBC has been warning anyone without tickets to “stay away” from the Olympic venues.

With so many pubs in town, all with TVs and cold beer, curious onlookers at the venues shouldn’t be a problem.

Some of my media colleagues, prone to complaining, may disagree, but this has been one of the most efficient Olympic Games in history in terms of getting people to and from. London’s Tube and bus service is that good and that convenient.

Alas, though, it seems that with each passing day, the London Underground has been getting busier, as if locals, fearing the worst, went on holiday at the start of the Games, and now they’ve returned to re-mark their territory.

Today’s attraction: 25 gold medals will be up for grabs, and British athletes have a chance for more than a few of them.

Transport for London, the area’s transportation authority, has predicted that more than 200,000 will flock to the Olympic Park to attend the day’s events.

Another large crowd was expected to gather in famous Hyde Park for the women’s triathlon. The swimming leg of the triathlon was scheduled for The Serpentine, a 28-acre lake in the middle of the park. Super Saturday’s weather forecast called for cool, cloudy skies with, as always here, a chance of showers.

The London Games are halfway over.

Hugs and a reversal

Through it all, the calm at the center of Friday night’s boxing storm was Errol Spence Jr.

While his Team USA coaches were either issuing dire predictions about the death of amateur boxing or bemoaning the federation’s carousel coaching system, Spence was calmly, classily trying to turn the page.

At the time, he had just been handed a second-round defeat to India’s Krishan Vikas.

“It is what it is,” he said.

Errol seems like a cool, it-is-what-it-is kind of guy.

The U.S. boxing people had a right to be angry. Not only did Spence’s “defeat” temporarily snuff the last vestiges of the U.S. men’s team from the Olympic tournament — nine boxers, all knocked out before the quarterfinal round — but it also was more of the same shameless point-juggling that has plagued the sport at the Games for years.

Remember the verbal angst that Howard Cosell would display at some of the Olympic boxing decisions? Cosell would have hated Friday’s Spence-Vikas fight.

As Spence’s cornerman Charles Leverette said in the first minutes after the questionable decision, “If we don’t clean it up, it’s going to flood and we’re going to sink — the whole organization.”

Behind the grandstands at the ExCeL Arena, an emotional reunion followed with Errol and his mom, Debra, who gave her son a long hug.

A few feet away, however, USA Boxing officials were busy plotting an official protest, based largely upon Vikas’ persistent holding throughout the second and third rounds. He also spit out his mouthpiece in the middle of the second round, which isn’t allowed.

By the time the committee ruled favorably on the U.S. protest, giving the decision to Spence, the DeSoto native was back in his room at the Olympic Village.

It is what it is. Spence’s amateur boxing career continues on.

All that and a bag of crisps

My daughter ,Elise, the grad student, had warned me about this quirk, this odd affinity that the British have for their “crisps.”

You and I would call them potato chips, but you won’t find that name used on any bag of crunchies around here.

They’re crisps, and they appear to come in all manner of ghastly named flavors — smoked ham and pickle, for example.

The potato chip is a decidedly American invention, said to be first served more than 150 years ago by George Crum, a Native American chef employed at the Moon Lake Lodge in Saratoga Springs, New York. As the story goes, Cornelius Vanderbilt was eating at the Moon Lake one day and complained that the fried potatoes were cut too thickly.

Miffed at the complaint, Crum sent the potatoes back to Vanderbilt sliced wafer-thin and covered in salt. The potato chip — the British “crisp” — was born.

In Great Britain, crisps are pub food, hence their immense popularity.

Intrepidly, I have been checking the store shelves, wincing at the varieties, not to mention the occasional political incorrectness. Wild Mexican, one was named. A flavor named after Eddie Guardado?

Beef and Mustard.

Worcester Sauce.

Chilli Heatwave, spelled in Britain with two Ls.

Tingly Prawn, because we all know the best shrimp always tingle.

Flame Grilled Steak. (Didn’t taste at all like Nolan Ryan beef).

BBQ Ribs.

Paprika and Onion.

Pickle and Onion.

Jubilee Onion.

Pickled Onion Space Invaders.

Stilton and Cranberry.

Mango Chilli.

And though I’m told it’s sadly no longer available, there was a crisp flavor named Hedgehog.

The Walkers crisps company challenged customers to come up with their own new flavors. The six winners were produced and packaged in a limited-time six-pack.

Chilli and Chocolate was one of the winners.

But as my daughter pointed out, it’s hard to ignore one of the other winners, a British crisp that comes in the flavor Cajun Squirrel.

The picture on the bag is mildly disturbing.

Tracking down the Duchess

Clearly, I’ve been hanging out in all the wrong Olympic places.

Like boxing. And air rifle shooting. And gymnastics.

I know these aren’t the proper places because I haven’t yet run into the seemingly ubiquitous Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge.

The Duchess and her husband, Prince William, have been spotted and photographed and re-photographed at everything from Olympic swimming to field hockey.

She was spotted at cycling and Wimbledon, I believe, on the same day, and I’d like to ask her how she did that with the crowded Tube lines and all.

She appears to be having a grand time, but horror of horrors! She was caught by photographers the other day at the Olympic Velodrome doing the wave.

I don’t care how much ale or tea they’re drinking at the Velodrome this week — friends shouldn’t let friends or duchesses do the wave.

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