Readers might notice my silence on this topic despite being sometimes called “Mr. Olympics”. Well, I just hope it will all be over ASAP and this without too many sad incidents.
I have serious Olympic fatigue. Media have been interviewing me several times per week, with some unexpected reactions:
– I saw you one CNN!
– I’ve never been interviewed on CNN!
– Well, it was you and you said….. but why do you hide your name and call yourself Gustavo?
Well, after some other reactions seems Channel4 (UK) misspelled my name, showed the interview in the UK and then passed it on to CNN. Channel4 did apologize for the hiccup.
But Beijing is becoming a sterilized city. Many foreigners had to leave or did not get a visa. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese were forced to leave the city. Hotels and restaurants as well as tourist agencies are far from happy.
Business is stopped for many as getting a business visa is officially nearly impossible (Shanghai explained while Beijing as usual continues its empty propaganda blabla).
No more tickets, so I’ll watch it on TV. Not that I’ll miss much with the chaos you can expect to go to the venue and then return home.
I did go to the rehearsal of the Opening ceremony (as one of the very very few foreigners). Can’t tell you more about except I was rather disappointed. And came home soaking wet from the downpour and the lack of transportation. And tired of the poor signage and chaos. That was with 50,000 people. Wait for the 100,000!.
Hopefully they’ll do better on 8/8/8 and I suggest you stay home and watch on TV. Except you are a VVIP.
But I will go to the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympics – I want to support those as they receive too little attention.
Beijing is not completely dead. Nightlife is sanitized but some discos are still fully packed and I dragged some 20 people to a Brazilian Luxury Carnaval in KlubbRouge, all thanks to Leo Anjos (see his pics!). Other full spots are Suzie Wong and China Doll (3.3).

We will have to wait till the Halloween Party is over to find back good old perverted Maggie’s with the old PSB guys back in business. Yes I know, we are bad boys.