From rower to a Viking

Wind and choppy waters on the Rodrigo de Freitas Lake caused anxious moments for rowers on the opening day of the Olympic rowing regatta on Saturday, with gold medal contender Kimberly Brennan just avoiding a major setback. A Serbian boat sank and Egyptian rower Nadia Negm said she felt “like a Viking” as waves lapped over the boats. Negm said the conditions were intense. “Halfway through the course this huge wave just went into my boat. It went all the way up to my face. I mean, I’m lucky I didn’t tip over,” she said. “I’ve never really raced in water like this. This was a new extreme, but it’s good experience. In the end I kind of feel like a Viking coming out of it.”

Special marshals

Faraway from the limelight of the Rio 2016 opening ceremony, differently-abled students from the National Institute of Education for the Deaf (NIED) made their presence felt during the much-anticipated athletes’ parade. Nicknamed ‘Flippers’, the 20 marshals directed each of the 207 delegation either left or right of the field.

Viva volunteers

The IOC president Thomas Bach had a special ‘thank you’ for the many thousand volunteers without whom the Games cannot be successful. “The best ambassadors of this Olympic Spirit à la Brazil are the many thousands of volunteers. Many thanks, volunteers,” Bach said in his address. 

Backpack blast

A loud blast shook the media seats near the finishing line of the men's cycling road race on the first day of the Rio Olympics when Brazil's bomb squad detonated an unattended backpack on Saturday, amid tight security. That followed the detonation of another unattended bag near the same spot on Friday during the opening ceremony. A spokeswoman for the public security department said that officials believe the bag may have belonged to a homeless man, but protocol requires any unattended objects to be destroyed. Earlier, Rio police said on Saturday that they shot a mugger near the Maracana and a woman was killed close to another Olympic site.

The wrong vault

French gymnast Samir Ait Said discovered the perils of pursuing his Olympic dreams when he suffered a broken leg that was left dangling from below his knee following a crash landing from the vault during men's qualifying on Saturday. Ait Said covered his eyes with his right hand as he clutched the back of his knee while lying prostrate on the crash mat before officials ran to tend to him. But it soon became apparent that he would take no further part in the Rio Games when he was lifted onto a stretcher that had been brought into the arena.

(Agencies)