Nick's Odyssey: Bolt's golden nuggets

Correspondent Nick Compton of the University of Iowa's The Daily Iowan traveled to Beijing as part of a group of 24 UI students who volunteered with the Olympic News Service. His dispatches from the Games were nationally syndicated by UWIRE.BEIJING (UWIRE) Aug. 18 - The lights were bright, the air was cool and my ticket was hot.

Finally, I was inside the Bird's Nest.

For two long months I've stared at the iconic stadium's gridded exterior and wondered what strange secrets wait inside. Though my dormitory is less than 5 kilometers away, I remained as removed from its interior as any other Midwesterner. Until Saturday.

We international volunteers are treated too well. Somehow, our group of 23 University of Iowa students was awarded tickets for last night's track and field events at the Bird's Nest. They weren't just any tickets, either. At 10:30 p.m., one of the most anticipated Olympic events would take place.

It wouldn't last 10 seconds, but that didn't matter. The title of World's Fastest Man was up for grabs, along with millions of dollars in sponsorship deals. It was the final of the 100-meter dash, and the lanes were filled with the most talented sprinters on earth.

No finesse, no gimmicks. Just raw speed and pure acceleration.

The night's session kicked off at 7 p.m., with a host of women's middle distance events, men's long jump and women's shot put preceding the big showdown.

I arrived plenty early, expecting the crowds to be intense.

I was right.

The streets outside the stadium had become the world's biggest carnival. Small vendors sold cheesy trinkets and knockoff Olympic souvenirs.

Loud, confident Jamaicans drank beer on the street and heckled passing Americans. They warned blond-haired tourists that U.S. star Tyson Gay didn't stand a chance. Not against Asafa Powell and Usain Bolt, they said. (Gay, a gold-medal favorite, actually wasn't even in the final, thanks to a hamstring injury.)

Meanwhile, under the watchful eyes of ubiquitous security guards, an active scalping market roared with transactions. China's new class of capitalists made the most of this marquee event, selling nosebleed seats for astronomical prices. They waved the tickets high in the air, fishing for desperate foreigners with fat wallets. The going rate for a mid-grade ticket was something like 2,000 yuan, close to $300.

I walked toward the stadium and soaked up the international flavor. People from every place on the planet were within a one-mile radius of each other, all bearing the flags of their homeland and wearing smiles on their faces. The queue to enter the stadium was long, and by the time I crossed the security checkpoints and found the way to my seats, high in the second of three tiers, the night's events were well under way.

The interior of the fabled stadium was impressive, but not all that dissimilar from a major U.S. sports venue. The hard plastic seats wore out their welcome quickly, the concession stands were mobbed with unbearably long lines and a beer cost at least three yuan too much.

Still, I was in awe. Above me, the Olympic torch blazed a deep orange. The stadium's roof was lined with flags from every nation in the world. All 90,000 seats were filled, and twinkling of flash bulbs lit up the place constantly.

Our seats weren't bad. With only a gentle squint you could watch pain contort athletes' faces as they grunted through qualifying races.

But again, we international volunteers were too lucky. As Olympic News Service volunteers, we're given a slickly laminated press badge that grants us access to the Mixed Zones and press tribunes.

In the press tribune of the Bird's Nest, the seats were exquisite: dead center of the track, just meters from the track. If Usain Bolt burped, I could have smelled his dinner.

I settled into my seat, surrounded by some of the biggest names in sports journalism, and watched the show. I was in awe the entire time. While I couldn't tear my sights from the athletics, the journalists around me worked furiously, taking notes, making phone calls and checking emails - many of them seemingly oblivious to the torch roaring overhead and impervious to the magical pulse that pumped through the stands.

At the end of the night, the climax of the show, no one in the venue remained in their seats. When the 100-meter sprinters were introduced, the audience exploded in applause. Everyone jockeyed for the best position, climbing seats and stepping on railings in an effort to gain the most favorable vantage point. We all wanted to see history. We had our cameras out, our shutters set on high-speed. We were ready for a world record.

And none of us were disappointed.

Usain Bolt roared out of the blocks, accelerating powerfully. His long, smooth stride seemed effortless. Eighty meters in, he was so far ahead that he danced to the finish and still beat second-place Richard Thompson by 0.2 seconds.

Bolt's time, 9.69 seconds, was a new world record. The sellout crowd cheered wildly and watched the 21-year-old strut through a victory lap. He danced, hugged front-row spectators and kissed his shoes.

Only 10 rows from the track, I watched his antics in amazement and snapped a few photos as he wore the Jamaican flag as a cape and pointed to a scoreboard emblazoned with the words "Olympic Record."

Anxious to see the World's Fastest Man up close, I made my way down to the Mixed Zone, where reporters try to catch athletes as they walk to the locker room.

Predictably, it was a zoo. An entire pen of pushy journalists, all elbows and tape recorders, were pushing and shoving, intent on grabbing one punchy quote to beat their deadlines. When the sprinters finally came through, they were mobbed.