This year has been billed by those in charge as "The year the world comes to Daegu" or something close to that. There have been multiple events that had an international draw for the city, but the biggest one by far was the IAAF. I was pleasantly surprised to see the BBC's homepage talking about what was going on in my city everyday. Athletes from all over the world showed up to compete in Olympic-type fashion.
The stadium was originally built for the World Cup when it came through Korea a few years ago. The thing is gigantic, and really beautiful. Strangely, there was little to no food for sale, and not one single booth for memorabilia. Somebody missed out on some easy won.
I wanted the cheap seats, but they were sold out. The only thing left were the $30 seats, and I really wanted to see the event so I went for it. I didn't realize this would get us seats 2 rows from the field, directly in front of the finish line. We enjoyed shot put, javelin, and various running distances from incredibly close.
After the 800m run, the winner of the event (USA!USA!) came over to us, his family was sitting right behind us. We also got to see Hussein Bolt run, although it was a team effort. I probably won't have a chance to see something like this again, it was nice to come back here and have this a few weeks later.
Bernard Lagat! Very cool.
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