Author: Roy Tomizawa

Musashino Forest Sports Plaza: First of the New Permanent Tokyo 2020 Venues

Musashino Forest Sports Plaza 1
Musashino Forest Sports Plaza on the left, and Ajinomoto Stadium on the right

It was a cold and desolate Sunday when I walked around the grounds of the new Musashino Forest Sports Plaza. Located a short walk away from Tobitakyu Station on the Keio Line, the Musashino Forest Sports Plaza is right next to Ajinomoto Stadium, the home of the J-League Division 1 soccer team, F. C. Tokyo.

Musashino Forest Sports Plaza google maps

There were no events scheduled at either the Sports Plaza of Ajinomoto Stadium on the January afternoon I visited, but come July 2020, this quiet area of Chofu, very near the American School in Japan where my son went to high school, will be filled with thousands of noisy fans. The Musashino Forest Sports Plaza opened on November 27, 2017, the first of eight new permanent Tokyo 2020 venues to be completed. The Plaza will host badminton and pentathlon fencing in the 2020 Olympics, as well as wheelchair basketball during the 2020 Paralympics.

Musashino Forest Sports Plaza 3
View of the Main Arena on the left background, the sub-arena with its pool and gym on the right background, with a track and field in the foreground.

According to this article, the Musashino Forest Sports Plaza is built to serve the community long after the Olympics end. The facilities include a swimming pool, a gym, a multi-use sports area and two fitness studios which are available to the public. The roof of the facilities are made up of solar panels, to help provide a more sustainable energy source.

Musashino Forest Sports Plaza 2
Main Arena and its solar panel roof

And in line with Tokyo2020 Accessibility Guidelines, “the facility designed to be accessible to all, including the elderly, people with impairments, parents with infant strollers and those with guide dogs. The main arena has space for wheelchairs, and the space is designed with enough height difference between the rows of seating to ensure that those in wheelchairs can see clearly, even if spectators in front of them stand up.”

Ajinomoto Stadium will also host matches in the soccer competition during Tokyo 2020, and will be called Tokyo Stadium during the Olympics in accordance with its non-commercialization policy.

Musashino Forest Sports Plaza 4

Continue reading →

Olympians Compete in Unique Japanese Competitions: How I Spent My New Year’s Evening

Sports Grand Prix Top AthletesAmerican Justin Gatlin is the fastest man in the world today, but can he beat the speed of a ball in freefall that accelerates at 9.81 meters per second squared in the Shotgun Touch competition?

Russian Denis Ablyazin won the silver medal in the men’s vault at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, but can he win the “Monster Box” competition, hurdling a vault over 3 meters high?

New Zealander Tomas Walsh won the bronze medal in the men’s shot put at the Rio Games, but can he defeat All Blacks rugby player and fellow New Zealander, Nepo Laulala, in the excruciating “Power Wall” contest?

If you’re a big fan of Ninja Warrior, you know the incredible obstacle course is based on a Japanese television program called Sasuke, produced by Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS). The same network, TBS, also produces a program called Sports Grand Prix Top Athletes which puts athletes to the test in creative competition.

And being an Olympian does not put you to the front of the class. Ablyazin made it look easy vaulting a horse built up some 2.5 meters high. But near the 3-meter mark, he faltered and lost to a Japanese trampoline competitor. Walsh also made it look easy pushing a movable wall against other competitors who sought to push the wall back, an event that is akin to a reverse tug of war.

But one would have thought that racing a falling ball to a spot requires pure speed, and that the fastest man in the world should win hands down. The “Shotgun Touch” competition requires a runner to touch a button which releases a ball from the ceiling (an unknown number of meters above the ground). The object is for the runner to get any part of their body, usually hands and fingers, on the ball before it touches the ground.

For competitors like track stars Kenji Fujimitsu and Gatlin, as well as Kansas City Royal Whit Merrifield, or J-League soccer star, Kensuke Nagai, getting to the ball 12 meters away was not so difficult, but another 50 to 100 centimeters, and the ball can seem to be accelerating faster than the law of physics. In some of the early attempts around 12 meters, Gatlin made it look easy with the ball hitting him in the back or his arms.

And yet, he actually missed at 12.60 meters and twice at 13 meters, disqualifying him from the rest of the competition. As he learned, diving technique is as important as speed. There’s no way Merrifield would beat Gatlin in a 100-meter sprint, and yet he was able to succeed at 13 meters. In the end, it was J-League soccer star Nagai who triumphed the shotgun touch competition.

Kinda silly, kinda fun…that’s how I spent my New Year’s evening.

Continue reading →

Steeplechaser Horace Ashenfelter Passes Away at 94: The FBI Takes Down the KGB at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics

Horace Ashenfelter ahead of Vladimir Kazantsev in 3000meter steeplechase
Horace Ashenfelter ahead of Vladimir Kazantsev in 3000meter steeplechase

It was 1952 at the Helsinki Olympics, and the Cold War was heating up.

Making their first appearance at the Olympics were the Soviet Union. And in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, the favorites were Russians Vladimir Kazantsev, and Mikhail Saltykov, both world record holders with times under 9 minutes. Horace Ashenfelter, an American whose best at the time was nearly 18 seconds slower than Kazantsev’s best, was not given a chance to win the steeplechase competition.

And yet the American press played up the geo-political theme, particularly since Ashenfelter was an FBI agent in the US government. As Red Smith wrote in his column on July 26, 1952,

It was evident at Wednesday’s steeplechase heats that the final would bring about the carnival’s first head-on, man to man clash between an American and a Russian. A lot of people had been waiting for such a match ever since it became apparent, long before the games opened, that the 15th Olympics would be chiefly a Russian-American struggle. Before the heats, however, nobody had dreamt that the match might come about in the steeplechase. All the tall tales about a generation of supermen rehearsing behind the iron curtain had made special mention of Vladimir Kazantsev of Kiev, who had been charging over the obstacles at speeds the outside world had never seen.

With such a foe looming, Ashenfelter was given little chance. In the book, The Heart of a Champion, he was teased about his likely fate at the hand of the Russians:

“Horace, how is it going to feel to be out there running on the track when Kazantsev is in taking a shower and on his way home?” Another team-mate said, “I’ll bet Horace will have only three laps to go when Kazantsev is getting his gold medal.”

And yet, Ashenfelter was never fazed by the challenge. As stated in this interview, Ashenfelter was in prime shape and had nothing to lose.

I’m a pretty confident guy, actually and – put it this way – he had to beat me. It was the first time and only time where I had about three weeks of controlled training and rest. I had fine tuned my weight and weighed 128 pounds which I carried on five feet nine frame as compared to my normal weight of 140. I was in outstanding shape and had no bad luck occur. I was just going to stay with the pace as long as I could and to make the pace if I had to – I didn’t mind that.

He got suckered by his coaches as his plan they had was for him to stay with me. That meant that he was running on my right shoulder the whole race and adding three or four yards to each lap. I ran him a little bit wide on the corners and we bumped several times as he was running that close to me. That didn’t bother me but it may have bothered him – I don’t know. I knew I had a lot left at the end.

The American press lapped up the victory. As Smith wrote in his column, “The G man, reluctant to keep his back turned on a Commie, trotted back and slapped Kazantsev on the blouse of his britches.”

It was not known at that time that Kazantsev was also a KGB Agent, but one could imagine that Red Smith’s rhetoric would have been even more provocative.

As for Ashenfelter, he could care less about the Cold War drama on the track. “He was just an opponent. The media writes what they think and what they believe will attract readers.”

On January 6, 2018, Horace Ashenfelter passed away at the age of 94.

Continue reading →

In This, the Year of the Dog, Is Eating Dog Worse than Eating Cow?

If you’re following the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics on Twitter, you can’t avoid the tweets on calls to boycott the 2018 Winter Games in support of a ban on the eating of dog meat in Korea. Certainly, as 2018 just happens to be The Year of the Dog in the Asian zodiac timeframe, and the Winter Olympics are in South Korea this year, this is an opportune time to protest the consumption of dog meat.

Over the past two millenia, gaegogi, or dog meat, has been consumed in Korea, as well as China and Vietnam. Wikipedia cites an article that states 25 million dogs are eaten each year by humans. I have never tried dog meat, or cat meat for that matter, which is also consumed by humans to lesser degrees, primarily in Asia.

But I have had horse meat, a popular delicacy in Japan. It’s called basashi, served raw like sashimi, and it is delicious. But friends who had never in their life had the thought of eating horse would probably outwardly protest, or inwardly recoil upon hearing that horse was a highlight of Japanese cuisine.

basashi
Basashi, or raw horse meat, a popular dish in Japan.

There are quite a few commentaries on the internet on this topic – the idea that eating animals viewed first as pets and friends is abhorrent, while eating animals viewed first as food is not even a passing thought for most people (vegans and animal activists excluded).

Why is that? Jared Piazza, a lecturer in moral psychology from Lancaster University commented about the terrible ways dogs are slaughtered for human consumption, and the ambivalence it creates in many:

I too find myself heartbroken by these images. But as a vegan I find myself wondering why isn’t there more outrage in the world over the slaughter of other animals. For instance, each year in the US roughly 110m pigs are killed for meat. Where is the same public outcry over bacon?

The simple answer is emotional prejudice. We just don’t care enough about pigs for their needless suffering to pull at our heartstrings. As Melanie Joy, social psychologist and expert on “carnism” points out, we love dogs, yet we eat pigs, and there are simply no good moral reasons for such hypocrisy.

However this belief really just reflects the fact that people spend more time getting to know dogs than pigs. Many people have dogs as pets and through this relationship with dogs we’ve come to learn about them and care deeply for them. But are dogs really that different from other animals we eat?

Dr. Marc Bekoff wrote in Psychology Today explained that our feelings towards animals slaughtered so they can become pork chops or hamburger or chicken soup are muted since these animals are “out of sight, out of mind” for many of us.

In my essay concerning eating pigs I wrote, “When some people learn that I go to China to work with Animals Asia in their moon bear rescue program (link is external) (see also) they ask, ‘How can you go there, that’s where they eat dogs and cats?’ I simply say that I just left the United States where people routinely eat pigs, cows, chickens, and millions of other sentient beings.” Why is eating dogs different from eating cows and pigs at a barbecue or in a restaurant? For one, we don’t see the actual painful process of how pigs and cows become meals. 

In the end, is the debate about whether people eat dog or cat meat? Or is it about whether we care how we treat animals raised for human consumption? Do many of us prefer to keep such images out of sight, out of mind? (Yes, I struggle with the non-committal nature of this post’s conclusion.)

Continue reading →

“Superman on Skis” Jean-Claude Killy Part 3: Why Hunter S. Thompson Thought Killy was the Great Gatsby of Marketing

Jean Claude Killy_Sports Illustrated cover

As soon as Jean-Claude Killy ended his run in the Alpine downhill competition at the 1968 Grenoble Winter Olympics, the first person to greet him was his mentor and friend, Michel Arpin. Arpin, who worked for ski manufacturer, Dynamic, adroitly hugged his friend, showing photographers his back pouch with the Dynamics logo.

A policeman, as instructed to do for all skiers, took Killy’s skis away in order to avoid the “unseemly” display of ski brands adorning an amateur Olympic champion. Arpin then, according to The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics, took one of his skis off and planted it in the snow so that photographers could capture Killy with the ski and the two yellow bars of the Dynamic brand.

Killy retired from competitive skiing not long after Grenoble, because he knew that it would be hard to sustain his World Cup skiing dominance and triple-gold medal Olympic achievement. He also knew that he had other worlds to conquer. He signed with sports management firm, International Management Group, and started his career representing such brands as American Express, Schwinn bicycles, United Airlines, Chevrolet, as well as Head, the ski equipment manufacturer which put Killy’s vaunted name on their newest fiberglass skis.

Jean-Claude Killy, from the tiny village of Val-d’Isere in the French Alps, was a super star, and was now getting paid enough to live the life of the jet set and do what he pleased. He married an actress, Danielle Gaubert. He competed as a race car driver. He acted in movies, and produced television programs. Eventually he moved into sports administration, joining the executive board of the Alpine Skiing Committee of the International Federating of Skiing (FIS), serving as co-president of the 1992 Albertville Winter Olympics, president of the Tour de France organization, as well as a member of the International Olympic Committee.

Jean Claude Killy in the 1972 film Snow Job

Famed gonzo journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, spent some time with Killy in the midst of his transformation from world-class skier to world-class pitchman, catching Killy in a burst of unsolicited honesty. “Before, I could only dream about these things,” said Killy. “When I was young I had nothing, I was poor. . . Now I can have anything I want!”

Killy indeed started from humble beginnings. But he felt he had earned his way to the top, focusing on all aspects of how to be the greatest skier of his time, and making the same effort to be the best in his part of the world of business. Thompson recognized that drive in Killy in his profile called “The Temptations of Jean-Claude Killy.” Thompson was following Killy during a marketing tour for Chevrolet, noting that Killy’s ability to draw you in was Gatsby-like, and was an ability that made him rich. But Thompson also admitted that Killy worked at his new profession, as much as he did in his previous one.

The Temptations of Jean Claude Killy

Jean-Claude, like Jay Gatsby, has “one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced — or seemed to face — the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.”

That description of Gatsby by Nick Carraway — of Scott, by Fitzgerald — might just as well be of J.-C. Killy, who also fits the rest of it: “Precisely at that point [Gatsby’s smile] vanished — and I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. . .”

The point is not to knock Killy’s English, which is far better than my French, but to emphasize his careful, finely coached choice of words. “He’s an amazing boy,” I was told later by Len Roller. “He works at this [selling Chevrolets] just as hard as he used to work at winning races. He attacks it with the same concentration you remember from watching him ski.”

Continue reading →

“Speechless”: Starring Puig, Farah, De Grasse, Durant and Manuel in a Gregory Brothers Production

The Gregory Brothers

The Gregory Brothers are an amazing group of musicians who have used pitch-correction software to turn verbatim into joyous song. The video below is of a song they call “Speechless,” stitched together with the words of joy of 2016 Rio Olympians. See Olympic stars Monica Puig, Mo Farah, Andre deGrasse, Kevin Durant and Simone Manuel in their singing debut.

Continue reading →

“Superman on Skis” Jean-Claude Killy Part 2: Karl Schranz and the Mystery Man Who Nearly Ended Killy’s Golden Trifecta

Jean-Claude Killy, Guy Perillat
Jean-Claude Killy, Guy Perillat 1 and 2 in the downhill at Grenoble

Jean-Claude Killy edged out his fellow Frenchman, Guy Perillat, by only 8 one hundreth of a second in the men’s downhill. In the second alpine event, the giant slalom, King Killy, as he had been called, won easily for his second gold event.

The big question remaining – could Killy match the accomplishments of the great Austrian, Toni Sailer, who won all three alpine events at the 1956 Cortina d’Ampezzo Winter Olympics. The answer was touch and go.

A few days after Killy won the giant slalom, the weather in the French Alps deteriorated. Visibility on the slopes was horrible due to shadows, fog and mist, which made it hard to see the gates that formed the route down the mountain. The visibility was so poor, some of the skiers pleaded with officials to postpone the slalom competition, to no avail.

There are two rounds of skiing in the slalom and Killy found favor with the Gods as the skies cleared during his first run, helping him secure a small lead with a time of 49.37 seconds. In the second round, Killy made it down the course without fault, with a slighly slower time of 50.36 seconds.

A threat to Killy’s gold medal trifecta, Norwegian, Hakon Mjoen, seemingly overtook Killy in his second run, only to be disqualified for missing two gates down the slope. There was only one more man who had a chance to beat Killy – the Austrian Karl Schranz. Silver medalist in the giant slalom at the 1964 Innsbruck Olympics, and World Cup Champion in 1969 and 1970, Schranz unfortunately found greater fame in this 1968 slalom event.Karl Schranz

Sailer Schranz and Killy
Austrian skier Karl Schranz being congratulated by teammate Toni Sailer (left) and Frenchman Jean-Claude Killy after winning the Olympic slalom event here. Later came the sensational disqualification of Schranz by the judges for missing a gate.

As Schranz made his way down the slalom course, at the 21st gate, he had to stop, according to sports-reference.com. Schranz told officials that a man in black walked onto the course in his path, forcing him to stop. Upon hearing that explanation, officials allowed Schranz a do-over. Taking advantage, Shranz skied the course to perfection, generating the fastest combined times of the two rounds, and entered the post-race press conference as the proud winner of his first Olympic gold medal. Killy was the reluctant winner of the silver medal.

Two hours later, Schranz’s world was turned topsy turvy. It was announced that Schranz had missed gate #19 in the second round, two gates earlier than when the mystery man in black impeded Schranz’s progress. Since the infraction occurred prior to the distraction, officials declared Shranz disqualified, and Jean-Claude Killy the gold medalist.

Schranz and the Austrian team, according to The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics 2014 Edition, were outraged.

Schranz claimed that if he did miss a gate or two it was because he had already been distracted by the sight of someone on the course. His supporters contended that the mystery man had been a French policeman or soldier who had purposely interfered with Schranz in order to insure Killy’s victory. The French, on the other hand, hinted that Schranz had made up the whole story after he had missed a gate.

In the end, a Jury of Appeal ruled against Schranz. The Austrian lost his gold, and Killy won his third gold of the Grenoble Winter Games, matching Sailer in 1956. As he was quoted in The Complete Book, Killy celebrated with the sustained intensity he brought to the slopes: “The party went on for two-and-a-half days, and the whole time I never saw the sun once.”

Continue reading →

“Superman on Skis” Jean-Claude Killy Part 1: It’s All or Nothing

 

Jean Claude Killy slalom
Jean-Claude Killy

 

“100% always, on everything, yes.”

That was the response to a question during an interview with CNN in 2015. The interviewer wondered why one of the world’s most famous skiers had not been on the slopes since 1988, speculating that perhaps Jean-Claude Killy was either going to be great at what he did, or not do it all.

“It’s very difficult for a skier like me to go up and ski, just nicely, and not seeing my skiing what I would want it to be. I’m 100% always, on everything, yes.”

Killy is a one-time Olympian, but at his one appearance at the 1968 Grenoble Winter Olympics, the Frenchman swept the three alpine skiing events – the downhill, the grand slalom and the slalom, the only person other than Austrian great, Toni Sailer, to do so.

To reach such Olympian heights, Killy had to fall, many times. To Killy and his coach, falling meant he was pushing it. The head coach of the French ski team, Honore Bonnet, took in a 17-year-old Killy, a raw talent, but with tremendous potential, as he explained in this 1990 Sports Illustrated profile of Killy:

I took him on the team in 1960-61, and he never finished a race. He’d be ahead by two seconds halfway down, but he’d fall. I encouraged him. I told him that I selected people not by their finish but by their performance in the gates on the way down. I reminded him that, of course, if he wished ever to win he would have to arrange to also finish. But at the time I believed this young man had everything. Eventually I was proved right.

A year later, Bonnet saw evidence of this go-for-broke attitude in a race in Cortina, Italy. Even though Killy was only three weeks before his debut at the World Championships in Chamonix, France, he went “hell-bent” down the slopes, crashing in dramatic style about 180 meters from the finish, immediately getting up and crossing the finish line on one ski. He busted his leg, and missed the World Championships.

The 1964 Innsbruck Winter Games were Killy’s Olympic debut, and he was eligible for all three alpine events. He was actually a favorite in the Giant Slalom at the age of 20, but he lost a binding in that race, fell a the beginning of another, and never showed the promise his coach had seen.

But in 1967, it all came together.

Jean-Claude Killy profileOver the course of 1967, the year before the Grenoble Winter Olympics, Killy had become the most dominant downhill skier in the world. Inspired by the points system of Formula 1 motor racing, where drivers are rewarded for success over time, organizers created the World Cup season for skiing in 1967. And Killy took that first season by storm. Of the 17 world cup slalom, giant slalom and downhill races he competed in, Killy won 12. In all 1967 competitions he participated in, he finished as a top three finalist in 25 of 29 races, coming in first in 19 of those.

Said Killy in this SkiingHistory.org interview, “if the World Cup hadn’t been invented, my 1967 season might not have been what it was. It was a greater achievement than my 1968 gold-medal hat trick at the Grenoble Winter Olympics, for which most people remember me.”

And for good reason. He took the risk, to try new things to gain an edge, even if it meant experimenting in the midst of competition. Here’s how he won his first gold medal in Grenoble, as he explains it to Sports Illustrated:

My start was tremendous, and I took every risk I could find on the course. I also had a little secret I knew about the finish line. Early in the practice runs, I had realized that if I cut a sharp line just at the pole on the right, I could actually gain a couple of meters. I had never taken this line during practice, because I didn’t want anyone to know about it.

As they say, fortune favors the bold.

Continue reading →

How Marathoner Gabriela Andersen Inspired the Great Shigeo Nagashima: Never Give Up

Gabriela Andersen
Marathoner Gabriela Andersen at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

“I knew if I stopped or sat down, that would be the end of it. I was just determined to make it to that finish line.”

And so Gabriela Andersen of Switzerland staggered into the Olympic stadium. The 30° C (86° F) heat and humidity of August in Los Angeles was overpowering, and far from ideal for a marathon. On top of that, Andersen had somehow missed the water station and did not replenish herself in the last phase of the marathon.

Greatly dehydrated, Andersen was listing awkwardly to her left, staggering at times across the lanes. It was a horrible sight for spectators in the stands and for spectators globally on TV, as they prayed the marathon would not collapse, and cheered her on to complete the first ever women’s marathon at the Olympics.

Her husband, Dick Andersen, watching in anguish from the stands, as officials in white walked alongside Andersen, asking her about her condition. In this video from The Olympic Channel, Andersen explains that one of them was a doctor who was actually encouraging. The doctor told her that he saw her sweating, and that she knew where she was going, and that both were good signs. But this was the Olympics, and this was the first marathon for women at the Olympics, so Andersen told herself,

‘Try to keep running. Try to stay upright.’ My muscles just did not respond. It just deteriorated over the last 400 meters. At this point, I’m in the Olympics. I want to finish this race because this is my one and only chance. I was 39. I knew in another four years there was a very slim chance to qualify again.

And as she made her way around the stadium track, the cheers grew louder and louder. “I clearly remember the cheering and the noise. It was just incredible. It was so loud. I didn’t expect something like that. That probably kept me going too.”

At long last, in a respectable time of 2 hours, 24 minutes and 52 seconds, Andersen finally reached the line, falling into the waiting arms of three officials, two of whom carried her off the track. Fortunately, two hours later, Andersen was fine.

Shigeo NagashimaTwo months later, Andersen and her husband made a trip to Japan. Of course, the Japanese had witnessed Andersen’s finish to the marathon, and one person in particular, had to tell her how he felt. That was Japanese sports living legend, Shigeo Nagashima, arguably Japan’s most famous baseball player. When Nagashima met Andersen, he told her “I was moved by your singular drive to your goal. You were the perfect expression to me of the wonder and challenge of sports.”

After hearing those words, Andersen realized more than ever before that it’s not always about the result, that It’s often about not giving up.

Today, at the age of 70, Andersen lives in Idaho in America and is training hard on skis, looking forward to competition. As she said in this Japanese article, “In life, there are many setbacks. I always tell myself, ‘don’t give up, head straight for your goal.”

Continue reading →

Under Construction: Kengo Kuma’s National Stadium in Yoyogi Rises

National Stadium_Asahi_27October2017
The new National Stadium on 27October2017_Asahi

Ground was broken for the new National Stadium in Yoyogi on December 11, 2016, where the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will kick off.

National Stadium_29Dec2017_1
My photo of the stadium on December 29, 2017, from the Northwest side.

Exactly a year later, the International Olympic Committee declared that Japan is on schedule with all new venues for Tokyo 2020, even the National Stadium that was put perilously behind schedule when the Japanese government demanded the organizers drop Zaha Hadid’s winning design as costs escalated from JPY130 billion to JPY252 billion.

National Stadium_29Dec2017_2
My photo – a look inside through one of the few gaps in the wall from the northeast part of the stadium.

As the IOC officials recently saw, the shell of architect Kengo Kuma’s design has risen. I took a walk around it on December 29, 2017, the area quiet as the construction crew was on holiday break. The high protective wall that surround the stadium area is clean and white, only the tiniest of views available for the pedestrian promenading the path around the wall.

National Stadium_29Dec2017_3
My photo – a view from the west of the stadium.

I looked for high ground near the stadium – office buildings and apartment buildings – but I lacked the reporter’s motivation that day to go up to a lobby receptionist or maintenance person to ask – “can I go up to the top of your building and take a picture of the stadium?”

This post has pictures I was able to take, as well as images off of the internet.

Continue reading →