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Meet Leslie & Bill

Faces of Rio 2016

By Rachel Tobias

August 17^th, 2016

Meet leslie & bill.

I’ve spent a lot of time at this Olympics attending events on my own, partly because I bought a lot of tickets in advance, and partly because I really enjoy traveling alone. I find that I’m much more likely to connect with people when I’m by myself. Just the other night, a wonderful family of four invited me to join them for dinner after seeing me (happily) alone with my spaghetti carbonara, and that conversation was one of the highlights of my time here.

I’ve seen two swimming events in Rio, and was fortunate enough to see Michael Phelps win two nights in a row. After watching him and idolizing him for almost fifteen years now, it was particularly special to see a few of his last swims and last medals (although, never say never).

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I got to the swimming quite early to watch all of the athletes warming up with their coaches. The volunteers have been extremely lax about letting people into any area of the stadium and not checking tickets, and they had no problem with me standing right on the railing overlooking heaps of stretching swimmers. Leslie and Bill happened to wander up next to me and we got to talking. They were in Rio after flying down athletes and dignitaries on United chartered jets, and had just enough time to pop into a couple of events before flying home another load of Olympic VIPs. Leslie was the pilot and John the co-pilot, and they had been flying together for years.

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Swimming has been my favorite event here in Rio, next to beach volleyball. The energy at the swimming events is pure goosebump-inducing delight. It was so exciting to watch all the young new American swimmers, as well as see some underdogs, like Singapore, grab a gold medal. One of the highlights of this Olympics has been sitting next to the families of some of the swimmers during the event, and the swell of emotion that overcomes everyone, myself included, as their son or daughter races to the finish. I sat next to Maya Dirado’s family as she medaled, as well as Conor Dwyer’s, and it was magic. Just magic.