Intertwined - Tangled series (Overprotective famous brothers)

Brazilian Everything

Alisha

It was almost a day since we landed and it was all still hazy.

We'd had a talk about the opening ceremony and the practice rounds and the clothes we were supposed to wear and the things we were supposed to say and then headed up to the tower of theirs. It was majestic. It oddly reminded me of the viewing tower at Kuala Lumpur, but this was only better. We could see the entire city glimmering. It wasn't about the sky scrapers really, but about the random dots spread around the darkness. And then there it was, in the corner. Christ the redeemer.

We had gone to the dining session and our mind had been blown away with the preparations. They had all kinds of cuisine imaginable here, and we couldn't decide what we wanted.

"We go in a circle. One meal, one cuisine." Our captain finally said and we made a pact. Hence, we spent the night eating Arabic food. Which was surprisingly made according to most common diet requirements of gymnasts. Yes, they put up nutritional facts next to every dish, making life easier for all the athletes there. You could make informed choices, which was more important now than ever.

I also discovered that people weren't all that mean, even though they were Olympians. While at dinner, two Kenyan runners came up to me and told me how they loved Salman's new movie and watched it twice and wished they could tell Salman. Since they couldn't, they were telling me.

They sat down with the team and told them about their sport, and we told them about ours. They told us how their officials were corrupt and we added how ours were corrupt and lazy. We laughed and had our food. In the end, before parting ways, I made a quick call.

"Hey, you, I have two fans of yours who have something to say to you." I told Salman and handed the two my phone. They looked at me with wide eyes and shakily took my phone, gushing about my brother and his movie and how one of his works had encouraged them to fight for the Olympics and they were here because of him and that did make me tear up a teeny tiny bit.

It was a village we lived in, indeed.

But now it was morning, and it was time for us to see where we would train for the next few days.

"So, USA gymnastics team," the USAG official addressed us while we were seated in a similar bus as yesterday,

"This is not your national camp. So please. No throwing around of chalk powder, no running across mat, no kicking equipment. Behave."

And he sat down. I looked around to see most gymnasts trying to suppress their laughter. Here we were, representing an entire country in one of the most famous sports in the world, and we were being lectured about manners.

We got down at a training facility in the middle of the city. The final event would be held in the Olympic stadium itself, but they naturally hadn't readied it yet. They would ready the place only a day before the competition, so we had to train at the place where some of their own gymnasts trained. They had told us during correspondence that they'd tried their best to replicate all structure and equipments, and except the lack of grandeur, things were similar.

They had used the colours of Rio Olympics - orange, green and blue. They would have easily used blue mats, as was convention. But they had orange mats, with an interesting ombre effect at the edge. It looked flamboyant, but I didn't mind. Gymnastics could work with some brightness.

"We get only four hours on alternate days. Seriously. Get working or you will regret this for your entire life." Dimitri yelled at us and we sped up our process of getting ready for practice. It was way too crowded for all of us, but we'd figured out a way to accommodate everyone. There would be no sitting around. We warmed up together, and as some people took on equipments, others worked on specific skills and conditioned more, working on injury prevention.