Daniel McCormick is representing the USA as a Judo Olympian in Beijing, China. Daniel is a former student of Jim Irvine. (Jim is an instructor at the club who recently came to us from Texas). The head instructor for Daniel during his 10 years in Dallas was “Ace” Sukigara assisted by Judy Choquette)

Well today started off on a very rough note. I have apparently eaten something that my body does not appreciate as much as my taste buds did. So I have been paying for it. I am feeling better though thanks to my Pepto and Imodium cocktails that I have been taking quite often. Because of this I decided not to practice today. Which isn't a huge problem because I still have 8 days til and fight and I want to make sure I am healthy. If I fought sooner I would have been on the mat today no matter what.

The most exciting part of the whole trip happened today. Former President Bush decided to drop by our practice today at the BNU. He was doing an interview with Matt Lauer for the Today Show and after this he stayed around for awhile and met a bunch of the athletes. When I first saw him I walked up and shook his hand and he said, "wow your a big one aren't you," which made me laugh and surprised me how down to earth he is. He is 84 and still jokes around with all of us. However I didn't get to see him do his Dana Carvey impression. I should have asked if he takes requests. He asked me where I was from and once I told him my real name became irrelevant, he decided that I should be called Texas. Which was my name for the next 30 or so minutes until he had to leave. I have attached a photo of myself with President Bush along with one of a few of my teammates showing him a little of judo, and one with President Bush and our Judo team. I sadly didn't get to take one with Matt Lauer, who was also very nice and very friendly to all of us. This is a day that I will never forget.

Yesterday was a pretty ordinary day. Nothing in comparison to today. Nothing unusual happened until it came time for dinner. As soon as I finished eating I was walking to throw my trash away and I saw this very skinny individual taking photos with alot of different people. I was surprised by how many people were trying to get his photo. As I got closer I realized it was Kobe Bryant. So I decided to side step this and on our way out we saw an even bigger mob of people. This is where Kobe had been eating with a few of his teammates. Along with Kobe Bryant there was Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Carlos Boozer, Chris Paul (I think), and one more that I did not recognize. It was unbelievable how many people wanted to see them. They were just laughing and joking away with all the people. It was a very funny sight with people pushing to the front and holding their cameras as high as they could to get a photo. This is very rare to see, because typically the basketball players, top track players, and any multi million dollar sport star does not come into the village. They stay in nice hotels and eat expensive room service. I wish I had had my camera to take a picture of the crowd.

During dinner I was talking to the Canadians and they said the Roger Federer the tennis superstar had just left the mess hall right before we arrived and he was swamped by tons of people as well. We met up with the Canadians after dinner and after we saw the crowd for the NBA players and they said that Federer's crowd was a lot larger then the one for all the NBA players, and he was taking photos with people for a half hour. He must be as nice as the rumors say he is.

Tomorrow is the opening ceremonies and we will walk into that stadium with 2 billion people watching as Team USA. This is one of the greatest honors of my life and I am very excited.

Hope all is well

Daniel