It began to rain around the time that everybody was arriving at Shanghai Stadium for tonight’s soccer matches. At first, just a drizzle. But then, quite suddenly, the thunder started and the skies opened up. There’s very little shelter in the area, and – making matters worse – the Olympic organizers included umbrellas on their list of items prohibited from official venues.
The result was that hundreds of people began to seek shelter beneath the awning at exit 2 of the Shanghai Indoor Stadium Metro Station … just as several hundred people were emerging from it. I was one of those caught in the crossfire (I had a camera to protect!). The multitudes of police in the area were caught off guard, and I believe the only thing that prevented people from being pushed down the station’s slippery was the very brief tenure of heaviest rain.
Anyway, while I was being pushed backwards, I lifted my camera over my head and began to shoot. I expected nothing but a blur, and that’s mostly what I got. But, just a moment ago, while sorting and deleting all those blurry shots, I found the image below. I shrunk the image down for the purposes of this post, so in case it’s not clear, the baseball cap in the lower left reads: “Life in [Y]our Hands.”
The image doesn’t really do justice to just how bad the crush and press felt for a couple of minutes there.
Anyway, I’m off to Hong Kong in the morning for Olympic equestrian. Probably won’t be posting again until Tuesday.
Great photo. Can you post a link to a higher res version?
I can imagine how hot and desperate when caught in a huge crowds. You can only elbow through or get stuch in the middle.