By Dr. Terry Schroeder, Westlake Village resident and head coach of the U.S. Olympic Men's Water Polo Team, whichtrained for several months in Westlake Village and Thousand Oaks.

We woke up this morning to some interesting news. The Beijing Organizing Committee (BOCOG) sent out a statement that said that no Olympians will be allowed to stay at Beijing Normal University (BNU).

It was a little unnerving to wake up to this news, especially since we were to get on our plane to Beijing in a few hours and BNU is where we were set to stay for the first week of the trip before we can move into the Olympic Village.

We are also suppose to be training at BNU prior to the beginning of the Olympic Games.

This whole thing was a bit stressful, to say the least. Here were our options: 1. Don't get on the flight and stay home for another week for training. 2. Get on the plane and hope that we can get into the Olympic Village right away.

April Heinricks, our main contact with the USOC, called from Beijing and assured me that they would get us into the Village early and work hard with us to make sure we had a place to train. We chose to get on the bus and head for the airport.

From this point on, the day has become better and better. We arrived at the airport and found out that Kinetics (a company that I was introduced to in New York on our way back from Europe in June) had launched an advertising campaign to help "make us famous."

There we were on a big digital billboard right next to Tiger Woods in the airport. It was pretty cool to see. This particular one was a picture of Jesse Smith up high in the water shooting a ball.

The caption read, "The most intense sport in the Olympics and you only see half of it. Watch the USA Men's Water Polo Team in Beijing."

The guys all gathered around the billboard and we took some pictures. We were then ushered over to the red carpet room at United and treated as if we were some special.

As we boarded the plane, a few of the guys met the captain. It turned out his daughter is a water polo player. One conversation led to another and the captain invited our whole team to sit up in business class for the trip.

Obviously, this made the team very happy. There is nothing like a big sleeper seat for a 12-hour flight. Usually, we are packed in coach. By the time you get off the flight, you feel like you have been beaten up.

Beijing, here we come!

2:30 p.m. - we arrived safely in Beijing - one more step closer to blast off.

See you at the pool!

Coach

Wayne Bean is a local supporter of the U.S. Men's Water Polo Team. He has been posting blog entries for Coach Schroeder while he is in Beijing.