Advertisement
Published: August 11th 2012
Edit Blog Post
The Lord of the Rings. They might well find this an appropriate name for Sebastian himself after the success of London 2012 - the Lord of the Olympic Rings that is. The nation is hooked. The unhappy people spending half of their life in the last minute scramble for the returned tickets might think a different name for the Games - Jumping Through Hoops could be a strong bet. After our intial forray into the Games, one half of the duo became a bit obsessed with the ticket hunt and spent a disproportionate number of hours with a finger firmly placed on the refresh button. I would add that it wasn't the usual stadium addict. The ultimate aim - an athletics ticket. Just when all hope was lost, result! Two tickets for the evening of Tuesday 7 August. Don't ask the price, credit card at the ready. Just press the button!
The button was pressed. The tickets printed. What about the tube pass? Sort that out when we get there. Too late for a train - at least at a sensible price. We negotiated early release from work, had a fairly uneventful trip down the M11 and parked up in
Robbie Grabarz (Team GB)
Bronze Medal in Mens High Jump a very quiet Woodford, before taking the Central Line down to Stratford. The super efficiency of the military, games volunteers and the transport arrangements was still bearing up into the second week of the Games. There were at least double the people in the park with the athletics stadium full and there was a huge difference from our first visit on 29 July 2012. The queues formed early ............. and that was just to get into the areas to watch the Velodrome action on the big screen. The lucky ones were already in the Velodrome for the last hurrah of Sir Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton. We spied a space on the adjacent walkway - should have known, there was a tree in the line of sight of the screen. We found another spot and watched others make the same mistake. The crowd swelled, once the hockey finished and the masses left the Riverbank Stadium.
The entry to the Stadium was painless. The bowl of the Stadium is sunk below the ground level, so you are effectively enterring at the top of the bottom tier. The sense of relief was huge - the printed off tickets worked. It was
never forecast to be a big night for Team GB. The best bet for a medal was Robbie Grabarz in the Mens High Jump. We spied his support team in the form of Isobel Pooley - aspiring member of the Team GB for Rio 2016. She towered over me, as I snapped a photo. We found our seats on the back row of the Lower Tier. Alas the discus netting was slightly obscuring the finish line of the track, but we a great view of the start of the Mens 1500 metres. The sightlines were surprisingly good. The extra bonus of the seats would become clear, when the skies turned and the heavens opened. The last few rows of the lower tier were under the overhang of the upper tier. We sat dry as a bone and wacthed others invest in a poncho. A saving of sorts then. Our neighbours in their adjacent seats looked equally pleased with the dry expensive seat.
The coroprates in front munched their way through an overpriced fish and chips washed down with a small 300 cl bottle of beer at £4.30! How much?? The said brew can clearly reach all parts of Japanese
Isobel Pooley
..............Women's High Jump Rio 2012?? wallets. The interest then waned and some left half way through successfully demolishing one of those little black boxes that you see next to the seats. What are they? They're not scoreboards, part of the PA system or indeed a cunning device to order a Ronnie Mac. The official line is that they are a pixel block used to do all the special-effects lighting across the spectators' area of the stadium during the Opening Ceremony. There are apparently 70,500 of them (possibly now down to 70,499 unless the man with the spanners fixes the broken one), making a total display area of 634,500 pixels. We will no doubt see them at the Closing Ceremony.
We were unsure about what to expect with the Athletics, having never been to a top class event like this before. Our previosu experience was limited to the World Oceanic Student Games in Christchurch, New Zealand. Admission: Free. There was a lot happening. Womens Long Jump very close to us. The Mens High Jump at teh far end of the stadium and the Mens Discus directly in front of our seats. It was actually quite difficult to focus on all the things going on simultaneously
with the action on the track obviously dominating the other events. The speed of the athletes on the track and the long jump run up was something to see.You watch the TV and don't really think in such as the 800 metres they are going that fast .... trust me, you wouldn't be keeping up unless you had a motorbike.
The early action in front of us was the Womens Long Jump qualification. Team GB's Shara Procter led the way on her 1st jump with 6.83 metres. The chances of some of the others diminished as the weather deteriorated. The luck of the draw. The Mens High Jump Final was scheduled to be give Team GB good chance of a medal. It urned out that way, but Gold never realisticly looked a possibility. The battle for Gold was between Erik Kynard (USA) and Ivan Ukhov (Russia), the latter of which put the big pressure on with a clearance of 2.38 metres. The American missed a height and went unsuccessfully for 2.40. It was over. The Russian had one go at a new Olympic record and then decided he would be better off having a lap of honour. The pick
Andrew Osagie (Team GB)
Mens 800 Metres Semi Final 2 of the field events on the night was the Mens Discus. It wasn't really the competition, but the celebration. Germany's Robert Harting really came into his own once he'd got the result, ripping of his vest in Hulk style before launching himself on the longest lap of honour in history. He was undaunted by the hurdles lined up down the home straight for the Womens 100 Metre Final - he succesfully jumped the lot and carried on going. He allegedly carried on until the early hours with his own party style, lost his accreditation and got locked out of the Athletes Village!
The athletics truely does "inspire a generation". It makes you want to participate. However, the 30 odd years that have elapsed since a promising school sprinting career mean that my 11 year old 100 metre time is never under serious threat. The events we saw for the record are as follows:
Womens 100 Metres Hurdles (Semi Finals and Final) • Gold - Sally Pearson (Australia) 12.35 Seconds (Olympic Record)
• Silver - Dawn Harper (USA) 12.37 Seconds
• Bronze - Kellie Wells (USA) 12.48 Seconds
Mens 800 Metres (Semi Finals) Semi Final 1
Team GB Morris Dancers
.......... the next Olympic sport?? • Abu Kaki (Sudan)
• Nigel Amos (Botswana)
Semi Final 2
• David Rudisha (Kenya)
• Andrew Osagie (Team GB)
• Nick Symmonds (USA) Fastest Loser
Semi Final 3
• Mo Aman (Ethiopia)
• Timothy Kitum (Kenya)
• Duane Solomon (USA) Fastest Loser
Womens 200 Metres (Semi Finals) Semi Final 1
• Veronica Campbell-Brown (Jamaica)
• Carmelita Jeter (USA)
• Myriam Soumare (France) Fastest Loser
Semi Final 2
• Allyson Felix (USA)
• Murielle Ahoure (Ivory Coast)
• Semoy Hackett (Trinidad & Tobago) Fatest Loser)
Semi Final 3
• Sanya Richards-Ross (USA)
• Shelly Ann Fraser-Price (Jamaica)
Mens 1500 Metres (Final) • Taoufik Makhloufi (Algeria)
• Leonel Manzano (USA)
• Abdalaati Iguider (Morocco)
It was a good night. It was an expensive night. It was a night that will live long in the memory. The in the flesh Olympic experience is over or is it? I know a person is busy pressing buttons as we speak to get some more tickets. Just don't look at the credit card bill!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.119s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 25; dbt: 0.076s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Dancing Dave
David Hooper
WOW
To see Sally Pearson win the Women's 100m Hurdles...what an honour...to attend the London Olympics...sensational!