The Olympic Park

For our first day in the Olympic Park we left much earlier than we needed to for our evening tickets, as we wanted to look around the park and spend some time with the crowds watching the big screen.  Our Kentish Town location was ideal as we could get on a train straight to Stratford, and once there, we were quickly through security and into the Park.

After taking the obligatory photos of each other under the Olympic Park signs, and having a Gamesmaker take a photo of us with the stadium in the background, we got onto the important stuff, like taking pictures of the Aquatics Centre and The Orbit too.  We had seen pictures of the Orbit, and weren't convinced by it, and I can't say we were really any more enamoured of it in reality.

People have tried to compare it to the Eiffel Tower, which apparently many Parisiens disliked initially, so maybe one day I'll love it, but to me it just looks like a rather messy giant helter skelter.  The London Eye has become an icon, is in a good location and gives a great view; the Shard is too young to be an icon but also has a viewing platform, and is near London Bridge with the market, dungeon and other sites; do people really want another viewing tower out in Stratford?

First photos taken, our next task was a practical one - fill our bottles from the water taps.  There was a queue, but it wasn't too bad, and it meant we could multi task by taking it in turns to nip off to the loo while the other waited.

And for those of you who have been reading the blog for a while, and want to know where this would rank on our convenience scale, then on overall experience of the two days I would have to judge them as a 4.25 out of 5.  They lost half a point because they lacked any decorative touches or character, and dropped a quarter point because one time there was no paper, but in fact I was pretty impressed that at a venue of this size, with so many visitors, they managed to achieve a high standard of cleanliness and hardly any waiting time.

With our drinking water filled, we amused ourselves with the size of the queue for the MacDonalds, and headed off for the Megastore.  It was certainly a large shop, and very busy.  I wandered around the Tshirts for a while before deciding not to bother, as I would probably never wear it again after these few days, and set off to look for the two things that I'd figured I would buy.

They didn't have a silver charm that I liked, so that will have to be left for an online purchase if I get around to it, but they did have the box of Christmas decorations.

If you read my blog about souvenirs then you'll know that this is often my fallback keepsake, and I have for some while fancied having a London bus or taxi bauble.  Well the Team GB box set had a bus, a taxi, and a Big Ben, as well as a round union jack bauble and one like the lion's head symbol.  A bit tacky maybe, but you can get away with it at Christmas.

The queue to pay was fairly long, but they had cleverly hidden part of it behind a partition, so strangely it didn't seem so bad, and they did have plenty of tills, all of which were open, so it actually didn't take too long, and we were soon out and on our way to Park Live.

We had to wait a short while to get into the Park Live area, and it was fairly crowded, but we found a space off to one side and settled in to watch the live action from the various venues.

We had not been there long when we heard a small cheer rumbling it's way towards us.  We soon spotted the reason for it, Louis Smith was making his way through the crowds.

A while later, a similar, but much louder cheer went around, hailing the arrival of Sir Chris Hoy on his way to the Park Live stage for an interview.  The poor guy  must have expended more energy waving to everyone as he passed than he did on his bike to win his gold medals.  But he seemed genuinely happy to see everyone, and indeed in his interview he was full of praise for the support of the crowds - which obviously got him another big cheer!

We were somewhat amused by the couple of people that we saw walking around with hollowed out watermelon hats on their heads.  Not quite sure whether it helped to keep them cool or something, but it was an interesting look.

Dressage medal ceremony

We spent a very hot afternoon watching the women's open water swim, the dressage competition and some boxing amongst other things.  We may only have been watching a big TV, but the atmosphere was great and everyone still cheered and waved their flags when a Team GB person came on, especially when we won another gold medal.

Expecting a queue on the way in to the stadium itself, we set off in plenty of time for our evening session, refilling our water bottles on the way.  In fact we queued for all of about twenty seconds, so we had plenty of time to take in the stadium before the events started.

Olympics - horizontal bars, horses and handsprings

So having had a great day at the ladies' all round team final the day before, we were looking forward to our second day and the mens' individual all round final - even if we knew there wouldn't be any free bubbly this time!

We had another easy journey there and were soon settled into our seats close to the 2.78m horizontal bar.  A little higher up today, but still a great view and being in and amongst the main stands, we were with more people and so there was a lot more atmosphere around us.

We also started off with some good news as we heard that Team GB had just taken gold and bronze in the men's individual road cycling time trials.

 There was a slightly tense moment during the introductions when the announcer clearly wasn't sure of his information.  Bearing in mind the still recent embarrassing faux pas when the wrong Korean flag was shown in the women's football, we all knew what the problem was.

The person waiting to be introduced had the letters KOR against his name and the announcer obviously wasn't sure whether it was North or South.  The guy concerned clearly knew what was happening too, and to his credit he was fairly good humoured about it.  The announcer eventually worked it out, and introduced the competitor from the Republic of Korea.
With two Team GB men, Kristian Thomas and Daniel Purvis, in the running, we again had plenty to cheer about, and at the point when both went at the same time, the noise in the arena was deafening.

Had Kristian Thomas managed to nail his landing on the vault, he might just have been able to get into bronze, but he had so much speed and length in his dismount that he had to take a step or two back, and in doing so lost those vital points that could have kept him in medal contention.

Still, both did well, and just having two male gymnasts in the final is more than could have been predicted a few years back.

So we weren't on the podium, but we were amused to see it being set up for the medal ceremony.  The podium was positioned on the floor, by which I mean the square used for the floor routines, not just the ground.  But of course the floor mat is always being used for the events, so it can't be there permanently.  The solution is to lower the podium in from the ceiling, and gradually edge it into the right position.

We had two fantastic days at the North Greenwich Arena.  We obviously enjoyed the skillful gymnastics that we saw, but we were also impressed by how well organised it all was and how friendly and helpful the security people and volunteers all were.

Good job everyone.

Olympics - beams, bars and backflips

Having not got any gymnastics tickets in the ballot, we were quite pleased to be able to buy some online just a few weeks ago.  They were late afternoon / early evening sessions at the North Greenwich Arena, so we could do these in day trips from where we are staying in Kent.

Apparently we can't call the arena the O2 because they aren't sponsoring the Olympics, so it became the North Greenwich Arena instead.  Mind you, even twelve years on, I still think of it as the Millennium Dome, so it generally takes me three goes to get the name right!

We had bought tickets for the ladies' all round team final on Tuesday 31 July and the mens' individual all round final on Wednesday 1 August.  The tickets were all the same price and for the second day we knew that our tickets at the bottom of the upper section be a good view because we had been to an event here before.

However the first day's were for a bar stool in the fourth row of a hospitality suite, so we weren't quite sure what to expect.  We were a bit concerned that the bar stools might be extra seats added at the back, and that it might be one of those places where the focus is on the hospitality rather than the event, so the actual view isn't really all that great.

Having heard all the warnings about congestion in the centre of London, we decided to avoid it and take advantage of the free shuttle bus from Charlton station to the arena.  The train journey was painless, we were guided by one of the many station staff helpers straight onto one of the lovely new Olympic buses.  These buses have apparently caused quite a stir amongst bus spotters, and there were a few out today, noting down numbers.

With such an easy journey, we were at the venue long before the appointed time.  We passed through the security checks quickly and were soon killing a bit of time looking at the merchandise, succumbing to a T-shirt and a 2012 pin badge.

With well over an hour still to go, we figured we'd make our way to our seats and perhaps eat the sandwiches that we'd brought with us.  When we arrived,  we were very impressed.

We were in one of the lower level suites, which was just above the press section, near to the asymmetric bars.  Our bar stools were at a little raised table behind the three rows of proper seats, but had a great view out over the arena.  It was just high enough to get a good overall view of all of the pieces of equipment, but still very close.

We had known that there would be food and drink for the fully paid paid up hospitality guests, but we hadn't expected that we would be allowed to have it too.  So when we were told we could have it, we forgot about our sandwiches, and instead helped ourselves to the buffet, washed down by multiple glasses of bubbly that were regularly brought round. We even got a free programme.  And all the while we could keep up with other events on the plasma TV.  Perfect.

So we were already having a great time before the gymnastics even started.  They kicked off with a bit of a warm up, with some introduction of the events and a few displays, but whilst Ok, they were obviously time fillers until everyone got to their seats.  Thankfully in the main the seats did fill up.  There were a few empty ones around, and a whole bank given over to soldiers, but mostly it was full.

It was interesting to see that the judges were just as pleased to be a part of the Olympics as everyone else.  When they came in during the preparation stage to get all of their things ready before their formal entrance later, we spotted them excitedly taking photos of each other.

It was great that Team GB had qualified for both finals, even though they weren't expected to have any chance of a medal, because it meant we got the full atmosphere of cheering on Team GB athletes.  And one thing we noticed with competitors was that they always show respect to their counterparts by applauding them as they are introduced.  Few others do, especially in the ladies team final.

The USA fans were out in force as their ladies were expected to take gold, but we reckon we still made more noise than they did, even though they were actually winning.  Our girls put in a great effort and did really well, but as I suspect you already know, they weren't quite good enough to be up in the medals.