It is twenty four hours since I returned from four wondrous days attending six events at the 2012 London Olympic Games. I am full of head cold with a ticklish cough but managed some sleep last night with the help of the Sleep Apnoea machine. It is difficult to concentrate on writing even though I have so much to record. I slept on the settee during the day watching the Olympics feeling grotty and now have a blocked nose at 2.20 am so although I am doing a read through I anticipate even more mistakes than usual.
My original intention was to write notes on each of the four days preceded by my journey to London. I did not anticipate the overwhelming nature of the event and the magical atmosphere which affected everyone who switched on to the games either attending or watching on television. In what will still be a series of notes I shall attempt to take an objective view of various aspects of my experience and then make an overall assessment of whether there is the possibility of a legacy which will affect how the British people continue to view themselves as well as having an impact on the present generation of children and young people in relation to participation in sport.
I will begin with the arenas and the sports I experienced directly and with the best experience and also the most expensive on the morning of the fourth day, August 4th watching Badminton semi finals and one bronze medal match at the Wembley Arena, adjacent to Wembley Stadium. I was already booked into a quarter final men’s football game at Wembley Park. On seeing there was to be a medal contesting day with semi finals in the morning I decided to purchase the least expensive ticket available at £65 for the early morning session.
As a youngster I had played with a shuttlecock in the garden using tennis rackets and viewed Olympic Badminton contests in the past but not world or national competitions on TV in the intervening years, assuming these are shown when the events occur.
The event commenced at 9 am at the Wembley Arena and from my visit to watch football on the Wednesday I knew the route to take from the Wembley Park station. I planned to be at the stadium at just before 8 am which meant leaving the Croydon Travel Lodge just after 6am. As with the previous evenings I was in bed and asleep just after 10 pm although in this instance after the third waking around 4 am and a six hour use of the Sleep Apnoea treatment machine, I could not sleep further and listened to music on the headphone before rising around five getting ready and having a breakfast of the Bacon Lettuce and Tomato sandwich purchased the previous evening and a coffee.
Being a Saturday morning there were fewer people on the streets and the train to Victoria from East Croydon was filled with people going to Olympic venues rather than the usual commuters to their workplace. There were fewer trained than usual so it was after 6.30 before the train departed. I was able to find a seat. On a previous return journey tired and with badly blistered and sore feet, I found the long walk between the underground railway lines at Green Park challenging so I debated other ways of getting to Wembley Park Station such as the Victoria line to Kings Cross then joining the Metropolitan line. However on reaching Green Park I changed my mind as the feet felt better and joined the Jubilee Line train continuing on this slower train rather than getting off at Baker Street for the faster line.
At Wembley Park station I took care going down the long flight of stairs and then made my way slowly along Wembley Way taking the right hand slope up towards the stadium before continuing over the bridge and down the steps to the entrance of the arena just as the gates to the stadium were opened although we were held on the inside concourse before being allowed access to the seating. By now I was used to the entrance procedure and had my jacket ready to place in a tray and unlike at Wembley Park there was no body search.
I have been to the Wembley Arena before to see Torvil and Dean perform their Ice Dancing Olympic Games gold medal winning routine. I also have been to a Christmas Ice Dance show. Since then this famous Hall has undergone a make over costing £35 million and is now London second indoor arena with 12500 seats to the 02 arena housed within the Millennium Dome. As a venue for concerts, it is the third largest when Earls Court is used for this purpose with a capacity of 19000. Interestingly with the Excel centre also in East London there is no major concert venue in central London apart from the spectacular Royal Albert Hall with seating restricted to 5500 although in the past it has held 9000.
The Wembley Arena was created as a swimming Pool for the 1934 Empire Games and the pool remains beneath the flooring. The Beatles performed three times in the 1960’s, along with the Rolling Stones and the Who. It has also been a venue for artists such as Sir Cliff Richards and Dusty Springfield and Barbara Striesand had four concerts her only appearance live outside the USA. Following the renovation a square was created outside the arena which includes hand prints of the famous similar to that in Hollywood.
Over the past decade it has hosted a number of wrestling events. As far as I have been able to establish the arena was only used for Badminton in the Olympic Games. On entering the stadium I found that I was allocated a seat at the entrance on an aisle at the front row, just above the most expensive level of seats below. This meant I had a clear view of the arena play area with quick access out to the concourse where I went for a coffee at the end of the first match between the top world doubles players from China, Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng. The outplayed their opponents 21.9 and then 21 19 after there was something of a fight as the match ended although it was quickly evident the result was never in doubt.
The second semi final was a hard fought contest between two tall white Canadians who exhibited great power on the smash as fast as 200 kilometres an hour. They beat two smaller and less bulky young men from the Republic of Korea. The Koreans had great skill but the Canadians a strong defence losing the first set 17-21 but they fought back a tight second set 21-18 and a tighter third 22-20. There were some extraordinary rallies which merited standing ovations from an audience the majority of which were full of GB Fever and behaved as normal with players from other nations and in a sport which many may not have viewed let alone participated in before.
I was not surprised to learn that the Chinese pair beat the Canadians comfortably in a two set game 21 9 and 21 10 to take the Gold Medal. And in fact it was the Chinese who won all four finals. In the ladies double match for a bronze medal the Russian couple also had a one sided contest with two Canadians winning in two sets 21-9 and 21-10. The three contests were completed in just under three hours and although my feet continued to be sore I went on an explore for midday food finding an all hours store a short distance away but involving the crossing of a busy main road under the eye of several police men. After eating a second BLT of the day and drinking a can of coke the task was then to find somewhere to deposit the litter as evidently for security reasons all litter bins had been removed from the area of both stadiums. There was nothing for it but to enter the stadium with some ninety minutes before the football commenced and hope the stewards would take the rubbish off me. But that is another story and first it is Boxing at the Excel area in Docklands on the banks of the River Thames.
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