Attending an event at the Olympic games is one those things
that, on top of going to enjoy live sport, you do partly just to be able to say
that you were there. It’s a story to someday tell the grandkids, or something to tick
off the bucket list. I’m generally not into sports. I don’t play them and I
don’t watch them, until the Olympics come around every two years and I inexplicably
find myself glued to the television for two weeks. I haven’t attended a live
sporting event since a handful of Blue Bomber football games back in the 1990s
but now I’m living in London and the Olympics were coming to town and I was on
a mission for Olympic tickets.
Getting Olympic tickets did turn out to be a bit of a
mission. The Olympics are a hot ticket and for anyone on a budget the
competition for the high demand limited cheaper, reasonably priced seats can be tough. Events
which include finals are more than double the price of preliminary events and the
top ticket prices for the most popular events are more than slightly outside my
budget (such as up to £725 for the athletics session with the men’s 100 metre
race and up to £2012 (!!!) for the opening ceremonies). I spent several hours
wrestling with and cursing out the frustrating online ticket booking system
which generally involves stalking the website until tickets become available,
adding tickets to your shopping basket, requesting the tickets and being placed
in a long virtual queue, waiting, and waiting, only to finally be met
with a message to tell you that the tickets are no longer available, followed
by more cursing. I was, however, and able to grab some tickets for beach
volleyball and an athletics session, I was going to the games!
I had several “eek, I’m at the Olympics!” moments during the
beach volleyball session. Beach Volleyball is being held at Horse Guards Parade
in central London. The historical parade ground was the site of jousting tournaments
in medieval times and is now where the pageantry of Trooping the Colour (the
ceremony to commemorate the Queen’s birthday) takes places each year. For the Olympics the site has been transformed
into a beach, complete with dance troupe dressed in vintage bathing suits
entertaining the crowd. It is a lovely setting and the surrounding buildings
provide a picturesque backdrop with the entrance reached by walking up the
Olympic flag-lined Mall (the road which leads to Buckingham Palace). The beach
volleyball session which my boyfriend and I attended was during the preliminary
stages of the competition and included two women’s games and two
men’s games. Great Britain wasn’t playing and so, in true British fashion, the
crowd cheered on the underdogs. The crowd was predominantly British but there
was a good representation of flags from around the world (I had fun playing
spot the maple leafs). It was a fun time watching amazing athletes smash
volleyballs about in their swimsuits, although the crowd’s enthusiasm for the
Mexican wave got a bit tiring after the 25th go round, and I wish I
hadn’t eaten that entire bag of Cadbury’s chocolate buttons so early in the morning.
As excited
as I was about beach volleyball I was even more looking forward to watching athletics
in the Olympic Stadium. The athletics session which we attended included two women’s
heptathlon events (long jump and javelin), pole vault, steeplechase heats, and
men’s 100 and 400 metre heats. My conclusions after watching these events are
that the steeplechase looks like a form of torture, pole vault is scary and
it’s quite cool watching the world’s fastest men race. Oh, and Usain Bolt looks
much smaller in person, especially through my binoculars from my stadium seat
up with the pigeons. I did miss the close-up view and insightful commentary
that you get when watching athletics on the television at home. As several
different events happen simultaneously it was confusing to follow at times
(especially as I kept getting distracted and gazing at the Olympic cauldron .. yep,
the flame is still burning) but it was very exciting to be there. The day that
we were at the Olympic Park was the busiest of the games and the sprawling Olympic
Park was packed with people donning flags worn as capes around their
shoulders. After queuing for pizza, ice cream, the free water tap, the loo and
to enter the Olympic megastore, I was feeling a bit queue-ed out. That said,
the crowds were extremely well managed considering there was over 200,000 people
in the park. Visiting Olympic Park itself is an event and after watching the
athletics we spent several hours wandering the grounds (and waiting in queues).
The Olympic Park in East London spans over 2.5 square km over what was once
industrial land and is now home to eight venues, the athlete’s village, lots and
lots of food stands, sponsor tents and, most importantly, the world’s largest
McDonalds. There is also a considerable amount of green space incorporated into
the site with walking trails and art pieces.
It has been
an exciting time to be in London from cheering on the Olympic torchbearer when
the torch relay passed through my London neighbourhood, watching the men’s road
cycling in West London, watching events being screened live in Hyde Park, and watching
the opening ceremonies on television at home in southeast London and being able to hear the spectacular fireworks display as the entire London sky lit up
with bursts of colour. There’s an energy and buzz about town which reminds me
of the excitement when Winnipeg hosted the Pan Am Games in 1999. Even for
London, a city which is used to hosting international events and is always brimming
with business visitors and tourists from around the world, hosting the Olympics
is a big deal.
It’s been fantastic
to see the Brits get behind their athletes and the enthusiasm is contagious. As
I’ve been exposed almost exclusively to British media I know much more about
the Team GB athletes than I do about Team Canada and find myself cheering on
the Team GB athletes as if they were my own. Almost. As much as I was rooting
for GB’s Jessica Ennis along with the predominantly British crowd during the heptathlon
(who erupted into a roar of cheers and applause at her every move), I knew there was
something missing from my sense of excitement. I could never be quite as excited for GB’s
Jessica Ennis as I would be if the Olympics were being held in Canada and I was
cheering on a Canadian heptathlete along with a Canadian crowd. After the athletics we watched some track cycling
on one of the live big screens in the Olympic Park. One of the races was a heat
between the GB and Canadian teams. As
the crowd went wild cheering for Team GB I found myself feeling a bit annoyed that
they were cheering against the Canadians! So I cheered on Canada, quietly, by
myself. I tried to convince my British boyfriend to defect and cheer with me, but he wasn't having it. You can take the girl out of Canada, but it will always be Team Canada for me.
Being in London during the Olympics and attending two Olympic
events has been an epic experience that I won’t soon forget, and I can’t wait to tell my grandkids about
it.
