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Sunday 12 August 2012

My London 2012

And so, after 16 incredible days, London 2012 is about to draw to a close.

Some of my highlights from the days I came:

Our first look at the park: Matt by the Aquatic Centre


Me and my first look at the Stadium & Orbit


Pandemonium - My favourite part of the Opening Ceremony


Team GB


The Flags


The Flame


Basketball Arena


Wimbledon... but not quite as we know it!


Aquatic Centre


Orbit


The Stadium


Me, Joe and Nicky + Velodrome



My Last Look - Stadium, Orbit and... the Royal Barge?




The end of my London 2012 odyssey.  Once in a lifetime, never to be forgotten and proud to be British.








12th August: Handball (Men's Bronze Medal Match)

Once more into the Stratford breach, dear friends.
It was with a sense of relief that I ran onto the platform but saw a near empty train for Stratford - so I snaffled a seat and settled in for my last trip to Stratford for London 2012.
Lucky I heard on the tv this morning that the Modern Pentathlon was starting off in the CopperBox (which was where the handball had been earlier).
The medal matches had moved into the larger "Wedding Cake" Basketball Arena.



The first thing immediately noticeable was the number of French and Swedish people wanting to swap their Bronze medal match tickets (Hungary/Croatia) for the final.
Everywhere you looked, which made me worry whether there would be empty seats in this match.

As I got in, the commentators were saying that Hungary had never won any of their Olympic Bronze Medal matches.



We even had a bit of drama as two Hungarian fans wanted to put a flag up on the stands, but were taking an age to do it.  Other fans were getting annoyed as they were in the way, and eventually an official told them they couldn't do it, so the guy grabbed his flag and stormed off in a huff.

From the outset, Croatia seemed to be very strong on set plays - the Hungarians seemed to throw themselves on the floor, lobbing the ball into the goal.






The first half was pretty close for most of it, but towards the end Croatia built up a 5-goal lead.

Hungary started slowly in the second half, but had a burst of firm scoring 4 straight goals to keep themselves in touching distance.





But Croatia stepped up a gear in response, much to the disgust of a very vocal Hungarian fan (which caused a lot of amusement for everyone else as we started to have guessing games as to what she was yelling and screaming at their goalie).

Croatia just proved too strong for Hungary and strangely in the dying seconds, as some of the Croats on the sidelines started bouncing up and down, the Hungarians seemed to just give up the ghost and start shaking the Croatians hands.



You had to feel for them though - every time they have reached this stage, they have just missed out.



Maybe Rio?





Huffington Post Article: Inspiring More Than One Generation

Article in the Huffington Post UK: Inspiring More Than One Generation

Huffington Post Article: Tickets, Twitter & Transport

Article in the Huffington Post UK: Tickets, Twitter & Transport

3rd August: Handball

As soon as the athletics had finished, I scooted off to meet up my friend Joe (who was with us at the Opening Ceremony) and my friend Nicky who was coming to the handball, but we chilled out for a good long while over lunch, and the obligatory pic in front of the stadium!


Because this was the start of the athletics, the park was just crammed with people, and trying to hit up the London 2012 store proved that!
In the past days I'd gone in with another friend, and there was a decent stock of stuff, but today it honestly looked like a plague of locusts had gone through it.  The pictogram T-shirts were almost all gone, and the place was bedlam!
We had a bit more luck in one of the outlying shops and after the obligatory pic in front of the stadium, Joe headed off and we headed off to try and get our heads around Handball!




Handball - it's like a game you make up when you are a kid and you want to have something that all the neighbourhood can play, before someone gets called in for tea-time, let's make up any old rules and here we are!
Nicky called it: "Freeforallball - if you don't like violence stick to netball; you couln't play this game if you had anger management issues."
We did our best trying to figure out the rules - as far as we could make out you could only bring someone down (apparently neck-locks are the tool of choice) in the dotted lines bit.

At the start when they are introducing the teams there is a LOT of high fiving and hugging - see it all STARTS friendy...



First up was Sweden and Spain.
We did our best trying to figure out the rules - as far as we could make out you could only bring someone down (apparently neck-locks are the tool of choice) in the dotted lines bit.



Sweden seemed to be the in-form side, but from the outset the Spanish goalie was making lots of good saves early on, and picked up a bit.




In fact the match was really close, although players seemed to come on to take penalties, save penalties etc regardless of either they were on a two minute suspension.

In the end it there was only one point in with Spain edging Sweden out 25-24.

This is obviously a BIG sport in Europe and the crowds were in to support Denmark and Norway.



This was another really close one - basically a goal at each end every minute.





The women did not (literally) pull any punches, and we were convinced that in the men's matches blood would be splilt...


Well I'd found out... as I had a ticket for the Men's Bronze Medal match on the last day...

3rd August: Athletics (Morning)

I know it's not the spirit, but somehow for me (and many) the REAL Olympics begin when the Athletics begins.



An eagle-eyed friend had spotted that I had managed to snaffle a Category A ticket when I got this in the second round, and further more, I would be in a front row, somewhere.
I was actually right at the front indeed, just behind the bollards for the start of the 100m.



BUT - my initial giddiness was suddenly crushed when I got down to the front, and there was seat in that position, my ticket was 515, and the seat number there was 516.
It occured to me (with the help of a major Olympic facts and figures brain dump from on of our Sports Reporting tutors) that there may have been two seats originally, and one was taken out, but my biggest concern was that these tickets were sold in the 2nd chance run for those who had received nothing in the first ballot.

There were anxious moments as the spaces filled up around me and I waited for someone with Ticket 516 to arrive - although a Games Maker in charge of the photographer's pit reassured me that if there was an issue, I'd be given a better seat.

There wasn't too much time to worry though, as the track action was starting with the 100m hurdles heats in the Women's Heptathlon.

Louise Hazel and Katarina Johnson-Thompson had good solid runs in their heats, and KJT in particular looked quite overwhelmed when the crowd roared as her name was called out.





The final heat saw Jess take to the track and the stadium just erupted when she stormed her heat, setting a UK record for the 100mh!





Next up was the preliminary rounds for the W100m and you could tell that on the first morning of action in the stadium, things still needed a little polish.  A girl from Qatar pulled up with a hamstring but it was a good while until anyone came to her help as she sat on the track.

It was also quite amusing watching Games Makers getting bossed about by officials in turqoise as Technical Support (presumably they are qualified folks from the world of track and field) - so lots of shouts about which markers to put out the hurdles for the 400m

All the British men came through their heats (Dai Green, Jack Green qualified in their heats and Rhys Williams got in as a fastest loser).







Up until now it had been gloriously sunny, and suddenly out of nowhere while we were in the middle of the women's 400m heats, we got hit with a colossal rain shower.
Christine Ohuruogu won well and looked good in terms of defending her Beijing title.





The Heptathletes were over the far end of the stadium by now, doing their high jump so every now and again, during the Men's Steeplechase where we had one guy from Ethiopia obviously hurt himself early on in his heat and when he came to the last barrier (way behind the field) he clattered it very badly.  This time, the first aiders were a bit quicker to come to his aid.





Our one Brit, Stuart Stokes, had a really tough time in his heat.




Things were continuing in the Heptathlon High Jump and Katarina Johnson-Thompson was right up with the leaders, finishing third overall.

I escaped to meet up with Joe from the Opening Ceremony and my friend Nicky who was coming in the afternoon for the Handball.