Jill Re-Searching: Events

SATURDAY morning we were up early, ready to battle the crowds and determined to follow the official advice to get to the entrance of our event two hours ahead of time to deal with security. We headed for Earl's Court - as a Londoner bred I can still navigate the tube at top speed. Our hotel was close to two stations - Euston Square and Warren Street - today we took the Victoria line from Warren Street to Green Park and changed to the Piccadilly line for Earl's Court. But where were the crowds - the cars had seats to spare? It was Saturday so there were no workday passengers. Once at Earl's Court we were directed to walk through local streets to the stadium, which has been there for many years. I could understand the gripes of locals being diverted from their usual routes - all the destination stations had one way flow, with exiting spectators directed to the closest entrance and those entering walking "miles" in back streets.

We arrived in half the expected time, walked straight through security staffed by soldiers, and took our seats in the stadium. It filled up except for a large block of seats. A similar situation existed at all venues, and caused many comments in the media -- many Britons had been unable to get tickets and here were seats allocated to foreign countries that were not taken. An investigation and subsequent claw back and resale of tickets calmed the buzz somewhat.

The sport was volleyball, a preliminary round with two women's games: Japan vs Algeria and China vs Serbia. I was fortunate to have a young woman form Australia sitting beside me who payed basketball, and she explained some of the technique. She had been to the games in Beijing and was attending 19 events in London. We enjoyed the games and the atmosphere and on exiting were pleasantly surprised by the crowd control techniques for the several thousand people heading for the tube station.

Our "must do" sightseeing project was to view the Canaletto painting of boats on the Thames that had been the inspiration for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Parade. The painting lives in a castle in Prague (I think) but is on loan to the Greenwich Maritime Museum for the

summer. The District line followed by Docklands Light Railway took us to Greenwich. But the town was empty and the museum closed (waiting for Equestrian Eventing the next day), so the only thing to do was drown our sorrows.

I can't remember the rest of the day :-) but it involved traveling by tube, walking, sightseeing and eating/drinking.

SUNDAY we had another event, weightlifting at the ExcL Centre. Why the choice of weightlifting? Just like the other events we selected from rather a small choice of options, it was held at a different venue, and was a sport with relatively simple rules. Beforehand we visited the Churchill War Rooms and had lunch with my family at one of our possible hotels for next year's family adventure to London. We'd given our water polo tickets to my niece and her husband who had played water polo in college, and they arrived full of excitement about their experience. Lunch convinced us that this was the hotel to stay at next year.

We headed for the ExceL Centre in north-east London and sat behind the banks of computer screens whose function was unclear. As in all our events, there was a live "host" who acted as cheerleader to spur spectators to applaud, cheer and wave. He also interviewed individuals with knowledge of the sport, but there was no blow-by-blow commentary as on the television. Before the event began there was a short video explaining the rules and essentials of the sport so we had a basic understanding.

This was the 56kilo men's event: 10 contestants, two lifts - the snatch
(from floor to arms extended over head in one movement) and the clean and jerk (from floor to chest and then over head). Contestants had three tries for each part, naming their weight beforehand, with the total of the two best completed lifts determining the winner. We really enjoyed the contest because we saw winners and losers immediately.
The snatch: