Olympic story – part 3

Ticketing was a bit of a nightmare with the Olympics…

wait…really?? 😉

So we were unable to get tickets for all of us to go to the same event. Up till the night before we actually were unsure if all of us were going to be able to get in. We had four tickets, there were 3 kids and 2 adults who really wanted to go. So we had a bit of a sticky issue and it was looking like one of us adults would miss out. But thanks to the heroic efforts by my mum on the *@!***ing olympic tickets site we managed to get not 1 but 2 other tickets to get in..meaning that a certain little toddler could come along too.

The girls went to the Aquatic Centre and the boys went to watch a quarter final in the Women’s handball. Going into the aquatic centre was a bit strange. I dont think ive ever been to ‘watch’ such a big swimming event and having all the stall signs and seat numbers felt like we were going to get our seats in a theatre. A heads up from a games maker at the bottom of a set of stairs gave me a bit of an idea of how high we were going to have to climb to get to our seats. Needless to say 8 flights of stairs with a 3 year old on my hip left me a bit out of breath.

Interestingly we got to witness the limitations of the unusual shape to the roof of the aquatic centre. If one of those divers jumped really high on their take off they disappeared into the ceiling….wondering if they thought it through at design stage? hmmm…

There was a great atmosphere in the aquatic centre though and everytime the British diver stepped up the whole place became a sea of flags and bunting. On thing that really struck me in there was how completely bizarre it was that 17,000 people fell silent all at the same time when the diver was poised to jump..it was totally silent..you could hear the schusssing sound from the water jets breaking the surface of the pool.  I shusshed the kids a couple of times before i realised how ridiculous it was to think that their chatter was going to be heard all 200 odd rows of seats down.

The girls did really well, being as diving is actually quite hard for kids to follow. Its all scoreboard and a difficulty factor thingy. It was hard for me to follow let alone them. I did miss the commentary you get on the TV telling you what is going on. I think one of the most memorable moments for the kids was when a diver from the USA just sort of ‘belly flopped’ into the pool during his dive and the gasp from the crowd was just about as loud as the slap of his back hitting the water..ouch..

Meanwhile over at the Copper box..they had slightly closer seats to the action. My OH said ‘i think the only person closer to the goal was the press photographer!” They saw Norway V Brazil. Norway went on to win the Gold medal. They came away from it full of excitement and buzzing on the energy and thrill of the game. My son was thrilled to have been given a team Norway pin by a member of their squad who had been watching the game on their row. Something he treasures now. He was also pretty chuffed that he had spotted a Chris Evans interviewing gold medal winning athletes for his show on the way to the Copperbox.

that was the events done…now to explore the park……….

This is part of my somewhat lame attempt to link up with my friend older single mum..you can find out about her challenge by clicking the lovely little link box below….