I’ve been so excited about the Olympics, that I’ve totally forgotten to blog about the rest of my trip to Edinburgh, but I’ll tell you about that later.
Cos yesterday, we went to the Olympics. Mum and Dad had applied for tickets ages ago and we’d all totally forgotten about it until it all started.
We’d got tickets to the BMX semi finals and finals. We had to set off really early to get the train to St. Pancras. I don’t think I’ve ever been to London before, except when the school took us to the Natural History and the Science Museum. But Dad goes to London quite often for work so we all followed him off the train as he made his way down escalators, past loads of posh sandwich shops and through crowds of people until we reached the walkway that connected St. Pancras to the Kings Cross underground station.
The London 2012 people had created this superfast train called the Javelin, which went directly to the Olympic park in like 6 minutes or something.
We stopped every two minutes so Mum could take photos, all she kept saying was, “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, Danny, now smile!”
We posed under the Olympic rings at the station, on the train, getting off the train…and then she got told off by the army cos we weren’t allowed to take pictures while we went through security.
Once we got into the park it was so awesome, I couldn’t believe I was at the place I’d been watching on telly for the last two weeks! There were hundreds of volunteers everywhere and everyone was really excited and friendly. Me and Jenny had a Union Flag between us and Mum had painted our faces on the way down.
Because we’d got there super early, we had loads of time to look around the whole park. We went to the Team GB shop first – there were so many different Team GB kits and Olympic T-shirts. Jenny said it wasn’t fair that there were loads more mens and boys clothes than there were for women and girls. Cos it was such a special occasion, Dad let us pick an item each – I got the Team GB football shirt, of course, and Jenny got one of the athletics vest, cos she likes running and stuff. We got changed into them as soon as we were out of the shop.
We carried on walked past the stadium, which is huge! and then past the BBC studio and then towards the athletes’ village. It was so cool, we could see all the different nations’ flags hanging from the balcony. We tried to work out which country they all belonged to, but we got stuck on a red flag with a kind of flower in the middle of it. Does anyone know?
When we went across the bridge, we saw where the big screen was and headed there to eat our lunch and watch the 10km swimming race. There were hundreds of people there, but we got a spot on the grass. It was such as great atmosphere It took them 2 hours to finish it, but it went really fast. Everyone was cheering on the British swimmer and waving their flags around. I couldn’t believe how far they’d swam – I worked out it would be 400 lengths of our school pool. I think that would take me all day!
The BMX arena was right at the edge of the park, so we set off again, walking past the basketball arena – where we could hear loud cheers and booming music. We walked towards the veledrome, it was a really funny shape. Dad said it cos of the way the air moves and the banking of the track that it looks like that.
Our seats were great, they were right at the bottom of the opening ramp so we could see them all go flying through the air on the first jump. Everyone around us was saying David Beckham was in the crowd, but we couldn’t see him anywhere.
Finally, the first rider came out. When they introduced the British rider, Shanaze Reade, the crowd went crazy! The whole stand shook with people stamping their feet and we were all shouting and wooping, even Dad! There’s was also a British guy in the mens’ semis and everyone cheered really loud for him too. We waved our flag like mad and joined in chanting for Team GB.
There were loads of crashes, we even saw one right in front of use when one of the riders didn’t land with enough speed and kind of tumbled over. And even though it looked pretty dangerous – one girl had to be stretchered off and another crawled over the finish line – I really want to have a go!
Mum gave me the, ‘we’ll see’ line, which usually means no.
The final was immense, everyone was so excited and it looked like Shanaze had picked the best gate to start in. From where we were sitting, she looked nervous as she steadied her bike. She didn’t get the best start and was kind of on the back foot after the first corner. The crowd willed her on and she looked like she might catch up over the last set of bumps, but she didn’t quite get a medal.
The mens’ final was the last event and they raced a slightly different track that had an extra corner, but didn’t go through the tunnel. The British guy was doing awesome, but then he somehow crashed right near the end. Luckily he wasn’t hurt. And even though everyone else had finished, he got back on his bike and rode over the obstacles. The crowd encouraged him all the way to the end – it was so cool.
When we came out, we got an ice-cream and then queued for AGES to get our photo taken under the Olympic rings. It was OK though, cos we could see the big screen from where we were – we watched loads of boxing and Teakwondo, as well as synchronised swimming, which was kind of weird, but I guess when it’s the Olympics, you get to see loads of different sports you haven’t seen before.
I started to think about what the Olympics would have been like in the past, we saw a photo in the Team GB shop of the 3 different stadiums from the 3 times the Olympics have been in London. I wished I could have witnessed it and wondered if SHARP would be able to send me back to a past Olympics – that would be awesome!
The day went so quick and I was sad to leave. Now I know what Mum had meant when she said it was a once in a lifetime thing. I guess we were lucky to even be able to go in the first place.
Time Travel is Possible! 