A Day at London 2012

Yesterday I went to see Olympic Wrestling... Yep...

Well, there's a bit of a story behind it all:

Both my husband and I made no secret of declaring our apathy towards the Olympics, our disdain for the vast amount of money spent, and our disinterest in the torch passing through our town.

It was sad, because when London won the bid back in 2005 I was very excited. I expected that I would look forward to the games being here, because I've always held some vague interest in the Olympics, and have always loved watching the gymnastics. I also remember moments during Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004, finding my attention grabbed by swimming, cycling, and the athletics. I would always be reading a book in the living room, whilst my brother was watching the games, finding myself looking up every now and then, and eventually allowing myself to be gripped by the races for gold.

Maybe I had just been suffering some Olympic fatigue, because for the past year it's been in our faces everywhere, and we don't even live in London.

We were at a barbeque when the Opening Ceremony took place, and the majority of the party were squashed into the host's living room to watch it. My husband and I preferred to hang out in the garden, chatting to others who felt the same as we did.

It was only a couple of days later when I joined a colleague to sneakily watch James Bond taking the Queen onto a helicopter on BBC iPlayer that I realised that maybe I'd missed a good show. And then it wasn't long after that, the TV playing in the tea room at work during the lunch break, when Heather Stanning and Helen Glover won gold for the women's pair in Rowing that I began to grow excited again.

Suddenly Team GB were doing amazingly well, and it was impossible for my attention not to be caught. It was great to see the highlights of Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah, the Brownlee brothers, Beth Tweddle, and others winning medals, and I found myself watching all of the Artistic Gymnastics competitions on BBC Catch Up, regardless of whether or not Team GB were competing.

It was amidst this furore that my husband suddenly declared that we should try and get tickets to see something, admitting we were wrong about the "bloody Olympics". Thus began a battle with the ticketing website to actually be able to see something. I won't bore you with the details here, but basically it would appear that tickets were available but when you put them in your basket and then tried to buy them it would transpire that they were not. So I was shocked when I got through all the way to purchasing tickets to...Wrestling! Not, admittedly, my first choice of sport to watch, but my husband was happy with it, and finally we had tickets to go to London 2012!

So yesterday morning we made our way up to the ExCel Centre in London Docklands. We arrived in plenty of time to pick up our tickets from the box office, with no trouble on the public transport network at all. There was a great atmosphere at the Docklands with plenty of volunteers around to help, and lots of excited fans milling about. There were no Team GB entrants for the Men's Freestyle Wrestling, but it was impossible not to be caught up in the excitement of other fans from around the world, notably from the USA, Mexico, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.

Once inside the centre we were able to find a place to grab a caffeinated beverage and then to sit and eat our picnic before entering the Spectator Zone for the Wrestling, and on into the arena.

We were sitting very near the back, but we still had a great view, head on with Mat A where the 60kg wrestlers would be battling it out. We could also see the two mats for the other two categories pretty clearly as well, but once the fighting began our attention was most easily caught by those directly in front of us.

We saw the 1/8 finals, quarter finals, and semi-finals. It was a shame not to have managed to get tickets to a medals match, but we were just pleased to have got any tickets at all, especially having decided so late in the day that we would like to go to one of the events.

The fans for other countries were so excited, which made for a great atmosphere. I often struggled to understand the rules, and a lot of the moves looked pretty painful to me, but it was still surprisingly fun to watch, and my husband definitely enjoyed it.

USA vs Azerbaijan Semi-Final 60kg Category

After this fantastic spectacle it was a relief to stretch our legs and then make our way out of the arena, just in time to see Hulk Hogan* getting into trouble for breaking through a barrier to get out by a different route.

Then it was off to Piccadilly for to meet a friend for a coffee. Piccadilly was actually far busier and more hectic than we had expected. Outside of the Olympics the rest of London was said to be a bit quieter than usual, but that didn't seem to be the case yesterday.

It was with great relief that we escaped the mania and found a small French patisserie down a quiet side street. Having quenched our thirst and calmed down from the commuter-zone frame of mind that London crowds are prone to put one into, we walked our friend to his bus stop before continuing through the posh streets of Mayfair, and onwards to Hyde Park to investigate the BT London Live festival therein.

Once we finally got to the entrance of the festival we had to queue for about half an hour, which didn't bode well for the volume of crowds inside. We were both feeling tired, hot, and thirsty; the latter not helped by the strict ban on bringing food or drink into the site.

When we finally made it through, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that whilst there were lots of people, there was plenty of room to mill around at leisure. We wandered aimlessly, sitting for a while to watch the Women's High Jump at one of the big screens, but our view was frequently blocked by people standing up and walking around. So we continued on to the big screen over the stage, just in time to see several Team GB athletes parade out and wave to everyone. We were quite far back, but we saw them  nevertheless!

By this point we were getting hungry, so we decided to head to Victoria to find somewhere for dinner before going home. We were just delicately making our way through the crowds towards one of the exits when we heard the announcement that the Men's 5000m was about to start. Ignoring our rumbling tummies for a moment, we decided to stay to cheer on Mo Farah, and I'm very glad we did.

The atmosphere was epic, with everyone getting really excited as the race began, and cheering like crazy. The tension and the shouting collectively rose as each lap was ran, and by the second to last lap we were all screaming ourselves hoarse, cheering on Mo as though he would be able to hear us all the way over in the Olympic Park. And he won the gold! He did it again!

Lots of hugging and dancing ensued from the crowds, all of us thrilled with Mo's performance, and that Team GB have done so wonderfully well this Olympics.

Snapshot of Mo, post-win, on the big screen at Hyde Park - go Mo!

We then headed off into the comparatively peaceful surroundings of the rest of the park, and onto Victoria to a little Mexican place for food, where we were able to toast Team GB's success with cocktails, and chatter about how we could photoshop chairs into some of our wrestling photos.

I'm really glad that we finally let the atmosphere of London 2012 win us over, and that despite difficulties getting tickets and then a nightmarish train journey home, we had a great time and now have a few more stories for the grandchildren.

*Sadly not the real Hulk Hogan, but a very good lookalike.

Photos my own.