Random stuff from over the summer

The olympic park

Whilst I posted some pictures from the triathlon event in Hyde Park... At the Paralympics I got to go to the Olympic Park itself. The whole thing ran suprisingly smoothly (Although I regret not taking a photo of the elderly couple having their photo taken by a cheerful Japanese lady as the "smoking area" was right next to the "Dog comfort zone")

The buildings were frankly all that they had been made out to be and the whole park looked like something we could be proud of (as a nation, and as a city)

One really nice point is that the Paralympics was truly amazing. I've never been so moved by sporting events as I was watching the paralympics... and I say that without meaning that I felt sorry for the athletes, sure there are levels of Cerebral Palsy and spinal injury I didn't know it was even possible to ride a bike with... but no that's not what I mean't. I mean that as an event, the public coming to the games cheered on their respective countries, grappled with the catagories and generally treated the whole thing like an enormous fun family day out. Watching athletes perform at the highest level is something to behold and I had never really seen it before.

We were lucky enough to sit (by chance) with the extended family of the current world champion longjumper, and the emotion as he was at the last monute beaten into silver by his rival was enough to bring a lump to the throat.

Olympic triathlon

This saturday morning we got up at 05:45 to get down to Hyde Park and pick up Tickets for the Lido Cafe breakfast/triathlon event. As you can see from the pics, this particular part of Hyde Park was fairly uncrowded as it was a private event.Like much of the olympics, you got what you paid for.

A great time was had by all, which extended to watching Team GB's greatest ever athletics session and a bit of world class cycling.