Going for Gold - Our visit to the Olympics

Saturday 4^th August and a date with the Olympic Rowing Finals at Eton Dorney. We were up at 5.00am as we had to be at the Park and Ride by 7.00 am. We were impressed with the organisation of getting us from the P&R to the Olympic venue. I don’t think I had ever seen so many double decker buses in one place. What they did not tell us was that we had to be as fit as the athletes as it was quite a walk from the P&R to the venue. It snaked round Windsor Race Course before getting to Dorney Lake. Once through the security, manned by our cheerful armed forces who all seemed to be enjoying themselves and often finding time to chat, especially to the youngsters. Although thorough the security did not seem overly intrusive, in fact it was similar to what we experienced when we went on our Cruise last year. Once inside the security we could fill our bottles of water from the free fountains.

We were very early but none the less we set out to find our seats which were quite high up in Stand One (nearest the finish line). We had a long time to wait as the first event started at 9.30am. Prior to the start of the programme announcers were encouraging everyone to get in the mood by doing Mexican Waves. We have now been to a few big events like F1, Wembley and now the Olympics and it never ceases to amaze me how late some people turn up. Thinking another Mexican Wave was about to start I realised that it was only people standing up to allow people to their seats!

The first half dozen events, whilst classed as finals, were in fact just a means of giving the lesser teams a placing. The last four events were those with medals to be won. Team GB had a pretty excellent day on that score with 2 golds and one silver. The final race had no Team GB involvement. First up were the men’s fours following in the tradition of Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent. They won their event for gold to the delight of the crowd, especially when Andy Triggs Hodge, Tom James, Pete Reed and Alex Gregory rowed by close to the stands by way of salute. This was the same event we saw twenty years ago at the Barcelona Games of 1992. Second up was gold won by the lady lightweight double sculls, with Kat Copeland and Sophie Hosking and they won by over a length and had not been predicted to do so well!  The final race for Team GB was Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter's in the men’s lightweight pairs. However disaster struck seconds after the starting signal when one of the seats broke making it impossible to row. Because it happened within 100 metres of the start they were allowed to return for a repair and the race restarted. They lead for most of the race but were overcome by the Danes almost on the line, they were clearly upset by this. I suppose if you were a betting person trying to predict that we would win three out of three gold medals would have been something of a longshot, it very nearly came off. I should perhaps, being British, mention the weather! I don’t think I have ever experienced getting soaking wet and sunburnt on the same outing. We had made provision for this but it was surprising how many didn’t! With the races over time for the long trek back to the buses. Margaret remarked what an orderly queue there was, more of a giant snake than a queue but orderly and good natured all the same.

Back at the buses we just followed the lane for our P&R and there was a bus waiting for us that left almost immediately. There was no difficulty getting out of the car park and back to the caravan. I have to say that the whole event was really well organised with no delays what so ever. Everyone involved in the event were friendly and helpful. A real credit the Olympic organisers and a credit to the country.