My London 2012 Olympic diary: Day 2

Day 2: The sun rises in the east

Today’s event was leading me back to the Excel centre in order to witness the first rounds of the men’s team epee event in fencing. Wife and kid were resting at home while I woke up early to meet my friend, godfather of my son and keen fencer, before the morning session starts.

On my way out towards the east of the city, trying to get after the sun setting ion the horizon, I realized that London was strangely very quiet. My district line travel from Putney to the east end would not have scared an agoraphobic. I did not meet more than a dozen living souls before stepping in the DLR train. It was around 8 in the morning nonetheless my former London life never got me used to this public transportation emptiness at any time of the day. Apparently the Mayor Johnson scared the Londoners off efficiently.

My fencing expert was awaiting for me on the arrival platform, we then eased past the security checks and made it to our arena an hour before the show was due to start. A few video clips, an orchestra playing movie themes and a guess-whose-flag-is-it game (which one goes between Taipei and Thailand by the way?) kept us busy until the first contestants walked in.

Bizarrely enough, the event started with the quarter final encounters, having only 8 nations registered for it. Not really the idea I had about universality of the sports held during the Games… The room was only partially filled in at the beginning but we already noticed some very interesting neighbours: a nervous epeeist from New Jersey and her very proud American boyfriend, a couple of very shy Russian fans cheering discreetly on their team but also a half dozen of South Korean fans equipped with their mandatory tiny flags and their singing leader. This was already a lot more multicultural than the day before.

The encounters went on under the accurate explanations from my personal expert every time I had a technical question. The break between the quarter final and the semis allowed us to (have a beer and) begin a geopolitical talk of some sort.

In my memory, fencing was almost exclusively a European sport. But today the last four teams fighting for medals were China, South Korea, Russia and the USA. Basically ten years ago these countries (exception made of Russia) did not have enough people practicing fencing at a serious level to register a team for the Olympics. Since the 2008 Games were awarded to Beijing, Chinese institutions set up a scheme to be represented and competitive in every single Olympic event. South Korea and the USA followed their lead and were already rewarded. Countries fencing for over a century had been wiped off the charts by others learning it in less than a tenth of this time.

The outcome of the semi finals would reinforce our thesis as the gold medal would finally be decided between the two Asian countries.

My daily Olympic event was now over, it was mid afternoon, and we decided to try our luck at the Olympic Park and have a taste of the real deal. Arrived in Stratford, we followed the mass of people being lead like cattle towards the entrance. Then we realised that there was no possible entry to the park without a ticket for an event happening on the same day within the park. Too bad for my mate who won't have another chance (I will...).

In despair, we walked away, across Victoria park (met along the way Fabrice Boraschi, the most famous Frenchman in London with his family), picked up my wife and son to finally reach Broadway market where friends joined us for a traditional Belgian beers stop followed by the most amazing Argentinean steakhouse in town. And then the curtain was down on my second Olympic day.