My London 2012 Olympic diary: Day 6 & 7

Day 6: Seriously, no event?

Midway through our trip, it was time for a rest. I came back home early in the morning and we decided to stay in the area. No tube, no bus, no crowd today. Just green parks and Olympics on the television!

Day 7: How one man put everything else in the shade

Following this deserved break, we are back to Olympic business with a heavy schedule.  3 events were involved in the day including one unexpected. In the morning we reached the West End for some shopping before Alexia had to leave us. She was expected in Greenwich to attend the equestrian dressage final event with our Colombian host. For what she said about it, it seemed amazing. The weather was Toulouse-like, the setting was great (next to Greenwich castle and overlooking Canary Wharf) and the show was as entertaining as dancing horses can be! She loved it for sure! I had a sight of it when I got back home early in the afternoon for Andrew’s nap.

But beforehand my son and I did a lot. We walked to my favourite bookshop in Marylebone Lane, my favourite messy sports shop in Piccadilly Circus, arranged a surprise for the upcoming birthday of Alexia and then headed towards Hyde Park for a relaxing lunch sitting in the grass. What I momentarily forgot was that the women’s marathon swimming event was taking place in the Serpentine at lunchtime.

The park wasn’t so quiet at all; it was very busy with thousands of people packed along the banks of the lake, taking advantage of the chance offered to watch Olympians at work for free. I obviously joined them. Andrew tucked against me in the carrier; I needed to walk around in order to find a place with less than 10 ranks of people if I was to have a chance to see the swimmers. I managed to find a fourth line position with only kids ahead of me and not to dense to make sure nobody would bump into my son. From there I had a good view on the long distance swimmer.

The race consists in a twenty kilometres swim without ever touching the end of the swimming pool. You have to be mad and/or strong to line up for this event. This is what I thought before watching them pass. It was actually much more impressive. They were going forward at a fast walking speed, around 5km/h, which made me believed I would not stand a chance against these ladies even if I had to race just a hundred metres, following their 20k race...

We watched them speed past us twice before taking a few steps backwards and enjoy our lunches. Once done, we came back in the ranks to watch them in their last Serpentine loop. This is when I met a kid who clearly was enjoying the show.

His mum was actually standing right next to me. She told me they were living in North London and did not have the necessary funds to buy any ticket for the Olympics. But when her overexcited 8 years old son asked her if they were going to the Olympics, she had to explain that they could not afford any ticket but would try to attend every free event the Olympics would offer. And so they did. She told me they went to the cycling road race, the women’s marathon and the triathlon during the first week, before coming today to watch the swimmers and possibly going to the mountain bike event for the closing weekend. That was pure dedication, I love the way she took care of his son’s dream despite the shoestring budget, I love the smile on this kid’s face and I love free Olympic events!

Once the nap done and my thirst of live sports on TV filled up, it was time to plan the third and last live event of the day. I met my Italian host at his office doorstep and we went together underground, towards Wembley Stadium where we were to attend the women’s final of the football tournament.

As you heard about the semi final involving France earlier, you know that world champion Japan will be present. Obviously they will face the USA who have been involved in every Olympic final since the women’s tournament appeared at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.

The stadium was this time fully packed with a major part of the attendance wearing the stars and stripes flag in some way. Instead of the opposite side lower rank position I had a few days before, I was this time sitting on the substitutes side right under the stadium rooftop. The view, despite the distance, was still enjoyable.

The game was even during the first half, teams were neck and neck despite an early goal by the American striker. The friendly atmosphere felt within the stadium was mainly due to the USA female fans that were used to shout after their team. This was highlighted, right next to us by a guy wearing proudly the Captain America head-to-toe outfit.

Then came the half-time, it’s long queue for a beer you cannot bring back at your seating position, forcing you to drink it below the stand, while watching the screens showing the athletics evening session. This is when something weird happened. Glasses were empty for a few minutes, but most of the people gathered around the bar did not get back to their seats.

The 200m men final was due to start ten minutes within the second half of our football final. The presence of king Bolt was enough to convince roughly half of the people from my block to give up momentarily the reason which led them to Wembley. Every football fan in this room wanted to see the running legend achieve his project of leaving an Olympic stadium with three gold medals for the second time in a row

Following these crazy twenty seconds during which the Jamaican sprinter outclassed every body running alongside him, we all went back to our seats, only to discover that the Japanese had double their deficit. Seconds later they finally manage to get the ball past the most brilliant women goalkeeper to date and sharpen their belief that a gold medal was possible. Until the final whistle they tried hard, throwing everything they had into the fight but still came short of scoring an equaliser. The USA were Olympic champions for the fourth time out of five event (they claimed a silver medal in 2000).

As sadly the French team was not involved in the medal ceremony, conceding a last second goal to Canada in the third place game, we decided to skip it and get an earlier train home, which we did successfully. I got home and slept well following this long and exhausting day.