Tag Archives: Paralympics

Final day of the London 2012 Paralympics :(

London 2012, Sport, , , ,

All good things come to an end (unfortunately) and so the final day of the Paralympics of London 2012 arrived.  Boo hoo!!!  I’d been lucky enough to get Wheelchair Rugby tickets for the Gold and Bronze medal matches so we headed to the park where we would meet up with my inlaws.  On the way to the venue though we bumped into Stephanie Millward who was happy to have her picture taken with people whilst they held a medal – well I couldn’t pass up that opportunity even if it did mean we missed most of the first quarter of the Bronze medal match!

None of us had seen Wheelchair Rugby live before but we enjoyed both matches and theres no holds barred as they crash into each other at full speed!  Australia were by far the best team out of the four and deservedly won Gold with Ryley Batt being their star player – the way he could manouvere his wheelchair around people just by shifting his weight was amazing!  We had spotted Prince Edward and Stephen Fry watching, and it turned out Edward gave out the Gold medals and Fry the flowers to the Silver medal winners (Canada).  You can see some pictures that I took here.

After the rugby, we hung around in the park having a spot of food (MacDonalds again – and there was a cheer when it opened for all us hungry ceremony goers!) and just waiting until it was time to meet up with our friends before going into the Stadium for the (sob) last time.  Having the athletes come in before it started and therefore enjoy the whole show was a nice touch, and I think on the whole I preferred the Paralympic Closing Ceremony to the Olympic one as it was more of a show rather than a random collection of big names.  And thats even though I’m not a great fan of Coldplay and don’t know most of their songs!  It was sad to see the flame go out again (I booed just like last time!), but really enjoyed the big firework display which thanks to our seats we could see most of!  Some pictures of the ceremony are here.

As we made our way out, it was obvious that people did not want the party to end and there were several impromptu performances, singing and dancing going on all around the stadium.  Unfortunately we couldn’t stay too long (boo hoo again) as my other half was working the next day so we made our way out of the park for the last time (sob) and along to the tube which we were able to get on with no wait – yet again the transport system worked without a hitch!  We had arranged to stay in the Strand Palace hotel again having stayed their the previous weekend and it having been so good and friendly and even though we were checking in at 12am it was no problem to get our bags out of the luggage storage and check in (we’d dropped our bag off in the morning).  Can highly recommend it as a good place to stay in Central London!

I’ll leave my thoughts on London 2012 as a whole for another post, but it was a great final day at the Paralympics even if I am very sad that its over!  Still there was still the Athletes Parade to come…

A busy day at the Paralympics

London 2012, , ,

Having taken the whole of the Olympics off work, I wasn’t able to do the same for the Paralympics so was restricted to going at the weekends so I booked tickets for the first Saturday for me, my sister-in-law and a few friends.

First up was the Aquatic Centre, somewhere where I hadn’t been during the Olympics and was keen to see and experience.  Our seats weren’t too far up (thankfully as like the other venues being steeply angled its quite an effort to walk high up!), and level with the starting blocks so we had a great view.  The curve of the roof meant that we couldn’t see the spectators on the other side of the pool which is a bit odd but the atmosphere (even though we were only watching heats) was amazing!  We also saw several records, including by Ellie Simmonds who won her heat with ease (and went on later that evening to claim GOLD!).  It was (like most indoor venues) pretty warm but that didn’t stop us enjoying ourselves and screaming ourselves hoarse for each TeamGB member!!  I took a few pictures which you can see here.

Having picked up a bit of lunch (not McDonalds yet!), we started to walk over to the Basketball arena to use our Day Passes but the signs informed us that all Day Pass seats were taken (boo, hoo) so instead we headed for the Riverbank Arena to watch 7 a-side football which is for athletes with Cerebral Palsy and similar.  The second match in the session was going to be TeamGB so we wanted to go and support them!  The first match was Ukraine vs USA and Ukraine were much the better team and ran out 9-0 winners – we hoped that TeamGB would do better in the second match!  They did, but given that they were playing Brazil, it was no surprise that they lost but it was a much closer match and GB did have their chances to score.  Again you can see a few pictures here.

After dinner at McDonalds (still the fastest and easiest way to have food at the park!), my sister-in-law and I headed for the Olympic Stadium and our seats were five rows from the front just level with the 100m start line – wow!!!  We didn’t see TeamGB win any medals unfortunately, but we did see Gemma Prescott receive hers and saw several athletes competing so we still had a fantastic time.  At the end we did stay and see the final medal ceremonies (even though the stadium was emptying and there were no GB medals to be presented) as everyone deserved our support, praise and respect and it turned out that Lord Coe was presenting the medals so we got to see him quite close up.  The pictures from that night are here.

All in all, we had a fabulous day even though we didn’t see much Team GB success!

The London 2012 Paralympics are here!

London 2012,

We are in the last hour before the London 2012 Paralympics Opening Ceremony, and I’m so looking forward to it and the next 10 days!  I’ve been watching the Torch Relay online today, and its been good to see the number of people who have waited/stopped to see the relay and encourage the torchbearers and take pictures despite the weather!  Its a shame that its behind schedule (and therefore may not get to the ceremony in time) but its still amazing to see and must be a proud moment for everyone who has had an opportunity to take part.

Well done Channel 4!

London 2012,

I’ve just been reading the Channel4 press release about their coverage and presenters for the Paralympics this year, and I have to say well done for pulling together such a broad range of top notch presenters, specialists and newcomers and for the amount of coverage that will be going on.

I have to admit that after the ill-fated Ortis Deley debacle at the World Championships last year (sorry Ortis, though I think putting you in such a prime coverage with no real experience first was a mistake Ch4 bosses should accept blame for) I was not very positive about Channel4 showing the Paralympics, but from the sounds of it its going to be great!

I also look forward to seeing how the LEXI symbol is going to be used to help us viewers understand the different paralympic classifications.  Should be an interesting and fun two weeks!

100 days to go until the Paralympics!

London 2012

Today marks 100 days to go until the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympics and I love that they advertised the fact on the white cliffs of Dover today! (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/disability-sport/18126293) *grin*.

Although they may not get as much attention or people watching them these atheletes  deserve even more of our respect and support than most of the able bodied Team GB so I for one will be going to see them live!  I already have tickets for some events, but am going to try for more today at 11am when more get released as I really want to experience the Aquatics centre and Velodrome atmospheres as well as supporting ParalympicsGB!

Update – I got Aquatics tickets to see the swimming, but just couldn’t get Velodrome tickets, they’re like god dust!