London buses, legacy and a legion of highly impressed soldiers

Ksenia Afanasyeva, watched by Maria Paseka

I had a bit of a moment yesterday.  Sat on the shuttle bus on my way to the North Greenwich Arena, I looked around me, and everything was so pink and shiney and clean and sweet scented, the volunteers all so helpful and smiley.  The sun was even shining.  I was really moved by that bus, and began to weep quietly in my corner, hoping my fellow travellers wouldn't notice.

Perhaps LOCOG had arranged it that way in order to enhance the emotional experience of event goers.  The experience of buying my tickets at the last minute and the relief I felt at being able to attend the world's leading sporting event in my home town was certainly beyond overwhelming.  I probably wouldn't have had that feeling if I had been able to book in advance successfully on any one of the dozen previous occasions I had tried, and been told that tickets were sold out.  Never mind.  Who cares.  A lifelong ambition to attend the gymnastics competition at the Olympic Games has been realised.  It really didn't disappoint at all.  It exceeded my expectations. I now really believe in the Olympics as a power for the good, thanks to that bus, and I hope that all the buses in London are like that forever more.   Isn't that what legacy means?

I wonder what the legion of soldiers who were drafted in to fill the seats on one side of the arena thought of the opportunity of watching teenage girls in tight leotards cavort around the apparatus in daredevil manner?  I do hope they were seriously impressed.  If not, I can think of a legion of gym fans around the world who would willingly have given their eye teeth to be in that arena.