Skip to main content

London buses, legacy and a legion of highly impressed soldiers

Image
By
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.


Labels:

Comments

  1. Unknown30 July 2012 at 11:48

    It's funny! The soldiers had no right to be unhappy with them so lucky : )

    ReplyDelete
  2. M30 July 2012 at 20:52

    I am glad you enjoyed the feeling. Are you going to the Women's finals as well?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mustafina on Roschina

By
ROTTERDAM (Netherlands), October 24. /TASS/. Russian gymnast Lyudmila Roshchina, who won silver in the individual all-around at the World Championships, succeeded precisely because she focused on challenging herself rather than competing for medals. This is the assessment of Aliya Mustafina, a coach for the Russian national team and a two-time Olympic champion, who spoke to TASS. "Of course, I wasn't certain that Lyudmila would end up on the podium in the all-around, though I certainly hoped she would," Mustafina said. "The general instruction was not to think about medals or rankings. As they headed from the warm-up area to the competition floor, I told the girls: 'Don't worry about where you place—just focus on challenging yourselves.' And Lyusya managed to do exactly that." "Her mindset played a major role, too; she was in a very positive frame of mind even back in the warm-up area. So, I wouldn't say that winning this silver was an incre...
Post a Comment
Read more

Roschina on Mustafina

By
 Roshchina discusses Mustafina’s role in the Russian national gymnastics team The Olympic champion has been working with the Russian senior national team since the beginning of 2026 and specializes in the balance beam. "Aliya Fargatovna gives us all sorts of advice and handy tips, which is a huge help to us," Roshchina admitted, adding that Mustafina has been her idol since childhood. Mustafina has been working with the Russian senior national team since the beginning of 2026, specializing in the balance beam. Prior to this, she served as the head coach of the women’s junior national team. Roshchina is 18 years old, and the world championships in Rotterdam mark the second high-level competition of her career. At the 2025 World Championships, she finished 11th in the individual all-around. In August, in Zagreb, she became a European champion as part of the Russian team, which competed under the "World Gymnastics" banner.
Post a Comment
Read more

Roschina on her success in Rotterdam

By
  — Let’s sum up the World Championships. How did it go for you? — First of all, it was a great learning experience for me. Overall, the competition went well, though there is still room for improvement. — If someone had told you before the World Championships that you would take second place in the individual all-around, how would you have reacted? — I probably would have been surprised. I’m not even sure what else to say to that. — How difficult was it to be the leader of the women’s team in the absence of Angelina Melnikova? — I tried to encourage the girls, and they encouraged me as well. I think that, overall, we were a good team. But Angelina is still our leader, and I will look up to her. — I spoke with coach Aliya Mustafina, and she mentioned that the competition within the national team will be even tougher next year…  — It’s great to have such strong competition; it gives you something to strive for and an incentive to keep working. — Did you start out in artistic gy...
Post a Comment
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more