London 2012 Day 13 - Greenwich Park

Yesterday (Thursday) was the final of the individual dressage, where Team GB won Gold (Charlotte Dujardin) and Bronze (Laura Bechtosheimer).

My team was stationed by the Blackheath entrance to Greenwich Park all day, so I don't have any photos or videos of the event unfortunately.

Instead, I thought I'd show you some general behind-the-scenes photos from Greenwich Park:

If you've been impressed by the quality of the TV coverage from the various Olympic venues, then you have the OBS (Olympic Broadcast Service) to thank for most of it. They provide nearly all of the coverage from all of the events, and then this is shown by the various international TV companies, such as the BBC, NBC in America, Channel 9 in Australia, etc.

The OBS have cameras all of over Greenwich Park. They even have a huge, 1.5Km long cable suspended over the park for the Sky-Cam, which provides all of the amazing overhead shots. Here is one of the several camera boxes in the top of the arena:

Camera box at the top of the Greenwich Park arena

This rather eccentric chap is in charge of the arena area and controls the horses and team members coming in and out. I don't know his name but he's a real character and all of the riders seem to know him well, so I imagine that he must do this job at various international equestrian events:

The arena director

Earlier this week, all of the Greenwich Park Games Makers assembled in the arena for a group photo. This is a picture of everyone coming in:

Games Makers entering the arena

The Greenwich Tavern is the pub right outside the entrance used by all of the workforce, as well as the teams. It's always packed at the end of the day and quite often you will see the riders in there, still dressed in their riding gear:

Outside the Greenwich Tavern

Last night was particularly busy (and a bit sad), as yesterday marked the end of the equestrian events at Greenwich Park. As I left in the evening, horse boxes were already lining up, as the horses and teams started moving out. On Saturday and Sunday, the modern pentathlon events will be taking place and a whole new bunch of people will be taking their place.

London 2012 Day 12 - Greenwich Park

Wednesday was the final of the individual jumping and, following Tuesday's gold, hopes were high that Nick Skelton might win another.

The magnificent course for the final day of the individual jumping 

Nick Skelton was one of the last riders to go and the tension in the arena was high. It was all too much for the spectator sitting next to me, who couldn't bear to watch...

Too nervous to watch

It looked like Nick Skelton was going to win, but then his horse sadly clipped the very last fence, which moved him to fifth equal position. The poor guy looked devastated, but the crowd still gave him a standing ovation..

Standing ovation for Nick Skelton

Every medal day at Greenwich Park, the names of 20 Games Makers are drawn out of a hat to line the stairs leading up to the flag poles, as the guard marches the flags up during the ceremony. On Wednesday, I was one of those selected. It was still fun to do, but it would have been even nicer if it had been the Union flag, rather than the Swiss flag that was being raised up the tallest pole!

London 2012 Day 11 - Greenwich Park

Wow, I've got some catching up to do, so my next few posts will resume the events from this week.

Tuesday was the medal day for the team dressage and the British team won gold, due largely to an incredible round by Charlotte Dujardin. This was the first Team GB gold at Greenwich Park and the crowd was ecstatic.



The crowd after Charlotte Dujardin's round

Apparently, Dressage normally draws a more conservative and restrained crowd than was present on Tuesday, who behaved in a very un-dressage-crowd fashion when waiting for the medal ceremony to begin!..

The atmosphere in the arena was fantastic. All the team did extremely well but Charlotte Dujardin was definitely the best rider of the day:



Charlotte Dujardin entering for the medal ceremony

Team GB win their first Greenwich gold

The best celebrity spot of the day was Clare Balding, who walked straight through our end-of-day debrief!..

Clare Balding on her way home!



So, so tired!

My apologies for the lack of blog posts these past couple of days. I've just come home from another incredibly long day with a pre-dawn start and I'm simply too tired to write more than a few lines. Tomorrow is a rest day and I'm going down to the Olympic park to watch water polo and go up "The Orbit". I can't wait! Normal service on this blog should resume shortly!

London 2012 Day 7 - Greenwich Park

Today was the second day of the individual and team dressage Grand Prix and my team was manning the stands all day.

I had already been impressed by the skill involved involved in the dressage part of the eventing, but what I saw today was on a whole other level. How on earth you train a horse to dance and skip like they were doing today is beyond me.

Today I also got to see my first Olympic record being broken. Charlotte Dujardin from Team GB smashed the Olympic Grand Prix dressage record, scoring 83.7. This has put Britain in gold team medal position. It's a shame that I wasn't filming, because the crowd was ecstatic and the noise they made must have carried right across the river.

Here's a photo of a very happy Charlotte Dujardin, just after her round:

Charlotte Dujardin having just broken her record

Tomorrow, it's time for team and individual jumping.

London 2012 Day 6 - Greenwich Park

Just a quick blog entry, as I'm desperately tired and there's not too much to report on today.

This morning my team was assigned to the west stand and, in particular, the atheletes' section. This is where any of the equestrian teams can grab an empty seat and see their team-mates or competitors in action. Even with free seating, this is harder to manage than a regular stand with paying spectators, as the teams have many different types of accreditation to check and not all of them are valid for access to the west stand. We had quite a few important people without the correct type of pass that we had to turn away. As you can imagine, this requires a delicate touch, a considerable amount of diplomacy and doesn't always go down well.

This is a photo of a couple of Danish supporters who got my morning off to a good start:

Danish supporters

The weather was great this morning, but quickly worsened after lunch. A huge shower competely soaked us, which made the afternoon fairly unpleasant, as we were then relocated to the corridor under the VIP section, where was no sunlight to help dry us out.

Here's hoping for a better day tomorrow!

London 2012 Day 4 - Greenwich Park

Following a rest day, yesterday was my third day at Greenwich Park and my first medal day. It was going to be an exciting day, because it was time for the showjumping climax of the three-day eventing and the GB equestrian team were starting the day in second place. As the Queen's granddaughter, Zara Phillips, is part of the team, there was also a good chance that there would be royal spectators.

The day got off to another excruciatingly early and decidedly unglamorous start:

Waiting in the rain at Tring station

After signing in and a team leader briefing, I located my team for the day and we headed off to the West stand, where we were to man the entrances, show spectators to their seats, control traffic on the stairs etc. We took position at 08:00am and it didn't take long before things got extremely busy. It was a capacity crowd (23,000) and everyone wanted to get in as quickly as possible. At some point in the morning, the royals must have entered just to the left of us, but we were too busy to sneak a look. An extremely large and uncommunicative man with lots of accreditation and an ear-piece appeared just behind us in the stairs and remained there for the next two hours. We were obviously going to be working under the close attention of a royal protection officer.

As Team GB took to the arena, things got a little quieter and we were able to see some of the action. They all did extremely well. Zara Phillips clipped one fence, unfortunately, but the rest of the team had flawless rounds.

Zara Phillips starts her round

In the bottom of the picture, you can see the pole from the fence that she hit

Eventually, at 1:30pm our relief arrived and we were able to grab some lunch. In the afternoon, we were going to be stationed outside the arena doing crowd control, so I thought that the rest of the day would be more mundane. I couldn't have been more wrong!

Part of our area contained the accessibility lift of the stadium and one of our duties was to assist the lift operator. This proved to be extremely useful when it was time for the medal ceremony. First of all the guards arrived right in front of us to march the flags to the opposite end of the arena:

The Flag Guard about to

Then we got to see Prince William, Harry and Kate as they went past us to enter the arena:

Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, together with Prince Harry 

From the top of the accessibility lift, we then got the most incredible view of the medal ceremony. First the medals entered the arena just below us:

The medals arrive

We were so close that we could almost touch them as they reached the top of the stairs. I never imagined that I would be so close to an Olympic medal before!

Medals entering the arena

We were also very close to all the photographers..

Photographers waiting for the medal ceremony

New Zealand won the bronze medal, then it was time for Team GB to collect their silver..

Team GB going to collect their silver medals

On the screen immediately behind us, we got a good view of Princess Anne giving her daughter her medal..

Princess Anne give Team GB their silver medals

..of the German team being given their gold, and then of all the teams together..

Teams GB, New Zealand and Germany

At the end of the ceremonies, the spectators began to leave and we helped people requiring assistance out of the arena in the mobility lift. Once the arena was empty I performed a last sweep of the ground floor before closing the list for evening. As I walked along, I suddenly noticed the Royal party walking towards me in the opposite direction. Apparently, they had been to visit the horses in the stables and had decided to leave through the arena:

The Royals on their way home

It was then time to go home. On the way out of the arena I bumped in to Mike Tindall, who aside from being a member of the England rugby team is also Zara Phillips' husband. He was being inundated with requests for autographs and photographs but was extremely friendly and seemed like a genuinely nice guy:

Mike Tindall signing autographs

I also met Lucinda Green, who is one of Britain's most successful equestrians..

Lucinda Green outside the arena

Then, just as I thought the day couldn't get any more surreal, I bumped into Princess Anne once I had gone through security to check out for the day. She was walking straight towards me and said good evening as she went past.

Outside the park, there was something of a party attitude and lots of the riders were walking around and talking to their supporters. Here is a photo of one of the Swedish riders, speaking to some fans..

Swedish rider talking to fans

The sound of police sirens then came down the road, as my new friend Princess Anne headed home for dinner. She obviously didn't see me, otherwise I'm sure that she would have given me a lift to the station..

Princess Anne heading home

Every day that I've volunteered so far has been something different and completely unpredictable. You never know what you're going to be in for as you enter the park in the morning. The early starts, combined with being on your feet all day is exhausting, and the work itself can be quite stressful at times (how do you relocate a lady having an attack of vertigo at the top of the stands when there are no free seats?) but I'm enjoying every minute of it.