[Again, I’ve not had a chance to update my photos yet, so I’ll drop them in later] Archery is another wildcard event in that I was able to get a couple of £20 tickets, and thought it’d be fun to watch at Lord’s. All the Olympic venues have secure cycle parks, and since I had to go into work in the afternoon I thought I’d give it a go.
It took asking a couple of stewards, but I found the little enclosure over the road from the main entrance and a young lad assured me that he’d be in with the bikes the whole while. Each cyclist gets a wrist band with a matching one for the bike. You have to match numbers up to retrieve the bike. And of course you lock it as well. It worked well – although I felt a little sorry for the guy who had nothing to do all day. It’s reassuring if you’re leaving a pricey Brompton though!
As for the archery competition itself? Well it was good fun. The rules are relatively straightforward, and we soon understood them. Although we were quite high up, and couldn’t honestly say we could see the arrows in flight, the set-up was good with a nice big screen showing close ups of the targets. In some respects, it’s a bit like watching darts in a live venue. Except the arrows in the targets are a little clearer than darts where the TV monitors are essential.
There was some rain, but it mostly held off, and it didn’t cause anyone to go home early. In all, we got a solid four hours of action with sections of the overall draw being whittled down from the last 32 into competitors going into the last 8. In amongst the crowd were lots of South Koreans wildly their athletes. And I loved seeing a chap from Mongolia who had somehow managed to bring in a massive flag on an enormous metal pole. I’ve no idea how he got that through the x-ray machine!
All good fun, but my last Olympic event for a few days.