My Olympic Joy

 By about three days into London 2012, I was starting to feel a bit of a curmudgeon. I love sports, watching them at least (although I did love to play in my younger, lighter days too), and the Olympics are obviously the greatest collection of competitive games on the planet. I had boycotted the Beijing games for moral reasons (some of us care that the Chinese murder dissidents and use slave labour to make Homer Simpson slippers for the US) but I was glued to Athens and Sydney. But I also feel that while its a great spectacle, having the Games in your country is really not as great for you as organizing committees, politicians, and the Coca Cola company would have you believe.

If you wear Nike clothing at the Olympics, they make you dance in front of everyone

Add to that the fact that tickets for events were originally only obtainable by the general public through a lottery system, wherein you presumably had a limited chance to get hold of tickets to sports you would actually like to see played at the highest level (Basketball rather than Airgun Shooting, for example), and I was generally feeling glad to have gotten out of London before local taxes were raised to pay for the world's greatest corporate junket and athlete-orgy and to have the BBC covering every single event around the clock.

But then Beach Volleyball happened.

Just like that.

If you haven't seen a Beach Volleyball match, and you like fun, you owe it to yourself to watch a match right now. If you're lucky the BBC Sports site is still hosting video of every match from the main court. Otherwise, er, Youtube, maybe? Its not the most shown sport on TV, hence this being the first time I had really seen it.

For the really uninitiated, the game is pairs volleyball, played on sand. Best of three sets. First two sets are first to 21 points, the decider goes to 15 with the usual must-win-by two points rules. But, and here's the fun bit, it is played in a party-like atmosphere, complete with comperes and DJ's, who whip the crowd up between every point with pumping music, national callouts, sound effects, and so on. Shouting during points is very very much encouraged. God saw fit to grant London great weather over the last week as well and the Olympic Beach Volleyball arena at Horseguards Parade in London has, without a doubt, been the place to be during the Games.

The Olympics is also about art. Sand art.

The next big thing that happened was finding out tickets to various Olympic events were being made available on a daily basis through the official website. This was happening late at night - LOCOG officials were suggesting checking around midnight each night - as, I believe, it was established what 'Olympic Family' tickets were not to be used by their holding corporations and teams. So a sport I love watching, at the Greatest Show on Earth, in my own country at a city near me? I was bitten by the once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity bug and knew I had to go, if I could.

Who could say no to this?

 The first night I checked, there were tickets available for medal matches in the second week of competition. Unfortunately, in a manner of speaking, I would be away on holiday that week. But the second night of looking there were tickets for the very next afternoon. A quick check of the schedule of play showed GBR's women would be playing that day and fifteen minutes later I received confirmation I had a ticket!

Even John McEnroe put in an appearance

I had been concerned traveling across London would be a nightmare. There has been a lot of doom-mongering going on about the capacity of London's transport network and its ability to cope with the influx of visitors to the capital.

None of my worries proved well-founded though as it was easy to get a train into Fenchurch Street and a tube to Charing Cross. No crowds, no muss no fuss. Even walking through Trafalgar Square and along The Mall to the arena was zero-stress. There were people there, sure, and many tourists. But not a noticeable increase from normal numbers.

Collecting my ticket from the Box Office was easy, queuing to get in was easy (and shaded as some bright spark ahad though to place the queues under trees, the soldiers manning the security checkpoint (just like airport security) were pleasant and polite, and the 'waiting area' before one got in to the arena-proper did not even feel that crowded. I have felt more stress and pressure, for example, walking along Tottenham Court Road in the summer.

The arena itself is amazing. It took a bit of effort to look through the fences, stalls, and the giant stands themselves to remind myself what the place looks like, well, the rest of my life. I even got a great seat - maybe fifteen feet from the sand, behind the service line, at the Mall end.

Usually there are soldiers here. Today they were very well hidden.

The only possible misstep the organisers made was perhaps their scheduling. Team GB disappointed in the second match of the day - they narrowly lost the first set, but were never really in contention for the second. The atmosphere for the next tilt was then a little muted to begin with as most of the audience had cheered themselves out for Team GB. It certainly took me most of the first set to drum up some more enthusiasm for the rest of the afternoon's players.

Team GBR losing early kinda killed the mood...

All in all though it was a great afternoon of competition. Even if you couldn't care less whether Holland or Germany win the chance of a Lucky Loser match the atmosphere, the comperes, the music, the weather, and the crowd all combine to make shouting, cheering, dancing, and laughing impossible to resist. I loved my afternoon at the Olympics and wish I could do it every Thursday afternoon.

More art!