Olympic impressions, vol 4

'Golden Flower'

In May, the London 2012 Olympic Flame was lit in Ancient Olympia, at an altar in front of the ruins of the Temple of Hera, the oldest surviving temple on the site.

A few weeks later, I visited the same place.












And, when I got home, I watched the flame that had been lit there, being carried through my local towns, usually in the rain!











Finally, on August 3rd, I saw it as the flaming petals of the cauldron in the shape of a chrysanthemum, in the Olympic Stadium, burning day ...                      ... and night.

There was no similar specific symbol at the Ancient Olympic Games. There were flames alight on dozens of altars and in the temples most of the year, so flames were all around all the time.

But it cheers me that the word 'chrysanthemum' in Greek means 'Golden Flower', and that that is the shape Thomas Heatherwick and colleagues chose for our 30th modern Olympiad's flaming cauldron.




(The first two pictures above appear on
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/05/lighting-the-2012-olympic-flame/100294/
with many others. Beautiful!)

Olympic impressions, vol 3

Many of my impressions seem to be similar to those recorded by visitors to the Ancient Olympic Games.

Happy faces!

London felt like a different city during the Olympic Games. (Perhaps it still does, as the Paralympics haven't finished yet.)

On the buses and trains you could tell who was off to the Games by their happy faces. The volunteers who directed us around the venues, helped us find loos and places to eat, and saw us on our way afterwards were usually smiling. And they teased, sang, danced and joked, so that we too always had a smile on our faces. Even the army was cheerful and chatty.

Excitement!

At the events I went to, the spectators cheered British and other athletes alike, and we waved, and chanted, and stood up to urge them on. 

Skills!

I watched beach volleyball, trampolining and athletics live, and judo and gymnastics and diving and boxing and lots more on television. I was awestruck to see people so skilled, so practiced, so highly trained, and so dedicated to being perfect.

 

Media

Greenwich Park: spot the camera!

And I learned a little about how the media get their amazing shots.

(in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts)

Taken by Yair Haklai in 2008, St Petersburg

No cameras in Ancient Greece, of course. In those days the media consisted of painters and stone and bronze sculptors. Most of the visual records of the Ancient Olympics that have survived are in stone or are painted on vases. Bronze statues, of which there were thousands, were made with the cutting-edge technologies of the time. Themis, the hero of The Boy with Two Heads, learns some of them during the story. Sadly the vast majority of large bronzes have been melted down - often recycled as weapons ...

(If you've been following my blog, you've seen this wrestlers picture before.)

Olympic impressions, vol 2

Apart from inside the venues, there was lots of colour in the Olympic Park.

Some was in the building ...

(photo Wikipedia)

... and some in the planting.

These thousands of meadow flowers reminded me of my spring visit to Ancient Olympia, where I saw carpets of anemones and daisies.

And they had planted themselves!

I imagine that in April 432BC, when Themis, the hero of The Boy with Two Heads, arrived there, the whole area would have been bright with multi-coloured spring flowers. He would have seen them gradually die back as rain became scarce and the summer sun dried everything up (unlike in London this year!), so that by the time the Games started in early August, all the flowers would have disappeared.

Olympic Impressions, vol 1

London is now gearing up for the Paralympics, but I'm not going to be able to go to them after all. So my live Olympic Experiences are now over for 2012.

What impressed me most at the main Games?

One thing was the colours!
You probably noticed this on television, but it intrigued me that many of the venues had a trade-mark colour. (There were 43 venues listed throughout the UK, and I and my family only visited 7, so I am over-generalising!)

Horse Guards Parade - Beach Volleyball

Purple was for Horse Guards Parade - and the Serpentine:

The Serpentine in Hyde Park - Marathon Swimming 

The Serpentine in Hyde Park - Marathon Swimming dais

The North Greenwich Arena was pink ...

North Greenwich Arena - Women's Trampoline

... while the Riverbank Arena went for blue (mainly).

Riverbank Arena - Hockey

Earls Court arena - Volleyball

Earl's Court was turquoise for the Volleyball ...

Copper Box - Handball (photo: Wikipedia)

... as was the Copper Box for Handball.

The Stadium itself had its black and white seating. But the green of the grass was the colour the spectators saw most of, day ...

... and night.

All these colours contrast with what the scene would have been like in Ancient Olympia. There, the only Stadium would have had a pale sandy track. The sides where the spectators stood would have been almost bare earth under the relentless August sun. In Ancient Olympia it was the temples, the statues, and the crowds that provided the colour.

... to be continued with other impressions ...

London Olympics: Walk in the Park

Here are a few images from around the Olympic Stadium during my visit to the Games yesterday. The weather was better than last time ... 

... and the Velodrome looked like a skateboard among the meadow flowers. (Although, I'm told it's know as the Pringle ...)

The River Lee runs through the Park,

hosting security patrols and phone boxes ...

... or rather, partial phone boxes.













As dark falls, the Orbit seems to dance, beckoning to the massive stadium ... 

... and, as in ancient times, the full moon shines on the Precinct as the crowds disperse on the middle day of the Games (approximately!).

The Boy is free!

The Boy with Two Heads e-book is a free download from Amazon this weekend. 

Lovely Tweet about it:
"Got the Olympic bug? Looking for children's books with an Olympic theme? Try this (10 yrs+) - free download this weekend"


More than 100 downloads overnight. Thanks to all!!

Olympic Park visit ...

... with The Boy, on a grey but stimulating day ...

... to see some strange, ...

... confusing, ...

           ... and enchanting sights.

 

The Olympic Park in London, August, 2012 ...

is a little different from Ancient Olympia in 300 BC,

but the atmosphere of jamboree, 

the exhibition of highs and lows in human nature,

and the celebration of excellence, 

seem to have been very similar.