Friday and Saturday

Friday we relocated from Marion and Sam's house in Woking to Teva and Merryns house in Ealing. Everybody has been so generous to us on this trip and Marion and Sam have loaned us a car which makes getting about to easy. Teva and Merryn were out next door neighbors in Grange road. They have been living in Paris for 4 years and shifted to London about 1 week ago. In the afternoon we travelled across town on the Central line from Hanger Lane to Stratford, where the Olympic village is accessed. We then went one more stop out to Hackney Wick and found Tom and Jessy Seaton's Crate pizzeria and bar. Tom and Jessy are the children of roger and Tessa Seaton. We had a great catch up and sampled their menu of pizzas and really enjoyed the output from their microbrewery. This bar is right on the canal that goes around the Olympic park. Their food is superb and the beer wonderful. This place is seriously worth a visit. Later we walked down the canal path to their other business Counter Cafe, this is another really neat spot to visit for a real coffee or in our case a drink of wine. Outside their is a pontoon with tables and chairs moored on the canal. As it was getting late we grabbed a cab from Counter Cafe to Bethnal Green and the. Caught the Central line back to Hanger Lane.

Saturday was an early start, after a late to bed. I woke the family at 6am and we were finally on the road by 7:20. This morning we were heading to the Olympic stadium to see Sam and also our first session at the Olympic Velodrome. The Olympic Park is huge, I mean seriously huge we probably walked for 30 minutes from the entrance to the Velodrome. The weather was dodgy with overcast skies and occasional showers. The crowds heading into the Park was enormous but incredibly well organized and directed. I could not believe that you could get around 200,000 people into the park in around an hour and not have huge queues but they really had their security processed and ticket checking sorted out. I hope someone from Eden Park made it to the Olympics. They had a reasonable quantity of different types of food on sale and at generally reasonable prices. We got to the Velodrome at 9:30am for a 10am session. Almost all of this time spent traveling. There was a 150metre queue to get into the Velodrome, how British is that. Once again they were processing everybody really fast and we were at a slow walk till the final 15 metres. Once we got to the velodrome door we had another surprise. They would open the door and let about 15 people in and then close the door.we were in an airlock. Once the outer door shut they opened an inner door and we went into the velodrome itself. I presume this maintained the temperature and air pressure. Once inside we met Sam. It was great to see him after months away. He was looking very fit and lean. Hugs and kisses all round. sam was disappointed not to be riding especially since he had ridden PBs over the past few days.we stayed and talked until the event was about to start and we had to take our seats. For this first session we were in the front row of the upper level  half way round the track from the start finish line. It was an amazing view. We had massive speakers right next to us, it was not so much Loud as vibrating your whole body. Once you got to used to it it was not a problem a bit like being up front at a concert. They had a bass rumble going almost the whole time to promote an atmosphere. Also just 2 metres away was once of the motors that controlled the spider camera. Absolutely fascinating watching the camera and the spool of wire winding and unwinding depending on the required shot.

The race was interesting with the early round of the Individual sprints and the Omnium. Jason Kenny was awesome in top qualifier at 9.7 seconds for flying 200metres.  The competition was made a lot less interesting with the new UCI rule of only one rider per country. Many of the fastest sprinters were not competing including our Sam. Eddie Dawkins was representing New Zealand. Unfortunately Eddie was unable to reproduce his Melbourne form of 9.9 seconds instead recording a relatively slow 10.2 seconds. This qualified him in9th place (in world champs this time would have been maybe 20th). Eddie lost his first round ride to a closely matched rider who rode the same time. However Eddie got a Repecherge ride, unfortunately this was also a loss, and the end of the Individual Sprints for New Zealand.  All in all an interesting session to watch but also gutting what could have, should have been. New Zealand could have had a rider in the top 2 to 4 places.

We then went to the Westfield Stratford mall and had a brief look at the shops and grabbed a late lunch. We then went back to the house for an afternoon rest. Nicola and Sean still fighting colds and James tiredness. The rest of the day was spent watching the Olympics on television followed by an excellent pub meal in Ealing Broadway.

Finally an early night for all.