IAN O'RIORDANspends a day at the ExCeL Arena where spectaors entering its main boulevard clutch their tickets like kids in a chocolate factory
THE IRISH Times Olympic apartment has an east-facing balcony with a nice view of the Thames Barrier and across to Greenwich, perfect for sipping coffee in the morning sun along with Johnny Watterson before he sets off on the Underground for Wimbledon.
It’s a little far away from the London landmarks, but quite close to some of the main Olympic venues, and for those of us patiently awaiting the start of the real Games, a 15-minute stroll away from a day in the life of five classic Olympic sports, all under the one roof – albeit a very, very big one.
The ExCeL – a simple abbreviation of the Exhibition Centre London – was opened in 2001, and if it was one of the reasons why London got these Olympics in the first place then it’s easy to understand why: they couldn’t have purposely built this place any better even if they had to.
The last time I was here, three months ago, it was swarming with around 40,000 people, filling up on spaghetti and isotonic drinks, before picking up their number for the London Marathon.
This time it’s swarming with even more, around 40,000 Olympic spectators, around 3,000 of the Olympic volunteers, all mingling, it seems, with hundreds of competitors and coaches from the 204 nations. The ExCeL is actually the largest Olympic venue of the lot, covering a vast 100-acre site by the old Royal Victoria Dock, in the original London Docklands.
It’s been divided into five different sporting arenas, with a total of 40,000 temporary seats. For the first week it’s set up as Mode 1, and arenas for boxing, fencing, judo, table tennis and weightlifting: next week they’ll switch things around a little and set up Mode 2, taekwondo replacing judo, the wrestling replacing the fencing.
Five sports, all under one roof, all on the same day, and for those of us sporting the access-all-areas badges, a reminder of just why the Olympics means so many different things to so many different people. Three years ago the ExCel hosted a G-20 Summit: here it’s hosting a sporting summit on a truly global scale, many of the 40,000 spectators entering the main boulevard clutching their event ticket as if they’d just gained entry to a chocolate factory.
There’ll be several medals decided over the course of the day, except in boxing, housed in the South Arena 2, all 10,000 seats sold out, and where the Tricolour will almost certainly be raised in some capacity towards the end of next week – and with no Irish boxers is action right now that’s left alone.
The table tennis, across in the North Arena 1, this one a 6,000 sell-out, actually houses four games simultaneously, and, as if on cue, China’s Hao Wang is making his entrance just as I do. China won all four titles in Beijing, and will almost certainly do likewise this week, although Wang isn’t having it all his own way against Werner Schlager, the 39 year-old Austrian. Wang takes the first game, 11-3, after just four minutes, but Schlager takes the second, 11-8. Upset? No, a mere wake-up, as Wang promptly finishes him off.
So, to North Arena 2, the judo, another 10,000 sell-out. Along with boxing, taekwondo and wrestling, this is the one of those rare Olympic sports where they give out two bronze medals, effectively for finishing third and fourth (Pity that didn’t apply to some more events, isn’t it?). Although things in here aren’t going exactly to script: Ugo Legrand of France beats the gold medal favourite KC Wang, from Korea, in the bronze medal match, which means Wang goes home empty-handed. The gold medal goes to the Russian, Mansur Isaev.
With that it’s time for a quick look at the weightlifting, in South Arena 3, again 6,000 sell-out, even if the sport still stinks in many people’s mind, and provided the first positive doping test in London. Not that China’s Li Xueying gives any impression whatsoever that she might be on drugs, setting a new Olympic record in winning the 58kg category with a combined total of 246kg. Xueying actually set a separate Olympic record of 108kg in the snatch, and equalled the previous best in an Olympics with a 138kg clean and jerk.
Then Kim Un Guk of the People’s Republic of Korea lifts an unbelievable 327kg to win the gold in the men’s 62kg (my weight exactly).
But it’s in the South Arena 1 where all the drama unfolds when officials award Britta Heidemann of Germany a semi-final win over Shin A Lam of Korea in their epee semi-final. With that all hell breaks loose, or rather tears do, as the Korean stages a tearful sit-in on her piste.
It ends with the Korean camp holding up the event for an hour, apparently over a timing dispute: the German had scored a hit with the score at 5-5, and one second left on the clock, although it’s not clear to anyone if this should actually have counted.
Eventually the match officials persuade the dejected Korean to leave the field of play, and to contest the bronze medal match against Sun Yujie of China. Well, unfortunately for Lam, she loses that too, 15-11.
The German’s luck also runs out as she loses the gold to Yana Shemyakina of the Ukraine, 9-8.
Enough excelling for one day.
