Q&A: The 2012 Olympics Experience

Now I have been asked quite a few questions about my Olympics holiday by my friends & family in Singapore and I thought I'd compile some of those questions and share my answers here.

A view of the Olympic stadium from the Orbit at sunset

Q: Is it very crowded in London now, given that it is the Olympics?

No, quite the contrary! Now there are certain hotspots which are extremely crowded but these crowded places are very localized and they are particularly around the Stratford and West Ham area where the Olympic Parl is. During the most crowded days, it was estimated that it took you approximately 45 to 60 minutes from the time you get off the train, walk out of the station and queue up for the security checks to get into Olympic Park, even though as the crow flies, the distance is about 250 metres.

But please note, that is a bottleneck that is 250 metres long in a very big city. The rest of the city is nothing like that - it is pretty normal actually, even quiet. There are of course, a number of other bottlenecks around, but these are always specifically between the entrance/exit of a venue and the nearest train station - such as in Excel, the North Greenwich Arena, Wembley and Horse Guards Parade grounds. So unless you had a ticket and you were specifically going to see one of these Olympic events, you would not be caught up in one of these bottlenecks.

Entering the Olympic Park

Q: But surely there are many tourists visiting London during the Olympics, where are they?

There are several reasons why the tourist figures are disappointing to say the least. Firstly, because of the Olympics, the hotels have increased their prices by as much as three times the normal rate - so even if the tourists are here, they would not want to stay a day longer than necessary given how ridiculously expensive the hotel prices are. Many of the tourists would leave London the same day/evening after they have seen their last event, rather than linger around London for a few more days doing the usual sightseeing or shopping.  Considering the fact that a half-decent Olympic ticket would cost you anything from £300 onwards, your average tourist would be spending a LOT of money. Airlines have also jacked up their prices on all flights to and from London during this period. Let's put some figures to it.

4 Olympic tickets at £300 each = £1200
4 nights at a decent London hotel during the Olympics = £1200
Flight to and from London = £800
Meals, transport, souvenirs etc for 5 days 4 nights = £300
Total = about £3500 for a 5 days 4 nights holiday

That ticket in my hand was very, very expensive.

That's about S$7000 - ouch. With that amount of money, you could take a much nicer, longer holiday elsewhere in style - and each subsequent day in London is ludicrously expensive. It would take a die hard sports fan to want to be here for this - now these people do exist, but either they are very rich or they know someone who is competing in the Olympics. Besides, plenty of locals who live in and around London have bought tickets to see the event, so many of the spectators are locals rather than tourists. People like me are thinking that it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the Olympics without having to get on a plane, book hotels etc and that the Olympics are probably not going to come back to London in my lifetime. So with that in mind, we just push the boat out and buy the expensive tickets.

Secondly, the bulk of the events took place in the Olympic Park in Stratford - there is plenty to see and do in the Olympic Park. I spent half a day there exploring the Olympic Park without actually seeing any event there - there are various pavilions and exhibitions to explore, there are various places to eat and shop, various art exhibitions, gardens and lakes, live music performances and the Orbit Tower to climb (115 metres tall). Oh and did I mention that there's the biggest shopping mall in London there as well - Westfield Stratford City.  I wasn't actually going to do it - I had only tickets for gymnastics which took place at the North Greenwich Arena, which is situated about 5 km south of the Olympic Park but a friend was desperate to get rid of her day ticket for the Orbit and I thought, oh well, why not let's go have a look and boy I am so glad she sold me her tickets!

The Orbit by night. 

Given how much there is to see and do within the Olympic Park itself, many tourists do spend entire days in the Olympic Park and so all they've seen in London is the Olympic Park, their hotel and the airport. In fact there are even hotels within the Olympic Park itself. The mentality is: well, the rest of London is always going to be there after the Olympics, I can come back any time to go to see Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the Tate Modern, the British Museum, Covent Garden and the London Eye - but after the Olympics, the Olympic Park is no longer going to be there, certainly not with the kind of buzz and atmosphere that one gets during the Olympics. It will just be a shopping mall surrounded by some sports facilities after the closing ceremonies - so I am going to make the most of my time here and soak up the Olympics atmosphere here.

Thankfully not all the events are in the Olympic Park, there are some spread out in other parts of London and indeed, some events like the football are taking place as far away as Cardiff and Glasgow and the sailing is taking place in Weymouth and Portland on the south coast of England. However, the number of tourists going to these events are relatively small compared to the volume of visitors at the Olympic Park itself - so really, the bulk of the action is focussed on the Olympic Park.

By the Velodrome, in the Olympic Park

However, the influx of Olympics tourists are off-set by the tourists who have stayed away. London received a total of 15.2 million tourists in 2011 and summer is the peak season for tourism - the weather is warm, it is less likely to rain, the days are longer (the sun sets at 9:45 pm at the peak of summer as opposed to 3:45 pm in late December) and there's plenty happening in the summer months, such as art and music festivals. However, many tourists were scared off by the prospect of being ripped off by hotels trying to cash in on the Olympics, overcrowding during the Olympic period and there was even the fear of the Olympics being a target for Al-Qaeda terrorists. So the non-Olympic London tourists have either postponed or brought forward their trip to London to avoid this Olympic period - or they have simply decided to visit another country altogether. Quite frankly, unless you have tickets to the Olympics, there's not much point in being in London now really given how expensive it is during this period.

It is really ironic at the end of the day that London won the bid as the host city for the 2012 Olympics on the basis of what this city has to offer - look at the whole package, not just the sports facilities. You have a great city with wonderful culture, entertainment, history and shopping - it is a fantastic tourist destination and the second most popular tourist destination in the world. However, most of the Olympic tourists are so busy with  the Olympics stuff they are effectively ignoring the rest of London. I've just come back from the Mr Brainwash art exhibition in Holborn and goodness me, I didn't even have to queue - I just walked right in. When he exhibited in Los Angeles, his fans had to queue for around three hours just to get into the exhibition and it was fairly empty. Where are the Olympic tourists?

This is about 11 km from the Olympic park and ignored by many visitors!

Let me give you an example of how stark this is: Leyton Mills retail park is one of those big out-of-town shopping centres by the motorway. The are several huge factory outlet type stores and it is a stone's throw from Leyton train station. Now, Leyton station is just one stop on the underground network from Stratford where the Olympics Park is - that's 2 minutes on the train. Indeed, from the carpark at Leyton Mills retail park, you can clearly see the Olympic Park as it is only 500 metres from the Olympic Park as the crow flies- so, one would presume that Leyton Mills would be full of Olympic visitors looking for a bargain, right?

No. It is in fact deserted despite the proximity to the Olympic Park. I did go there twice and was surprised on both occasions how Leyton Mills only attracted locals and no tourists at all. Why was this so? Firstly, the main entrance and exit to the Olympic Park is at Stratford Gate, leading to Stratford station via the Westfield Stratford City shopping mall. There is a secondary gate - the West Ham Greenway gate that leads to West Ham station. There is a small gate called the Eton Manor Gate which is a 500 metre walk from Leyton Mills retail park. However, when you go on the Olympics website for directions to Eton Manor, they direct you via West Ham (25 mins walk) or Stratford (15 mins walk) when the nearest station to Eton Manor gate is Leyton (500 metres, less than 5 minutes walk) - why? Is it because they want visitors to walk through Westfield Stratford City Mall (part of the Olympics Park), instead of Leyton Mills retail park - which is not associated with the Olympics in any official capacity in spite of the proximity to the Olympic Park?

Map of the Olympic Park

Note how Leyton Mills is not shown on the map above. It took my local knowledge to head to Leyton Mills instead of Westfield Stratford City as it was crazy busy at Westfield - but it was evident that most of the tourists didn't even know Leyton Mills retail park existed and how close it was to the Olympics Park! I am amazed how the tourists don't bother using google maps to check out their local surroundings to discover places like Leyton Mills - but there you go.

I'm not saying that London is a ghost town - it's just that there really hasn't been the kind of massive influx of tourists as anticipated for the Olympics. There has been a lot of negativity - horror stories about the possibilities of strikes during the Olympics to having to queue for hours at Heathrow airport to expensive tickets, the combination of all those factors meant that many people did stay away as they expected the London Olympics to have been a shambles. The fact that the Olympics actually has been pretty okay so far is irrelevant, there was just way too much negative PR in the build up to the Olympics.

The Olympic stadium to the right, the Orbit to the left

Q: What is the atmosphere like in the Olympic Park or at any of the events?

The atmosphere is pretty special I must say - firstly, it doesn't feel like London. Just walking around the Olympic Park, you see people from all over the world, speaking so many different languages. You see these fans who have dressed up for the occasion, with their national flags and it all feels so exciting. It almost feels like a carnival like celebration! All the signs are in two languages - French and English. I know in Singapore you're quite used to having your signs in 4 or more languages, but trust me, it is a painfully monolingual country with English being the only language around and it's so refreshing to actually see another language used in the signs and during official announcements. I thought, oh why can't we just go on using French as a second language even after the Olympics? Why must we have to go back to being pathetically monolingual as a nation? Can't we just use this chance to embrace French once and for all?

I am friendly and I do talk to people - particularly if they are speaking in a language other than English and I do speak many languages. So the conversation usually starts with me greeting them in their language and making some comment about the competition and they would reply, "Oh wow, why do you speak my language? Did you live in my country? Etc." I love talking to strangers at the Olympics as you will then hear the most amazing stories about how they are here to support someone they know, or if they have a sister who has just coached the silver medallist etc.

Bringing countries together at the Olympics

Q: Is there anything which pissed you off during the Olympics?

Children. Goodness me, bloody children. I don't get it. Why do parents spend so much money buying their young children tickets for an Olympic event when the kids clearly are not interested at all? Don't give me the crap about, "oh when the children grow up, they will remember that they were there at the London 2012 Olympics." During the gymnastics event finals, I say near this girl who looked about 6 or 7 years old - she was bored. Her parents were clearly interested in the competition and she was squirming in her seat and wasn't even looking at the gymnasts performing. Her mother would try to coax her, "look darling, look at the gymnast doing the somersaults, isn't she fantastic?" The girl couldn't be less interested and eventually she slipped out and then the parents were like, "where did she go? I thought you were looking after her!" Eventually an Olympic volunteer found the little girl wandering around on her own and returned her to her grateful parents. Geez.

For her parents I have one word for you: babysitter. Leave the kid at home and for the price of a babysitter (which is a lot less than an Olympic ticket) and the girl who has zero interest in sports can stay at home, surrounded by her favourite toys and have fun at home rather than be dragged to an Olympic event only to be traumatized by the experience of being lost in a crowded, unfamiliar sports arena. Such an experience will only put children off sport rather than inspire them. The Olympics are not for children at all, no way. Look, anyone who has any experience with children will realize that.

Yup, that's me holding the Olympic torch with Austrian world champion cyclist Franz Stocher.

Children like to be at the centre of attention - they crave the attention of their parents and those around them. To expect them to sit still for a few hours whilst someone else is the centre of everybody's attention is just torture for them. Kids hate being ignored like that! It is in the nature of children to be incredibly self-centred and selfish and it is only with the onset of maturity during their teenage years that they start to take an interest in other people around them. Children under 12 would probably much rather you hired a babysitter who would fuss over them, play with them, talk with them and give them all the attention they desire whilst the parents have a good time without the child at the Olympics where they can take a back seat and admire other people performing.

Watching Aliya Mustafina or Deng Linlin win a gold medal at the Olympics wouldn't inspire a child to take up gymnastics or any other sport. No, that's not how it works with children at all. You can inspire adults, you can inspire teenagers who are mature enough to think like adults - but you cannot inspire children by making them watch others succeed. No, you need to let them experience achieving something in sports by actually doing sports and if they have fun, if they enjoy the experience, then they will want to do sports. But you cannot expect children to think like adults and be inspired like adults. Such is the nature of child psychology and I am surprised so many parents don't understand it and drag their unhappy, unwilling kids to the Olympics. Good grief, just think: that's £400 ticket for your child could've paid for many weeks of tennis or swimming lessons or a stunningly good trampoline in your backyard!

Given the most events are sold out, it is also very selfish of parents to drag their kids to the Olympics when they are effectively depriving other genuine sports fans who would give an arm and a leg to be there and watch their favourite sport at the Olympics. It may be draconian to suggest that there should be no children under the age of 12 at the Olympics, but really, there are so many reasons why parents should not bring their children to the Olympics.

Q: Okay I get it, you don't like children at the Olympics. What else?

The official announcements were made in English and French - well I think they should be made in a few more languages including Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic at least. I don't mean having to repeat all announcements in ten languages, but it wouldn't take too much effort to say hello and welcome in a few more languages as this is the Olympics! Did I mention that I tried to volunteer as a translator at the Olympics?

In the Olympic Park by the aquatics centre

The Olympic ticket sale website is also crap. It is available in English, French and Welsh and it doesn't work in any of those languages. You would have to select the tickets you want to by, then it makes you wait up to 15 minutes to see if the tickets are available and then half the time it would say, "Sorry the tickets you selected are not available, please try again." And I'm like, WTF? Either they are available or they are not, why did I have to wait 15 minutes? And why did you allow me to select the tickets in the first place if they are not available? Then I would try again and usually after a few attempts, I would get the tickets I want but that website is just awful. I must've spent a few hours just buying the tickets I bought, it sucks big time.

The food is a rip off. The average price of a meal is £8.50 (S$17) at any event venue and a soft drink is £2.30 (S$4.60). This is about double what you would pay just outside the Olympic Park on the other side of Stratford, where you can easily get a main course (Fish & Chips, grilled chicken, Chinese food, Indian food, sushi, salads etc) for around £4 and you can certainly get a soft drink for under £1. The only exception to that is McDonald's, who have kept their prices down and it is possible to get a BigMac, fries and coke for £4.29 (S$8.58) at the Olympic Park.  Just as well it is reasonably cheap - there is no Olympic premium on your McDonald's meal and you would pay the same for your McDonald's meal whether you are inside the Olympic Park or far away in somewhere like Scotland or Cornwall. Incidentally, the world's biggest McDonald's is in the Olympic Park.

The meal of the Olympics

I also really detest and despise any jingoistic, nationalistic sentiments that emerges during events like the Olympics. The Olympics should bring people together, rather than divide them along national or ethnic lines. I am so bloody pissed off with Chinese people (including Singaporean Chinese people) who beat their chest and go on and on about how China has more gold medals than any other country. Listen you, you're watching the Olympics on your television or computer, you're not the athlete competing and winning the gold medals so you have absolutely no right to claim any national pride from China's gold medals until you get your fat sorry ass up there into the Olympics and win your own fucking gold medal. Then you can be as proud as you want, but until then, please shut the fuck up.

Just because some Chinese athlete has won a gold medal doesn't make you any fitter or stronger just because you happen to be Chinese too - you're probably fat, clumsy, overweight and fucking useless at sports and don't you forget that. China is the world's biggest country in terms of population (1.3 billion) and has such a depth of talent (ref: Zhang Yelinizi, in my previous post) - the real triumph is when relatively smaller countries win a gold medal then that's really something to celebrate. Being from a small country (Singapore) myself, I always support these smaller countries taking on the giants like China, Russia and America in a David & Goliath battle!

Denmark (5.5 million) - 2 golds
New Zealand (4.5 million) - 3 golds
Croatia (4.4 million) - 2 golds
Lithuania (3.2 million) - 1 gold
Jamaica (2.8 million) - 4 golds
Slovenia (2 million) - 1 gold
Grenada (0.1 million) - 1 gold

Q: What nationalities do you see most at the Olympics? Have you met any other Singaporeans?

Brits mostly, for obvious reasons. Plenty of Americans, Canadians, Germans, French, Russians, Spanish, Italians ... those are the most common ones. Then I have seen some Brazilians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Belgians, Dutch, Ukrainians, Japanese, South Koreans, Chileans, Danish, Latvians, Finnish, Swiss, Czechs, Jamaicans, Irish, Portuguese, Serbians, Mexicans, Romanians ... I did meet a small number of Singaporeans who went to support Lim Heem Wei (gymnastics) compete but these were people I knew and tracked down - I guess there just weren't that many Singaporeans running around the Olympics Park and the other venues.

Look out for the green, white and red Hungarian flags.

Q: What country do you support at the Olympics - given that you were born in Singapore, are of Chinese ethnicity, have a father from Malaysia but hold a British passport?

I have answered this question in a previous post.

Q: What did you enjoy most about the Olympics?

I think it has got to be going to watch Lim Heem Wei compete, because it was personal - not only is she a friend, gosh we have so many mutual friends on Facebook. The Singapore Gymnastics community is a small family really and we all know each other so I knew there were so many friends from Singapore who wanted to be there to support Heem Wei on that night and there I was, in the front row, on behalf of everyone who was rooting for her and supporting her. For those of you not familiar with the qualifications process, let me explain why it is such a big deal for Heem Wei to be there at the Olympics.

With Heem Wei after the competition

There are only a very limited number of places at the Olympics - 96 for men and 96 for women only. No more - this is because there are so many events happening over such a short space of time and you can't have every country in the world sending a team to every single event, it would cause a logistical nightmare. So only the very best in the world are represented at the Olympics and you have got to either qualify a full team to the Olympics or earn one of the remaining individual berths - Heem Wei did the latter earlier this year at the London Prepares Event.

Contrast this to the 2003 World Championships in Anaheim, California where Sri Lanka was represented for the first and last time. Now just how bad is Sri Lanka at gymnastics? Hmmm. Let me explain it this way, in gymnastics, skills are rated A to G, an A skill would be the simplest, like a handstand or a cartwheel and a G skill is the most complex and hardest, like a triple twisting double back somersault. Most gymnasts from places like America, China and Russia would perform skills rated between D and G in their routines with a few Cs at best. The gymnasts from Sri Lanka were performing skills rated A and B (with only one gymnast attempting a C-rated 1.5 twisting back somersault and she fell) - they weren't even capable of a single C-value skill. What's more, the gymnasts from Sri Lanka realized, argh, everyone else is so much better than us and they got extremely nervous and kept falling during these very simple routines. It was painful to watch and you have to wonder, whose bright idea was it to send these girls to the world championships when they weren't ready at all? Shouldn't they have started them off with a smaller, regional competition rather than try to put them up against the Russians and the Chinese at their first international competition? The clip below is that of a Sri Lankan gymnast at the last Commonwealth Games - watch it and you'll get the idea.

The whole qualification process is designed to keep teams like Sri Lanka out of the Olympics - the message is "come back and take part when you are good enough to compete with the Russians and the Chinese". Guess what? Heem Wei was not good enough to defeat the top gymnasts in the world but she has earned herself a place to compete with them through the rigorous qualifications process and that in itself is a huge triumph. So to have been able to wave at her and shout, "Heem Wei Jiayou!!" from the front row, well that was my Olympics moment, when both her coach and her turned around and waved back, laughing. I think her coach said something like, "从新加坡来的朋友!" ("Friends who have come from Singapore!")

I guess it feels very different when you have a personal connection to the person who is competing, when you cheer for them, you really cheer from your heart. Whereas yeah I saw loads of other outstanding gymnasts from all over the world as well and I truly enjoyed watching them perform some pretty amazing gymnastics, but it's just not quite the same when you are supporting your friend!

Q: Finally, how does the Olympics compare to other big events you've attended, such as the World Championships for gymnastics?

Well for starters, during an event like the world championships, yes you get a gathering of the best in the world in the sport, but it is only one sport being contested. During the Olympics, you're competing across the board in so many different events and every day I look at the medal table to see how team GB is doing against the other countries! I am really only interested in gymnastics and perhaps diving and I have no interest in the other sports - but there's a part of me that wants to see team GB do well and I also love to celebrate the stories of very small countries like Grenada punching way above their weight at the Olympics! Also, the duration of the Olympics, the amount of media attention on it makes it so much more exciting compared to say the World Championships.

I shall leave you with one of the most amazing moments at the gymnastics event finals when the Dutch underdog Epke Zonderland caused a real upset by defeating the gymnasts from the China, Russia, USA and Germany. The Netherlands isn't traditionally strong in gymnastics - that is why it was so special to see Zonderland win the gold medal in London. It was just wonderful to have been there, in person, to have been a part of it even as a spectator.