Now the games are over

A few thoughts now both the Olympics and Paralympic games have finished:

1. The 'doom and gloom merchants' have been proved wrong. The games were a success. The organisation was incredible. Seb Coe's and Philip Craven's speeches were spot on last night.

2. The Paralympics were nothing short of inspiring. David Weir was the stand-out athlete but other athletes were successful as well. Particular mention must go to Jonnie Peacock (new Paralympic record time for T44 100m; he's only 19). Josef Craig (world record in the S7 400m freestyle; he's only 15), Ellie Simmonds (reached 4 finals and won 4 medals including 2 golds).

3. Whilst the venues were great, accessibility and disabled issues were noted.

- None of the (five) venues that I went to had a standard hearing loop. They were selling radios but they are not compatible with hearing aids (unless you wish to hold them in position for the entire event). This is not really acceptable in venues which are new and surely a convention centre (Earl's Court) would have a loop system built in? I can forgive the two outside venues as it is more difficult but the three indoor venue have less excuse.

- Why was there no warning of the climbing required to access the Aquatic centre - To access the wings there was an awful lot of climbing involved. There was at least the equivalent of four storeys of steps to get up to the main doors and then a further even steeper staircase to get to some seats. This should be mentioned somewhere. There was climbing involved at other venues but nowhere near the same extent.

- Leg room was an issue , I'm over 6 foot tall and the only venue where I had enough leg room was the Aquatic centre. This was particularly noticeable at the North Greenwich Arena (aka O2 arena) where it was  a struggle to stand up as I couldn't put my legs close enough together to make standing easier. At least at other venues it was easier to stand.

4. Channel 4's coverage of the Paralympics was terrible especially when compared to the BBC's coverage of the Olympics.  The Opening Ceremony was particularly bad. You do not cut to an outside broadcast whilst the Parade of Athletes is going on (it's bad enough that we have commercial breaks), you do not insult other countries whether or not you agree with their government. Perhaps Channel 4 shouldn't have used news presenters as commentators. Channel 4 has a number of other Channels (can think of three off the top of my head) could not one of these have been dedicated to Paralympic coverage (like the BBC did with BBC Three for the duration of the Olympics). They did have other streams but this was not available to Freeview viewers.


We want to see action, not see one race and then spend the next 20 minutes dissecting it in the studio missing other races (Yes, this did happen).

The best C4 coverage by far was the closing ceremony. the commentary was minimal just enough to explain what was happening and even the commercial breaks were done at the righ time (mostly). Pity the rest of their coverage was very poor.

Despite my gripes I really enjoyed both games and it was a great triumph for LOCOG, the ODA and even the GLA.

Special mention must go to the volunteers, they made the games.

Olympic and Paralympic games

As I'm sure everybody knows London has been hosting the Olympic and Paralympic games this summer.

I've been to one Olympic event and two Paralympic events (so far, still two more to go). Venues vary but none (so far) have had a hearing loop. Very poor show especially for (in the main) newly built venues. What annoys me is not that they have none but that I specified when I applied for the tickets that I was deaf/hard-of-hearing.

I went to Olympic volleyball at Earl's Court Convention Centre, no complaints about the seat locations, happy with those , just very little leg room, however, not LOCOG's fault as it was an existing venue.

Went to the Olympic stadium on Saturday evening, definitely no complaints about the seat, front row of the top tier, perfect view, a little more leg room than Earl's Court.

Went to the Aquatics centre on Sunday evening, seats were OK, no issue with leg room as the tiers are so steep. However, what they don't tell you is that there's the equivalent of about five/six storeys of steps upwards just o get into the main venue and then another storey or so of very steep steps to get to our seats. However, as the wings are a temporary structure it's almost forgivable. 

I have further tickets for the Equestrian events and Wheelchair Basketball later this week. Never been to the Dome before so looking forward to it, just a little wary about the Equestrian events as

What I will say is that even with a hearing loss, the atmosphere in all the venues was incredible. LOCOG have done a very good job and all the doom and gloom merchants have been proved wrong.