30 Things I Learned During My Trip To The Olympic Park

So as you may well know, there was a bit of sport that happened in London over the past couple of months. My family and I were lucky enough to get tickets to see the morning's Paralympic athletics on Friday the 7th of September, and here's what I found out.

1. You have to get up super early to watch the morning sessions.

This isn't really a 'thing', but there we go. To get there in time for the 10am session we had to leave the house at 6 to get to London for 8, then get across London and through the security screening. I wasn't allowed to take pictures at the security tents, that would've been a better picture. Wow, this list is starting really well!

2. Games Makers were everywhere, and irrepressibly happy

On the 10-minute walk from Stratford tube station to the Olympic Park, we saw about 80 Games Makers, the official volunteers of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. And they were all super happy? Many of them had these umpires' chairs and megaphones, which they used to wish people a good morning.

If you don't have a megaphone, get a pink foam hand

Used for a) pointing the way b) giving high fives to passing children

3. Branding, (almost) everywhere

This McDonalds was the biggest food outlet on the site. Companies like Cisco, BMW, Acer, and BP - to name a few - all had installations

4. You could get a roast dinner for breakfast.

When the smaller stalls weren't selling chocolate (Cadbury's) or soft drinks (Coca Cola etc), most of them had very little by way of branding. The food was pretty good as well. This picture was taken at about 9.30am, by which point the bar was also open.

5. Elaborate costumes were thin on the ground

This was one of the more exciting costumes I'd seen, minus some Japanese people in kimonos going to watch the wheelchair rugby. Disappointing.

6. The Orbit is super big, you guys

It's pretty neat. It's 115m high and you can take a lift nearly all the way to the top. Everyone was taking pictures of it, myself included.

7. The stadium is just as big as it looks on TV

This might be a bit of a redundant point, but my only experience of visiting large sporting grounds before this one was the Millennium Stadium to watch the football in last month's Olympics. It really is huge, and when you and 80,000 other people are all cheering then you can feel it.

8. The mini Minis are still there, still awesome.

They're small, remote-controlled replicas of Minis that collect javelins and discuses, to take back to the athletes. What more could you ask for?

9. Lots of space for wheelchairs.

Banks of wheelchair-accessible viewing areas like this ran around the perimeter of the stadium, all booked just like other seats. They also had TV screens with live feeds of the action if the overhang blocked your view.

10. The athletics were brilliant

Goes without saying, really. These two Iraqi athletes (Ahmed Naas and Wildan Nukhailawi) are doing a lap of honour after winning the silver and bronze in the F40 mens' javelin, during the course of which the world record was reset 7 times.

11. F11/12 Long-jump Guides are hardcore

11/12 is the classification for the blind or partially-sighted, so for the long-jump they're allowed a guide who helps them position themselves, then either claps or shouts to help the athlete stay in their lane. Most of the guides stood off to one side, but the guide for Japanese athlete Shiho Watanabe, wasn't for moving.

Wait for it...

BAMF

He did this every time she jumped.

12. Games Makers - private army in training

Despite being volunteers, they were super regimented about everything. They all picked up their respective kit boxes in unison, then turned and walked off in unison. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd been to volunteer drill camp.

13. Seriously, Guides really are hardcore

These are some of the competitors in the heats for the T11 100m, with their guides. They each grab on to a band to help their respective athlete, cannot cross the line before the athlete, and cannot help pull the athlete along. That's control. If the partially-sighted runner wins a medal, the guide gets one too.

14. Cameras, cameras everywhere

Here's Great Britain's Josie Pearson after winning the gold in the F51/52/53 discus. I guess it doesn't really register when watching on TV (it doesn't for me, anyway), but these athletes are mobbed by press if they medal.

15. Super British

So it helps with it being a home games and all, but there were so many Union Flags being flown in the stadium. Everyone clapped and cheered for all the athletes though, and I did hear a few people near me singing the Star Spangled Banner when it was played during one medal ceremony.

16. They had some really odd-looking custom equipment for the field events

This one here is a discus trolley. It looks a bit like a pram for a doll, but filled with discuses instead of babies.

A bowl full of hand chalk

Maybe something for helping athletes into and out of their wheelchairs? I have no idea, it wasn't used while I was there.

17. Become a Games Maker, get free pins

This is my aunt, who was a Games Maker for both the Olympics and Paralympics. If you're nice to the athletes and coaches they often give you pins. This is the second lanyard she's filled with them.

18. It was absolutely full of people

This is taken from the top of the Orbit. There were something like 2.7 million tickets sold for the Paralympics this time around, making it the best-attended Paralympics in history

19. The Orbit had a bunch of fairground mirrors?

IDK. Here's my dad and I posing with them. Some parts of us have been distorted by the mirrors but my belly is fairly true-to-life.

20. If you're a real pin trader, you do it outside.

There were 2 of these guys with their trays all laid out on the main forecourt at the base of the Orbit. They had pins from Moscow 1980, Munich 1972, all over.

21. For everyone else, there's Coca Cola

Coke had a massive, air-conditioned pin store right next to where these traders had set up. Pins started at £10 and went up to £20. It was a bit mercenary, and really weird.

What even is this? Is this a thing that people do? Have I been missing out on pin trading my entire life?

22. Swag was disappointing

This was about the most glam item of merchandise in the official store that I could find, and I don't think it really counts if it's just cufflinks and charm bracelets.

Most of it was just bins of deflated footballs(?) and those damn Wentlock and Mandeville mascots.

23. The Gloriana was there?

Rounded a corner and there was The Royal Barge Gloriana, just moored up near one of the less attractive parts of the Olympic Park. Fair enough I guess.

24. More mirrors

I see a theme emerging. I think.

25. This is a thing

Some paid workers walked around the Park with backpack coolboxes and big flags, vending soft drinks and alcohol. It looks like a terrible job, and they look a bit to similar to something else...

26. Mounted police look a lot less threatening when accessorised in matching gingham

There was no trouble at all in the Park, so they just stood around and let people pet their horses.

27. The Velodrome is pretty neat-looking

One of my favourite buildings in the Olympic Park, this one. It's been unofficially dubbed 'the Pringle', for obvious reasons.

28. Some of the venues will be dismantled after the end of the Games

Venues like the 10-storey Basketball Arena (pictured), the Water Polo Arena, and the 'wings' of the Aquatics Centre were all built as temporary structures. The size of some of them though, it's hard to imagine taking them all down.

29. More mirrors

Do you want us to 'reflect' on something? Is that it, BP? Or is it some kind of stupid marketing gimmick, 'you are all part of how we want to portray ourselves'? By this point I was suffering from mirror fatigue. Time to go home I think!

30. Super-friendly pink gates

No thank you, Stratford Gate! Thanks for letting us come and visit.

All pictures by me (Steve Owen) - I mean come on, look at them. You'd know if I'd stolen them from AP.