In a box

Yesterday I had a chance to walk around the Olympic Green (you need a ticket to get in), where the main stadiums are and the 12 main sponsors have built pavillions. The area is very park-like and the stadiums look impressive. Each of the pavillions was specific to the sponsor with different themes and all intended to be better than the others -some even had queues to get in they were so popular.

We only went inside 1 of them, the Coca-Cola one, though as VIPs we did not have to queue. I commented I must be the least important VIP of the entire games. After drinking lots of soft drinks and eating a meal at McDonalds (sponsor) that was somewhat unrecognisable from the usual salads they serve, we headed to the basketball stadium.

It's another brand new stadium that looks spectacular from both in and out. We had great views from the Coke box alongside the half-way line and felt suitably special :) The stadium was not full with 10% or so of the regular seats empty and many more of the media, reserved and other special seats empty too. So, the atmosphere was not incredible, even though it was China vs USA Women's.

The second game, Aus vs Brazil was much closer and Brazil staged a comeback from 25 points down to 8 at one point. Fortunately a lot of the spectators stayed after after the China game, and got noisily behind the Brazilians -though the biggest cheer of the night was when the cameras spotted the US Men's team who'd come to support their female counterparts.

There seems to be the need for a Wimbledon style scheme to re-sell used tickets and/or to make available those seats that are still unoccupied 20 mins after games begin. It seems plenty of stadiums have plenty of seats free, and some are almost empty by the end of the day (according to the BBC at the tennis).

Good news that 'Team GB' have 2 golds. I guess I saw the women's cyclist somewhere in the pack of women that rode by on sunday but I'll have to check my video recording in slow-mo!