London Visit 2/9/12
I just returned from London where I was involved in a pre Olympic orientation with our team leader Rick McKee. The USOC and the London Organizing Committee partnered together to put the event on. It was pretty much a whirlwind trip. We left early Monday morning and arrived in London early Tuesday morning and we returned home Thursday afternoon. It was two full days of meetings and traveling around the city to see the venues, the village and other key Olympic sites.
Here are a few of my thoughts from the trip. Upon arrival at 5 am we were told that the bus to the hotel was coming at 8 am (due to other flights with coaches and team leaders arrival times). Five of us decided to be brave and head to the hotel on the Tube. This is London’s underground subway which connects the entire city very well. We bought our Oyster passes (the passes needed to right the subway and light rail system) and headed out on our adventure. The tube was fairly empty until we got closer to town and then it began to get a bit interesting. We had to change lines three times and take a bus at the end of the journey. One of our traveling mates missed a connection because the particular tram was too full and she almost was crushed in the as the door closed. So beware travelers - move quickly and without hesitation. These trams do not wait for you. We waited for her at the next stop and she was able to catch the next train to catch up. After about an hour and a half of traveling we reached the Hilton Docklands Hotel where all the participants were staying. We beat the bus by about a full two hours so it was well worth the adventure.
As soon as the bus arrived with the remaining participants we went to work. The first day was consisted of a quick orientation and then we were off to visit our respective venues and various sites. It was very cold… yikes - this is the summer Games right?. There was snow on the ground and it would snow later that evening. Of course, being from Southern California I did not bring the winter jacket and was quite cold for most of the trip. We first went to the Aquatics center which was amazing. It seats 17,500 people and was very nice. Right next to the Aquatics center is the water polo venue. Unfortunately, due to all the construction going on we were not able to go inside and view our venue. We saw it from the outside and it looks pretty cool but it would have been nice to see it and feel it a bit more. The water polo venue will seat 5,000 fans and there are two pools inside. One for competition and one for training and warm ups.
Most all of the venues are part of the Olympic park and very close together. There is construction going on all over the town. I did not see a lot of people working but perhaps it was due to the weather. But there is a great deal of work that still needs to be done. From the Aquatics Center and the Water Polo venue the Olympic Village is about a ten minute walk. There is a loop that goes around the Olympic Park and you can ride a shuttle that makes the entire loop in about 10 minutes. After viewing what we could see from the outside of the water polo venue, we went to the Village and saw the apartments where team USA will stay during the games. There was no furniture in the building but we at least were able to visualize what the living arrangements would be like.
The rest of the day consisted of traveling around town to visit sites such as where team processing will occur, the USA House and UEL Docklands. UEL is the University of East London. This is where team USA will make its home outside of the village. There will be home cooked meals, meeting rooms, medical and a fitness center. Unfortunately, there is no pool on campus so it will be a bit different than in Beijing where we had a dedicated pool to use and did not have to worry about the scheduled training sessions that often leave you frustrated with not enough time. I guess there are just not that many pools in London that can be used for water polo so we are going to have figure that part out. The evening ended with a nice reception with the mayor of London at Canada One square - which is a very nice financial district in town. We then went to dinner and finally arrived back at the hotel around 11 pm. We were all exhausted and went to bed immediately.
Day two consisted of sleeping in… which was greatly appreciated and then spending the afternoon in meetings with the LOCOG people (London Organizing Committee), key people from the USOC, people from Ralph Lauren (we got a sneak peak at the Opening Ceremonies outfits which are highly secretive) and Nike (saw the podium outfits – once again highly secretive). It was a good afternoon filled with lots of helpful information of everything we need to know about the Games.
More than anything it made me very excited to actually see and feel what London is going to be like in a few short months. I come home with a whole new level of excitement and realization that this is all going to happen so quickly. Time to get back to work with the team…
Hopefully things will warm up a bit in London before the summer… it is actually suppose to be in the low 80’s during that time of the year so it should be very pleasant. The journey accelerates from here. Our job is to stay focused and keep the team focused on doing what we need to do to prepare one day at a time. We are working hard. Robert and Marco held down the fort and took the guys through another grueling week of practice. I will rejoin them today.
See you at the pool.
Coach
Here are a few of my thoughts from the trip. Upon arrival at 5 am we were told that the bus to the hotel was coming at 8 am (due to other flights with coaches and team leaders arrival times). Five of us decided to be brave and head to the hotel on the Tube. This is London’s underground subway which connects the entire city very well. We bought our Oyster passes (the passes needed to right the subway and light rail system) and headed out on our adventure. The tube was fairly empty until we got closer to town and then it began to get a bit interesting. We had to change lines three times and take a bus at the end of the journey. One of our traveling mates missed a connection because the particular tram was too full and she almost was crushed in the as the door closed. So beware travelers - move quickly and without hesitation. These trams do not wait for you. We waited for her at the next stop and she was able to catch the next train to catch up. After about an hour and a half of traveling we reached the Hilton Docklands Hotel where all the participants were staying. We beat the bus by about a full two hours so it was well worth the adventure.
As soon as the bus arrived with the remaining participants we went to work. The first day was consisted of a quick orientation and then we were off to visit our respective venues and various sites. It was very cold… yikes - this is the summer Games right?. There was snow on the ground and it would snow later that evening. Of course, being from Southern California I did not bring the winter jacket and was quite cold for most of the trip. We first went to the Aquatics center which was amazing. It seats 17,500 people and was very nice. Right next to the Aquatics center is the water polo venue. Unfortunately, due to all the construction going on we were not able to go inside and view our venue. We saw it from the outside and it looks pretty cool but it would have been nice to see it and feel it a bit more. The water polo venue will seat 5,000 fans and there are two pools inside. One for competition and one for training and warm ups.
Most all of the venues are part of the Olympic park and very close together. There is construction going on all over the town. I did not see a lot of people working but perhaps it was due to the weather. But there is a great deal of work that still needs to be done. From the Aquatics Center and the Water Polo venue the Olympic Village is about a ten minute walk. There is a loop that goes around the Olympic Park and you can ride a shuttle that makes the entire loop in about 10 minutes. After viewing what we could see from the outside of the water polo venue, we went to the Village and saw the apartments where team USA will stay during the games. There was no furniture in the building but we at least were able to visualize what the living arrangements would be like.
The rest of the day consisted of traveling around town to visit sites such as where team processing will occur, the USA House and UEL Docklands. UEL is the University of East London. This is where team USA will make its home outside of the village. There will be home cooked meals, meeting rooms, medical and a fitness center. Unfortunately, there is no pool on campus so it will be a bit different than in Beijing where we had a dedicated pool to use and did not have to worry about the scheduled training sessions that often leave you frustrated with not enough time. I guess there are just not that many pools in London that can be used for water polo so we are going to have figure that part out. The evening ended with a nice reception with the mayor of London at Canada One square - which is a very nice financial district in town. We then went to dinner and finally arrived back at the hotel around 11 pm. We were all exhausted and went to bed immediately.
Day two consisted of sleeping in… which was greatly appreciated and then spending the afternoon in meetings with the LOCOG people (London Organizing Committee), key people from the USOC, people from Ralph Lauren (we got a sneak peak at the Opening Ceremonies outfits which are highly secretive) and Nike (saw the podium outfits – once again highly secretive). It was a good afternoon filled with lots of helpful information of everything we need to know about the Games.
More than anything it made me very excited to actually see and feel what London is going to be like in a few short months. I come home with a whole new level of excitement and realization that this is all going to happen so quickly. Time to get back to work with the team…
Hopefully things will warm up a bit in London before the summer… it is actually suppose to be in the low 80’s during that time of the year so it should be very pleasant. The journey accelerates from here. Our job is to stay focused and keep the team focused on doing what we need to do to prepare one day at a time. We are working hard. Robert and Marco held down the fort and took the guys through another grueling week of practice. I will rejoin them today.
See you at the pool.
Coach
posted by Dr. Terry Schroeder at
3:14 PM
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