Trip to the Olympics Part 1

Many months I ago I, like many other Great Britain residents, sat down one evening approved Visa Card in hand and entered the official ballot for Olympic tickets. Unlike most people I shrewdly realised that getting tickets for the 100m final and opening ceremony etc was what is known in the trade as a “big price”.

This led to me spending a fair part of the evening trawling through the full programme list and crossing out some events. Tom Daley Diving final – out, Jessica Ennis Heptathlon Day 2 – out, etc. This is not to say that these events would not have been great to attend but the priority was to find events that the whole family would enjoy attending but also still getting value. £450 for AA tickets for a swimming final gets quite expensive when you have to pay for four bums in seats. I know one friend who applied for £8000 worth of tickets and was concerned his order ‘may get filled’ and then would need to stump up the money which may have been a struggle.

I settled on applying for a spread of events which would not eat too much into depleted punting funds and also keep the children happy and ensure brownie points came my way from all family members if successful. With late finish times and busy transport systems ruling out any evening sessions for the little Smudgers’, gymnastics (qualifying), synchronised swimming (non finals night), athletics (morning heats but with Mens 200m on the menu – a Usain Bolt sighting ) and a speculative punt at rowing (as local to Smudger Towers) became the ballot lottery tickets of choice.

When oversubscription figures were released to the general public I started to wish that I had fired a few more bullets like my £8000 mate and time was spent preparing the children for the worst that we may not get tickets as so many people have applied and we may not get lucky etc.

We were delighted to be informed, by the first of many e-mails, that we had been successful in our ballot for tickets and had secured tickets for the morning athletics session at the Olympic stadium itself – let’s see if this Bolt character is any good. (Spoiler Alert for Olympics Blog Part 2 – he is!).

When the tickets arrived one pleasant surprise came with the tickets which I thought was superb and hardly received any publicity – travelcards for the whole family. Bearing in mind the publicity over how financially “grabby” the whole Olympics were going to be for the man in the street, to receive a £30 start for what would obviously be an expensive day was a nice surprise. Well played Lord Coe etc

Day booked off, dog sitter booked, we were going to the Olympics.

(Part 2 to follow)