Category: Olympic Park

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Leisure Olympic Park Orienteering

The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park – A Tangible Legacy

The London Legacy Development Corporation, who have the job of turning the Olympic Park into a public park post-games, have released a tantalising artist’s impression of the Olympic Park as it might look in Spring 2014, when much of it will have opened to the public as a public park.

Here’s a recent view, taken just a few days before the start of the Olympic Games:

Here’s the LLDC’s image of the park in 2014:

The main differences are the removal of the temporary spans on the bridges, making them more slender, and the greening of much of the tarmac/concrete plazas with natural features. The temporary seating stands around the Aquatic Centre disappear, as does the whole Water Polo arena. Bridge “C” between the stadium “island” and the rest of the park has disappeared completely too. The huge “Spotty Bridge” has also disappeared, with just two slender bridges on either side of it remaining.

Here’s what the park might look like in 2030, with the addition of various blocks of housing – this is a modified version of the above image:

It looks like the park will be an exciting location for a future park orienteering race, possibly making a compelling weekend by combining it with an associated City Race.

Top photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA. Other images: London Legacy Development Corporation.

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Olympic Park

Olympic Bling – Pin Trading at London 2012

The medals aren’t the only shiny things at London 2012. Pin trading is a long Olympic tradition, and while, for the first week, I was mildly curious about the lanyards of some of my fellow volunteers being adored with various badges, a couple of donations meant that I was hooked by the middle weekend of the Olympics.

Above is the current set on my lanyard.

Everyone seems to have different rules for trading pins – I’ve made up my own, which means my collection tends to have smaller and more specialised pins than most others:

  • A – 1 point for every fixing on the back of the pin
  • B – 1 point if the pin has recessed/embossed sections
  • C – 1 point if the pin has no sponsor words or logos on the front
  • D – 1 point if it mentions “London 2012”
  • E – 1 point if it has the Olympic rings (standalone)
  • F – 1 point if it has the London 2012 logo
  • G – 1 point if has a country’s flag on it
  • H – 1 point if it is individually numbered

So far, my pin trading narrative has been:

Pin Trade Type Who Points
Games Maker colour Given LOCOG 4 (AABF)
Apple iPad (black) Given Friend 3 (ACG)
Apple iPhone (white) Collected Apple Store 3 (ACG)
Russian flag Given Journalist 5 (ACDEG)
NBC Swapped iPad (3pts) Army soldier 3 (ACD)
Sverige Swapped Games Maker (4pts) Army soldier 2 (AC)
Apple iPad (white) Collected Apple Store 3 (ACG)
Samsung (Sherlock) Collected Samsung booth 1 (A)
USA flag Swapped Sverige (2pts) Volunteer 4 (ACEG)
Saudi Arabia NOC Swapped NBC (3pts) G4S guard 3 (ACE)
Samsung (Shakespeare) Collected Samsung booth 1 (A)
Games Maker bronze Given LOCOG 4 (AABF)
OBS IBC building Swapped Saudi Arabia NOC (3pts) Collector 6 (AABCDE)
Samsung (Umbrella) Given Friend 1 (A)
Samsung (Umbrella) Given Friend 1 (A)
Samsung (King Arthur) Swapped Samsung (Umbrella) (1pt) Bus despatcher 1 (A)
Fuji Television Swapped 3x Samsung + iPad (6pts) Bus despatcher 5 (ACDFH)

Some people are weighed down with around 20 pins dangling around their necks, while some hide them away on their bags (which is the only place where we are officially allowed to have them) and others don’t have them at all…

Where to get pins

The main area for “professional” pin traders is not the offical venue – the Coca-Cola Pin Trading building near the Orbit – but actually it’s at what is perhaps the most exciting area of the whole games. The area is a small 200m long, 30m wide concrete plaza. On the south side is Stratford International station, with the Javelin high-speed trains to King’s Cross. On the north side is the slightly useless Stratford International DLR station. To the east is an entrance for athletes to the Olympic Village, and to the west is the media entrance to the Olympic Park and the shuttle buses that run to various park venues and the Main Press Centre.

The area is accessible without a ticket to events in the Olympic Park – and so is the best place for non ticket-holders to see athletes, particularly as the press often use this “neutral” area to carry out interviews with their athletes. On the south side of the plaza, adjacent to Stratford International, is where 10-15 pin traders have set up their collections.

To start a collection off, the Samsung and Apple stores, at Stratford City, are giving away pins at a steady rate. Some collectors will swap these for a big collection of old (pre-2012) Olympic pins, and you can go from there.

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Bike Share Olympic Park

How to “Boris Bike” to the Olympic Park

Yes! It is possible! There may not be any Barclays Cycle Hire docking stations in the Olympic Park itself, possibly due to “Barclays” not being the official financial services provider of the Olympics but more likely because of the logistics of rebalancing flows to/from major events and the safety aspects of a crowded space, but that doesn’t mean you cannot “Boris Bike” to near the edge of the park. Even better, you get to use one of the two quieter entrances to the park, avoiding the huge queues and crowd mechanics of the approach from Stratford through Westfield.

The above map is adapted from my live docking station map and shows the nearest docking stations to these two park entrances. Cycle to these docking stations, leave the bike at one of them, and then follow the arrows to walk the final kilometre or so.

  • Victoria Gate (west entrance). The docking stations on Old Ford Road and Roman Road are not far away, and these generally have plenty of spaces during the day, filling up in the evening as commuters return home – so if you are journeying to them to visit the park, you have a good chance of finding a free space, and similarly there should be bikes for you to hire on your return in the evening.
  • Greenway Gate (south entrance). This is the route for people walking from West Ham station – but this is a long walk, and you might as well walk from the nearest Barclays Cycle Hire docking stations which are about the same distance away – on Bow Road and Bromley High Street. However you do have to cross the notoriously unpleasant Bow Roundabout, which has no pedestrian crossings, to be able to pass along Stratford High Street. Also, these docking stations have generally been full during the day, for recent days, suggesting some are already using this route.

Both entrances are likely to be quick ways into and out from the park. If you have your own bike, there is a large secure cycle park in Victoria Park, from where you can walk to Victoria Gate.

There are several Olympic venues in Central London, which can therefore also be approached by Barclays Cycle Hire bikes, but be warned TfL is removing the docking stations that are very near, or inside, the venues themselves. A full list is here.

Background map based on OpenStreetMap data and designed by The Guardian.

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Olympic Park

Olympic Park T Minus 5

Here are some photos from the Olympic Park, on a sunny Sunday with just five days to go until the opening ceremony. If the sun stays around, it will be a lovely park to wander around in.

The park is looking lovely:

Some mysterious art here:

Each set of recycling bins, throughout the park, include a dedicated poncho bin – hopefully these will not need to be used:

The Velodrome is looking as graceful as ever. White boards cover the windows, no peeking in!

Parts of the Olympic Park are very green indeed:

Further down, the Orbit is accompanied by its own garden:

Wenlock might be around for longer than I thought:

Here’s the full album.

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Olympic Park

Olympic Park coming Together

Final preparations are being made in the Olympic Park – barriers and diggers are moving away:

…the flowers are coming to full bloom (no doubt helped by the excessive rain over the last few days):

…the temporary sponsor pavilions, entrance gates, signposts and watchtowers are springing up (this is the fantastic looking Coca-Cola Pavilion by Pernella and Asif, alumni of the Bartlett at UCL):

…and the plastic wrap around the stadium is finally appearing:

…along with some bespoke art (this is RUN by Monica Bonvicini):

…in some unusual places (some work by Lemn Sissay on a transformer unit):

It’s all coming together!

Latest album, & all my Olympic Park photos so far.

Categories
Olympic Park

Inside the Olympic Park

Here’s some new photos from the Olympic Park in east London.

The main changes recently are:

  • It’s the first time the Park feels like a park and not a building site!
  • A more obvious entrance to the park is being created – Stratford Gate – consisting of a pair of large triangular gantries that people will pass underneath. It hasn’t been “dressed” yet.
  • The plastic “wrap” has started to appear around the outside of the Olympic Stadium. Each strip turns inwards near the base and becomes coloured, with seating block numbers appearing on the coloured portion.
  • The giant wooden McDonalds building is nearing completion.
  • Installation of the RUN sculpture outside the Copper Box look about complete.
  • Sponsor pavilions are appearing – Panasonic’s is near the McDonalds and looks quite attractive, although it feels rather out of place in a sporting complex.
  • Cisco has a very large, obvious and ugly brightly coloured pavilion mounted on top of the Westfield Stratford City complex, facing directly out to the park and the Aquatic Centre in particular.

Categories
Olympic Park

New Olympic Park Map

Here’s an updated Olympic Park Map, an extract of which is above. This one is notable as it includes names for many of the bridges in the park.

From north to south:

Eton Manor Bridge
Red Bridge
Waterfall Bridge
London Way Bridge
Channelsea Crossing
Halfway Bridge
Spotty Bridge
Water Polo Bridge
Stratford Walk
Aquatics Bridge
Purple Bridge

There’s also bridges A, B, C, D and E surrounding the Olympic Stadium.
Plus several unnamed bridges in the back-of-house part of the park.

Categories
Olympic Park Orienteering

Stratford City Race

Yesterday was the Stratford City orienteering race, organised and planned by Josh Jenner, with the map done by myself. The map was a real fiddle to do, requiring four site visits and many hours in front of the computer to build up the six mapped levels (the top half of the is shown above) but the race went well in the end, with no major complaints, only minor ones (a few people found the level change arrows hard to spot, and some people didn’t spot some Out of Bounds areas and so ended up in an area that wasn’t mapped to detail.)

The weather was great (cold and clear outside, warm inside!) and nearly 100 people raced in five waves, including, notably, a wheelchair competitor. Not many “regular” orienteering areas are both wheelchair friendly and traffic free. I did have to hang some of the controls very high though – a couple over six foot off the ground – to use suitable mounting points. The centre management were enthusiastic about the race, and another edition is possibly in the future – possibly using a different format to keep the idea fresh.

After the race, two of the controls were missing – it turns out that one of the collectors had kept one by mistake, and the other had been retrieve by a concerned member of the public (it wasn’t locked down to the chair) and handed in to security, so eventually we were reunited with them all – a good thing as the control boxes are very expensive! The centre was, as expected, almost deserted for the earlier waves, but from 11am it started to get a good busy and it was a good thing the orienteering was out of the way.

I managed to get a run in myself, taking part in the last wave. I was strictly non-competitive, as I knew exactly where all the controls where and the best route to take between them. Despite this I was still beaten by Ed. My route was around 5.5km, I don’t think it would have been possible to visit all the controls and run in under 5km, which is not bad for a site that is only 400m across. The format of the race was score, i.e. controls could be visited in any order.

Some photos from me are here, and more photos and the results are on Josh’s website.

Thanks to Josh for the concept and organisation, and Westfield centre management for letting it happen and giving us full reign through the centre and even control suggestions!

Categories
Olympic Park Orienteering Orienteering Events Log

Five Level Orienteering – Stratford City Race

If you thought the Barbican’s three levels were tricky to orienteer through, then you haven’t seen anything yet – there will a race taking place in and around the Westfield Stratford City retail complex in east London, on Sunday 15 April. The race will be over five levels of the indoor shopping centre area, plus the surrounding outside area.

The race is being organised by Josh Jenner, his website has full details and entries are open. I’m doing the map, which will be a 1:4000 A4 full-colour ISSOM map on waterproof paper. As you would expect, there are a number of special measures need for the event. The event is pre-entry only and it will be a mass start 45 minute score, with five “waves” starting between 9am and 10am – the early finish is needed to ensure that orienteers will have the space to run in, before the crowds arrive for the midday opening of the larger stores. Stratford City gets amazingly busy inside on a Sunday afternoon!

This will be the closest you will be able to get to the Olympic Park on an orienteering race for a few years to come – the park surrounds the triangular site on two sides, with the Athletes Villages to the north and the Olympic Stadium and the Aquatic Centre to the west. It’s the first orienteering race to take place here (the development has only been open for a few months) but it may well also be the last ever race here – with Sunday trading laws due to be relaxed for the Olympics and possibly becoming permanent after them, there may never be another opportunity to run around Westfield Stratford City free of crowds!

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Olympic Park

Games Maker

Yay! I finally heard today that I have been accepted as a volunteer for the Olympic Games in London this summer. It won’t be a particularly glamorous role – I’m not going to be the guy that hands Usain Bolt his towel on the finish line – but I should be within the Olympic Park at least some of the time during my 10 days of volunteering.

Following my interview I had heard nothing, while various other members of SLOW (my orienteering club) had been accepted into various roles and had subsequently gone through the induction training programme, so I assumed the worst. Nice that it came through in the end.

I’ve managed to spend a little bit of time in the Olympic Park already – attending test events at the Copper Box (formerly the Handball Arena) and at the Velodrome. Plus I am also working on a very interesting project in and around the Stratford City retail complex that is surrounded on two sides by the Olympic Park – more on that soon.