You may have read, earlier on, about my kind of, sort of, brush with Prince Charles, who I thought made eye contact with me or at least waved in my direction earlier in the Games.
Well on Sunday night, I went from Prince to King.
I was standing by the broadcast seats at the Olympic Stadium Sunday night, just as the 100 metre heats were to begin, when all of a sudden I looked beside me and there was LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, Kobe Bryant and James Harden, all from the US Olympic basketball team.
All of them filming the 100 heat with their portable phones.
When the first 100 heat ended, a rather small security guard looked up at LeBron and said: “I’m sorry, sir, you can’t be here.”
LeBron didn’t move, didn’t react as though he heard anything that was said. Neither did any of his teammates.
“Sir, please,” the security man chimed in.
Again, LeBron, didn’t move an inch, didn’t acknowledge anyone was even speaking to him.
“Do you know who that is?” I whispered to the security guy. “That’s LeBron James.”
Clearly, that meant nothing to the man in a security shirt, who didn’t recognize the American stars.
He told the athlete’s once more: “You can’t be here.” And so they were off to their approved seating.
“Thanks,” LeBron James said to the volunteer. It was all he said.
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Chance meeting with the King
Fried Food in a world of Healthy Bodies
Welcome to the Olympics, where the healthiest people in the world play.
But if you want to watch them, and eat, don’t expect anything healthy. This is a country that fries lettuce.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner is about fried sausages. With fried potatoes. And grease on the side. And if you want to wash that down, well, have a beer.
It’s rather amazing to me that the entire country isn’t overweight. But low and behold, it’s not as fat as America here, even if the food appears less healthy and certainly less tasty.
At Wemblay Arena, where badminton is played, you have your choice at the snackbars: Fried chicken with fried hashbrowns; Fried fish with fried fashbrowns. And if you don’t want that, they do have chocolate bars.
Don’t get me wrong: Like most people, I adore fried food. Just not every day, every meal, every venue.
Wrong Side Of The Road
I did it again today.
I got out the wrong side of the taxi.
I don’t know who was more upset: The cab driver. The guy who had to slam on the brakes and swerve. Or me – naturally going the right way in the wrong country.
Or is it the wrong way in the right country?
I understand this driving on the other side of the road thing. Although, I can’t seem to adjust to it properly. Walking stairs, for example, you have to queue to the left, not the right, which is unnatural to me. If you veer to the right here, and I’ve done it, you don’t walk away from them: You walk into them.
And old habits die hard. Much as you want to conform, sometimes you just do what’s natural. Like getting out the right side of a cab. Which means walking into traffic and putting the cab driver’s door in play.
I know it’s not just me, although I’m challenged in a certain way. My old friend Terry Jones managed to have an episode years ago while on assignment in London. He walked out of a bar, hailed a cab, and walked smack into traffic to claim the cab. Only thing was, he got hit by a car he never saw coming. Good thing Jones is as large as he is. He wasn’t dented.
The car couldn’t say the same thing.
The Ticket Wicket
Is there a genuine ticket problem at the London Olympics or is it simply a lack of understanding in the Olympic ways?
I think it is a little of both as Day 5 of the 2012 Games goes on with empty seats in venues being the most-talked about issue in and around London. The great transportation snafu – the pre-Games worry – has basically been solved by London’s solid train and tube situation. It’s crowded going places, but you get there, and in reasonable time.
The ticket dilemma happens at every Summer Games, but it hasn’t been as pronounced as it has been here. Why? Because there is a lot of angst by Britoners over the lack of tickets available for events and the number of empty seats they see on television.
Here’s the thing. The empty seats weren’t available to the public. They are IOC seats, sponsor seats or politician seats. The seats are reserved for the accredited only. So even if the London organizers want to fill them, they can’t.
I’ve never been to an Olympics that didn’t have a ton of empty IOC seats in choice locations. It happens everywhere – but it’s noticed here more for two reasons: 1) the rest of the stadium are pretty closed to full; 2) the frustration level over the empty seats.
The empty seats become less obvious, say, in a place like Athens, where you could go to a venue like softball and half the stadium would be empty. There is no half empty here. Everywhere I’ve been so far looks closer to oversold than empty. But the IOC seats are like the Platinum seats at the Air Canada Centre at the beginning and end of some periods. The fancy people who sit there aren’t always on time, and sometimes don’t show at all. It’s no different here in London, where the paid for seats are filled. It’s the seats that weren’t bought and can’t be sold that remain empty and really, isn’t that just part of what doing business with the IOC is all about?
Milos Raonic loved time in athletes village
LONDON – Milos Raonic really enjoyed his time in the Olympic athletes village, even if it was for only for a few days.
The Canadian tennis star, like a lot of athletes, moved out of the village the day after the opening ceremony to focus on his sport but not before finding out about other athlete’s lives.
“A lot of athlete’s came for the ceremonies and then left because their event might be late in the Olympics. I spoke with a few of the wrestlers, learning the way they’re events go. For example, if the wrestlers want to win gold, they have to fight six times in a day, with 10 minutes rest between each fight.
“I wouldn’t want to be a part of that, personally, but good for them. What I liked about the village was, you learn about their spotrt and what they did, how they grew up, how they became who they are. I think that’s a really special thing.”
