Olympics not for unfit

LONDON – If you think the Olympics are only for athletes who are fit, you’re forgetting that journalists and broadcasters must also be in reasonably good physical shape to endure the rigors of covering events from one distant venue to another, walking long stretches and negotiating stairs that could leave tongues wagging.

The London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games has done wonders to make it a little less difficult for journalists and broadcasters to move around. Near the Main Press Center and the International Broadcast Center is a transportation hub where accredited members of media congregate to board buses bound for several venues. Basketball, cycling, swimming and athletics are along the main Stratford drag or the Olympic Park so they’re easily accessible. But to get to the faraway venues for weightlifting, boxing, archery and shooting, you’ll need some lead time to make the trip worthwhile. Home for weightlifting and boxing is the ExCel Arena which is at least a 30-minute bus ride from Stratford. Archery is in the Lord’s Cricket Ground, accessible through the underground, while shooting is at the Royal Barracks Academy in Greenwich.

The organizers designated another hub for media transportation at Russell Square for those who are billeted in hotels or homes in central London. There are designated lanes in London streets reserved for Olympic vehicles so taking the bus at Russell Square shouldn’t create a traffic headache.  

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The underground isn’t for those with aching knees or gout or brittle ankles or bad feet. While several terminals feature escalators and elevators, some don’t and commuters must walk flights of stairs to reach their way out. Even changing train lines isn’t easy on the legs particularly when long tunnels or corridors connect the transfers. The bus is easier to manage for the hard of walking but nothing beats the underground when it comes to making good time.

What is handy for journalists and broadcasters is the free Oyster card which has an unlimited load for accredited media to use in the underground and buses. The card is a benefit for media. Commuters tap the Oyster card on a circular pad near the turnstiles and the flaps open up. A week-long Oyster card within London’s three zones will cost the equivalent of about P2,500 so the free benefit is a luxury. Organizers are providing media with free Oyster cards until after the Paralympic Games. In Hong Kong, a similar card called the Octopus is used to facilitate movement in the subway system.

In all, the games are being staged in 30 different venues. The easiest to access are the venues in the Olympic Park which are for aquatics, basketball, BMX track, handball, hockey, athletics, track cycling and water polo.

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Rivalling the 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium in magnificence, the Aquatics Center is a facility that is easily the most eye-catching. It was designed by probably the world’s most famous female architect Zaha Hadid who was born in Iraq. In Hello Magazine, it was reported that the Aquatics Center was only the second building Hadid designed in England. The first was the Evelyn Grace Academy in Brixton.

After the Olympics, the Aquatics Center will become a pool for the local community, clubs and elite competitions. “The stands with the extra seating will be removed, allowing all the light to come through making it feel more like an exterior,” said Hadid, the first woman to be awarded the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s equivalent to the Nobel Prize in 2004. “I think it is much more interesting now because it feels like an interior and has much more atmosphere.”

The Aquatics Center combines a 25-meter diving pool, a 50-meter competition pool and a 50-meter warmup pool. The diving pool has moveable floors for a range of uses one it opens to the public, wrote Dominic Buss. The structure features “a massive, sweeping roof” like a wave. “At 160 meters long by 80 meters wide, that’s a longer single span than Heathrow’s Terminal Five,” said Buss. Believe it or not, four skeletons were discovered and removed from a prehistoric settlement discovered on the site of the structure, according to the Ultimate 2012 Olympic Guide. The Aquatics Center has a seating capacity of 17,500.