London 2012 – Wembley Arena

Nice facility, close to train station. Nothing special, but good for an Olympic event.

My second weekend of London 2012 Olympic sport started this morning with badminton at Wembley Arena
Having been at the new built Olympic Park and the O2, oops sorry Olympic branding police, the North Greenwich Arena, I was interested to see how the older venues such as Wmbley Arena coped with hosting the greatest show on Earth
To be fair, Wembley Arena does have a history with badminton, having been the host of the presteigous All England badminton tournament for many years before it moved to the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham
The walk down Wembley Way from the Underground station always induces an air of expectation with the huge arch of Wmbley Stadium immediately in front of you. However, today, we were turning off to the more modest Wembley Arena, which had been spruced up with the Olympic rings on the front façade
The atmosphere was enhanced when we encountered a group of Korean fans dressed in full traditional dress and another group dressed as large shuttlecocks!
As has been the case throughout the Games, the security arrangements were amazing — we should get these guys to run security checks at the airports! Lots of smiling volunteers even if they were a little reserved in true stiff British upper lip fashion!
Apart from all the Olympic decorations, Wembley Arena was much its old self. No new seating and queues were evident for the small toilets. The volunteers could perhaps have directed guests to alternative toilets when there were obvious long queues
Badminton is my favourite sport and it’s always great to see the pros show you how it should be done. The fastest racquet sport with smashes exceeding 200mph, it is a sport which mixes brutal power and delicate net play, requiring the quickest reflexes, the swiftest movement, the nimblest footwork and superb hand-​eye coordination
First time visitors to badminton might have been alarmed to find the raucous atmosphere and continuous multi-​language cheering and chanting. I read a recent newspaper article questioning whether tennis and golf players may just be a little precious in insisting on reverential quiet during play with any tiny transgression drawing glares and blame for any errors the players may have committed
One of the few sports which favour the Asian physique, badminton is huge in Asia and in badminton venues out there, the din of the crowd is deafening and the atmostphere is electric, all during play. Some of that transferred over to the Wembley today with flags and enthusiatic cheering by fans from all over the globe creating the best atmosphere of all the Olympic events I’ve been to so far
We watched some excellent matches today, inculding the ladies singles and doubles gold medal games, Perhaps the best match of the day was a pulsating men’s doubles semifinal between South Korea and Denmark with breathtaking rallies, behind the back retrieves, swings in fortunes and almost unbearable tension leading to a win to the Danes in extra points in the final set. All in all, a great advert for badminton
However, the ladies doubles bronze medal match being contested between Russia and Canada, 2 lesser lights in the badminton world was a sad reminder that badminton was tainted by the disqualification of 4 ladies doubles pairs for trying to lose matches in order to gain more favouriable draws in the latter part of the competition
However, that had a silver lining in that it brought us the wonderful Canadian pairing of Alex Bruce and Michele Li, resulting in them being represented on the scoreboard as Bruce Li! Now, do you think badminton fans would be so childish as to chant,“Bruce Li” throughout the match? You bet we would! Then the organisers joined in by putting on Kung Fu Fighting during an interval during their match! Hehe
It was nice to see the medal presentations and the national anthems being played to round off our Olympic experience today
A wonderful day’s entertainment but the dated venue only gets 4 stars, especially as the food kiosk attendants were rather dopey and the London 2012 souvenir shop hardly had any stock left at the start of the day