Yep Sport

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.