Faster, Higher, Stronger

When I posted my musings about the Youth Olympic Games last week, mentioning the apparent unavailability of tickets to events in venues which looked half-empty on TV, I didn’t expect to wake up to news that the tickets for previously sold out events were going to be re-sold if there was spare capacity. The mystery of the missing spectators has not been solved — the Ministry of Education even came up with a “hey, it’s not us” statement in the papers — but it was good news for folks like us who were hoping to score tickets at the last minute.

A girlfriend and I picked the morning session of the athletics finals to try our luck since I figured we might have a better chance of scoring some tickets since the events were not as exciting as the evening session, but even then, when we arrived (not as early as we had hoped) there was already a snaking line of hopefuls waiting eagerly for tickets.

We were initially dismayed when the first batch of tickets were sold out just as it was our turn at the counter, but fortunately, more tickets were released about 10 mins later. Yay! We paid up (though not without reeling from the shock that we had to pay full-price of $30 per ticket for each of our bubs, who were both under 2, and would hardly sit in a seat) and trooped on in to catch the action.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the stands were packed and the place was bustling the moment we stepped in. The spectators were a mixed bag — aside from the ubiquitous school children in school uniform, there were also athlete’s parents’ and families, members of different delegations supporting their athletes, expats/tourists with their kids supporting representatives from their countries, the odd photographer with some powerful looking equipment waiting to shoot the action, plenty of teenagers, and some families with children, like ours, coming to enjoy a Saturday morning together. Everyone was certainly there to enjoy the supporting action though.

Noey warmed up sufficiently after being allowed to clamber up and down the stands of the stands. He must preferred to track events to the field events and would stop to watch every time a race was on. Everyone dressed in yellow earned his support, and he would excitedly point out them out and earnestly tell me that the “yellow man run so fast!”. Maybe it was the most outstanding colour!

It was, all in all, a pretty satisfying morning. I think we all enjoyed being back at the track on competition day, given that all 3 of us have running backgrounds. After we got over the sticker shock over the price of the tickets, it was fun soaking in the atmosphere, and catching up while cheering the competitors, discussing the times registered by the runners (which were pretty impressive) and being part of the games. We did find it pretty odd when the school children spontaneously started singing along to the YOG theme song when ever it was played. Do they actually teach them the song in school? Or have they heard it so many times it’s been drummed into their heads?

The best part? Noey took a 4 hour nap that afternoon. Now if only he would do that more often!