Taekwondo and sitting around
Instead of the three/four sports I thought to be covering - it ended up being a LONG day at the ExCel Arena on Thursday!
The end creeps yet another day closer, but I still find new sports to photograph and today was the turn of Taekwondo. Initially my plans were to cover various sports, but as the Finnish fighter kept on progressing or possibly progressing towards a medal fight - I was requested to stay at the ExCel for the whole day. But in the end, perhaps the long day was worth it...
Day started with few hours at the MPC before a short hop to the ExCel Arena - first fight at 11.45am for the Finnish woman, so well in time for that one. Against all odds she wins the fight and so will fight again at 4.45pm. So it is time to sit around, lay-about, eat, sleep, drink, rest, edit photos and even get a little bored before the next fight. But I have to say that the food portion sizes at ExCel were great, unlike in the Food Court near MPC.
After the long wait, the Finn fights again.. loses - but in Taekwondo that does not mean she is out.. so we all wait and she gets a chance to win again and again.. so it is close to 10pm before the day is done. Four fights photographed - with 24 minutes of action in almost 11 hours of work.
From photographers point of view the sport was quite OK to photograph - nothing too spectacular in the fights, but the 'half time show' was definitely the best I've seen in the Olympics in London. No cheerleaders, dunkers or Red Foxes can compete with the display of martial arts over at the ExCel. I should probably put up a whole gallery of images from it - just to show everyone what they missed. It was actually this display that woke me up and kept me going for the last two fights.. that and the Irish boxing fans taking over the ExCel and singing their hearts out. Not quite sure how many spectators can fit into the boxing arena - but with the ticket 'allocations' it did make me wonder how 70% of the spectators seemed to be Irish..
As I got back to the MPC - all the athletics photographers were returning from the 200m Final, and even they were wondering why they all were there to take pictures of it. With the sports slowly running out - the photographers seem to be like bunch of animals all following the same direction. If Bolt runs - we have to squeeze 1000 photographers to get almost identical images.. sad state of sports photography :-) And many whom I talk to still sound surprised that I haven't photographed the 100m or 200m Finals... Although talking about all photographers being in the same place - possibly all (apart from two) Finnish photographers were at the Taekwondo last night, kind of pointless if you ask my opinion - but you go where you get asked to go, I suppose.
Then one thing that will probably only make sense to other media here at the Olympics ... "Have you got any pins" You lose count on how many times you hear that a day, the volunteers keep on asking for 'pins' or 'badges'.. Some companies seem to hand their employees some Olympic Pins.. to trade and hand out. Unfortunately I do not have any - not that I need/want any either :-)
With three more days to go - the yawns at the press centre are getting longer, the quiet room busier, beards are growing.... but somehow some of us still manage to keep the spirits high and smile. Oh - and our photo-vest are getting dirtier and sweatier by the day.. so if you see someone with a Khaki (or blue) photo-vest in the Tube or Bus.. do steer clear of them ;-) As I remember - we got our vest washed every now and then in Turkey the other year.. The Media-marathon is nearing the end and many of us are looking forward to getting home for the first time in weeks.