Day two brought the first medals for Team GB, so congratulations to Lizzie Armitstead and Rebecca Addlington, the latter particularly for cleverly managing the media’s over-expectations, and to the crowds both in the rain-soaked Mall and later in the Aquatic Centre for roaring them both on.
Lizzie Armitstead kicked off Team GB’s medal haul with silver in the road cycling
The performance of the day for me came from the Gymnasts, again supported by a full-house at Greenwich. Gymnastics is one of those sports I really only watch at Olympic time, and so it is easier to judge progress when viewed at four-yearly intervals. When I watched the Eastern European teams in the ‘seventies, it was difficult to imagine how this country could ever compete with the standards of Comaneci, Tourischeva and the particularly innovative Olga Korbut. When we did put our best gymnasts forward to the games, they were usually plucky girls who smiled and tried their best despite knowing they would be totally outclassed by the girls from Russia in their red leotards.
Yesterday the girls in the red leotards were once again showing their class, outperforming the current high-flyers from America on many of the rotations. But this time those red garments were being worn by the Team GB girls. OK, as a team they may not yet be quite Gold Medal prospects, but you never know. On those performances they certainly shouldn’t come away with nothing.
Away from the burgeoning excitement of the sports coverage, in the murkier world of the BBC newsrooms, the day’s “theme” was all about empty seats. Certainly to anyone who had really wanted to experience one of the sports live, and had tried continually in all of the endless lotteries to obtain tickets, those serried ranks of bumless occupation must have really felt disappointing. Of course, our ever-watchful public broadcaster instantly had the answer – it was those greedy sponsors what done it.
The media tells us constantly how we are all being ripped-off by anyone who has the temerity to try and earn their living outside of the warm and cuddly public sector, and if that translates to you doing so in the upper-echelons of a corporate, you therefore care not for those who are poor and helpless in this green and pleasant land – those who have to toil endlessly to have their hopes dashed upon your selfishness. However, once a few of said sponsors told them the facts of life, as far as the seats were concerned, the line was dropped more rapidly than a corporate lawyer could file an injunction. The telescopic sights were instantly redirected towards the accredited “Members of the Olympic Family” as soon as it was figured-out that they are the real culprits – or are they? Indeed, are there any culprits at all?
You would think that a media organisation with the experience of the BBC would actually possess a short-term memory longer than that of a goldfish; that there would be someone on the staff who might have mentioned: “but it’s always like this on the early days, it was in Beijing, in Athens, in Sydney, in wherever ad infinitum back to 1896.” It is probably a contractual undertaking by every organising committee to make a certain number of seats available at all events for anyone wearing the appropriate badge. Of course, some of those previous host nations with a better grasp of international PR, or a less-attractive human-rights record, will have made sure that such emptiness was kept off-camera, and heaven forbid that our wonderful free and uncensored media might just be following their own agenda by selectively filming the worst examples for yet another unneccessary wind-up, guaranteed to fill their relentless phone-in programmes.
But there is a simple solution, and it can be taken from the example Wimbledon set each year – sell stand-by tickets. I’m sure there are thousands of fans out there who would pay twenty-quid for the chance to be in the Olympic Park and queue for the chance to get in at the last minute to watch a sport they love. All LOCOG would need to do is advise all accredited badge holders that they must be in their free seats at least ten minutes beforehand, then the rest could be filled on a first-come first-served basis. A batch of stand-by tickets valid just for one specific day could be allocated on the website at the start of the previous day, again on a first-come first-served basis. Who knows, the resultant extra revenue might make a financial dent in the losses already incurred from previous ticketing debacles along the way and, more importantly, put a smile back on a few disappointed faces. It just needs certain parts of the organisation to be prepared to abandon dog-in-the-manger mode – which neatly brings me to an additional award won yesterday by those particular ‘blazers’.
Our first “Golden Jobsworth” of the 2012 Games is awarded in the category “Why do anything once, if you can make someone do it again.” It is awarded to the over-zealous officials who devised the way to turn-away from the gate the fans who rocked-up yesterday to buy tickets for events that were not sold-out. The fans weren’t turned-away because the tickets were not available at the collection centre, or because they were not entitled to buy them. The fans were told simply that they had to go back home, buy them on-line, then come back and collect them before they could be let in.
Now it has been suggested that this is an urban-myth, but I don’t think so. By definition, jobsworths do not generally invent complicated processes to justify doing their jobs to the letter – if all they need to do is fold their arms and reply sternly: “it says ‘ere you ain’t coming-in” then that’s exactly what they will do; no other reason is necessary when you are in possession of the requisite badge or uniform. So somebody had to have given the blinkered individual on the gate a “procedure” before they would have instructed the fans in such a way, and it is that faceless someone who receives the ‘Gold’. The guy on the gate receives a Silver in the “I was only following orders” category. If they would like to contact us and let us know who they are, we will make sure they receive their accolades.
Of course, if the decision has been made that tickets are only sold on-line, then that’s how it is. Heaven forbid that someone at LOCOG might have thought about making a couple of PCs available at an internet café just outside the gates for fans to “go on-line” while they were at the Park, buy their tickets, then walk across to the kiosk and collect them.
Far easier in these green and inclusive games to order them to unnecessarily waste more time and carbon on a fool’s errand, rather than easily collect some revenue to cover the overpriced contracts employing the jobsworths concerned.