My final live event of the London 2012 Olympics was to be the triathlon at Hyde Park. With triathlon being my personal sport of choice, this was always going to be one of my favourite events of the games. With Alistair and his brother Jonny being on form as 2 of the best triathletes in the world the chance of watching another potential gold medal performance was incredibly exciting.
I headed into town early and made my way over to the Serpentine Lido in Hyde Park where I had tickets to watch from their private grounds. Other than having a seat in the grandstand (I did apply!) I think this was probably the best spot to watch from. I had a great view of the start/finish straight, the swim and during the run they went so close I could have taken Gomez out with my 70-200mm VRII (the thought did occur to me).
My personal indulgence is longer distance triathlon so I don’t get to see many short distance races. The speeds they were going at were pretty insane, especially with Alistair running a 29 minute 10km at the end! You could see in their faces the fact they were going flat out.
Watching Alistair Brownlee come down the finish straight in the Gold Medal position, Union Jack draped over his shoulders, was a fantastic sight. I then hung around to watch the Gold Medal presentation, the first one I have seen, and joined all the other spectators in a loud rendition of God Save the Queen as the flag was raised. It was the perfect end to the events I had tickets for. My live event (and my next visit to the olympic park) will be the Paralympics in September which I am really looking forward to. In the meantime I am just glad I managed to see a fair bit of our home olympics live.
by Chris Legg