Day 92 - London Olympic Park

We were to head back to MiM today, but before we did, Ange and I wanted to walk around the site of the 2012 Olympic Games. As I discussed on Monday, the area around Stratford was an ideal location for re-development spurred on by the investment behind the games. When it was granted to London in 2005, there had already been many years of planning put into the effort and most of it involved the abandoned industrial lands around the Lea Valley.

With only the morning to do this, we started early with breakfast at the hotel and then off for our walk. The Olympic site is now called Queen Elizabeth Park and you can access it from the Westfield Stratford Shopping Centre. This mall has streets running through the middle of it, with outside access to the shops, and the main street makes its way to the main entrance to the Park. The first thing you see is the aquatic center and its unique design. The centre hosts three pools and is now used for recreational and competitive activities.

Even though the Aquatic Centre was the first thing we encountered, you can't help but notice from the very beginning the former Olympic Stadium, now the home of West Ham United Football Club. It was originally built to hold 80,000 people, but was segmented to allow for a reduction to about 55,000 people for regular stadium use for football matches.  The sustainable goal for the games also meant that the stadium steel structure was designed to minimize the amount of steel used.

Phil was all prepared to challenge
Greg Rutherford's gold medal-winning
long jump...until he realized he was
jumping on asphalt.

We walked north through the park along the Lea Valley to the Velodrome, where we peaked inside to
see that a student cycling event was about to take place. They claim it is the fastest track of its kind in the world and still hosts major indoor cycling competitions. It is neat to see how banked the track is, which for an amateur cyclist must be quite daunting.

Finally we ended up at the field hockey facility where we found a plaque honoring the original site of a boys athletic facility called Eton Manor. It was funded by wealthy philanthropists who were graduates of Eton College and completed in 1913. It survived the two wars, but closed in 1967, and by 2001 the lands could no longer be used. The use of the lands as part of the Olympics is a tribute to it, but only the plaque remains.

It was time to return to the hotel,but one couldn't help but admire the effort that has been made and with the tremendous amount of housing construction underway it seems like this park will remain as a legacy asset for generations to come.

Ale of the Day: Truman's Swift Golden Ale, East London Brewing, Hackney Wick, London