Following Canada's Equestrian Team

My catch-up blogs are going to be a little out of order….hope people don’t mind too much.

Our Eventing Team arrived yesterday around 1pm to the venue.

Everything went incredibly smoothly, with the horses & equipment first arriving at the Equine Staging Facility (ESF) which Peden (the official equestrian logisitics company for LOCOG) set up at Greenwich University, about a 15-20 min drive from Greenwich Park.

The logic used for ESF was to have a pre-checkpoint where the horses could be checked (for any obvious signs of distress), and the equipment could be separated and scanned (EVERYTHING must go through xray machines before being transported into the venue.

Because Canada has pre-booked all of our arrival times at ESF, we were given first priority even through Sweden arrived just ahead of us. Sorry Sweden! We still like your furniture though.

Horses could then get back onto the trailer, grooms were scanned through security, and off the lorry (yes, I’m picking up on the British lingo) went to Greenwich Park accompanied by an official LOCOG car complete with flashing lights. The trip to the venue was only about 25 mins, which was great. Another brief stop while the army used mirrors to inspect under the vehicle, then off into the venue itself where the horses where delivered almost to the stable door.

Me, I was not so lucky. The LOCOG car could not proceed on into the venue, which meant I enjoyed some exercise as I hoofed it from Black Heath, right to almost St. Mary’s Gate. I know tha’s about 5 furlongs because the venue has a very nifty galloping track which I was told yesterday is 5 furlongs. I essentially walked from one end to the other, and then some. Albeit did enjoy the company of a very attractive and polite young army officer.

All the horses settled beautifully. Our stable block is one of the longest in the venue and quite conveniently located under the partial shade of trees. Our Eventing & Dressage horses are at one end, and the USA is at the other end, with a couple of Italians in the middle. Beside us are the Brits (looking very sharp with their bunting…I’ve already made a mental note for next Games)

The grooms and athletes seem very impressed with the venue, and were eager to start exploring. In addition to the main competition ring, there are 5 training rings, a lunging ring, hacking area, the aforementioned gallop track, and cross-country school area.

Big Kudos go to Peden for masterminding such an incredibly smooth arrival process, and to KER who had all of our shavings, hay, grains and carrots at the ready.

Grooms’ Lounge – sweet!

….and their amazing outdoor patio area. Grooms are really being treated to first class facilities here.

Canada loading the Eventing horses back into the trailer at the Equine Staging Facility

Equine Staging Facility where all equipment must get scanned before it can come to the venue

First Canadian hoofprints at the venue!

Getting organized

Busy giving the stables a Canadian touch

GO CANADA!!!!

Wow! I’m not off to a good start on my pledge to blog every day while on the ground. But in my defense, we’ve been having a terrible time with internet connection at the hotel.

But onwards and upwards!

Tina and I arrived into Heathrow early Friday morning, July 20th, along with Eventing Team Manager Fleur Tipton. Unfortunately I didn’t get any sleep on the plane, which meant for a verrrrrry long day on Friday. But thankfully the flight was very smooth and quiet, and I finally was able to watch “The Hunger Games”.

Heathrow was actually pretty quiet when we arrived. We immediately were greeted by a LOCOG volunteer who escorted us to passport control. It was also very quiet there, and the Olympic Family lane was empty – woohoo! So it only took a few minutes to get our passports stamped and become legal. Next stop was the Accreditation Desk where it was……yup, empty! So I was able to breeze through there. Another volunteer then escorted us to baggage claim where we only had to wait a few minutes before our bags arrived, then walked out to the main hall where we were greeted by our driver Anthony who was holding a Canadian flag sign.

After reading all the media stories on the BBC news website, we were all amazed (and relieved) at how quickly & smoothly the entire process, from stepping off the plane to walking to our LOCOG car, was.

Oh, and did I mention that our car was a shiny black AudiBMW (thanks for the correction Mike!)?

Once we checked into the hotel, the remainder of our first day on the ground was jam-packed. First on deck was meeting with the hotel to confirm all of our Team reservations, making sure that the correct room types were assigned. Have to say, the European hotel system is very confusing indeed for someone who was born & bred in North America! A “double” here means a single double bed, as opposed to 2 double beds. And they don’t offer queen or king beds. So if you want to have 2 people in a room, who aren’t sharing a bed, you need to have either 1 double and 1 twin, or 2 twins. Turns out that one of my reservations for 8 days is a double room……so I’m hopeful that another room type becomes available or Tina and I will be living in even closer quarters for those days!

Our next destination was the Olympic Village, which is a 15 min. ride on the DLR. But first we had to figure out how to get an Oyster card for Tina and Fleur. Actually let me back that up one step…we first had to figure out how to use the Oyster self-serve machine! After a few moments of looking like obvious tourists, a very nice Greenwich town worker took pity on us and helped us with the kiosk.

It was exciting to see the Olympic stadium come into view, and the giant Westfield mall.

The Village itself is absolutely beautiful. There are wonderful lounge areas for the athletes, a HUGE merchandise store, post office, internet cafe, phone services, bank, dining hall etc. And there are really nice landscaped courtyard areas within the apartment buildings, which are beautifully landscaped with quaint little benches.

Of course the highlight is the Canadian residence – what a great decorating job!! Complete with a huge red moose at the entrance. Apparently it’s become a popular tourist spot for many countries who stop by to get their picture taken with the Moose….and try to ride him. Hmmmmm….I wonder if the COC will try to ship him back with our Dressage horses at the end of the Games?

The Olympic Stadium

Almost feels like I’m on a Doctor Who set!

The home of Team Great Britain

The athlete bar/lounge

Giant moveable chess board

Home Sweet Home for Team Canada

Team Leaders’ workroom

Internal Shuttle Bus System

It was great to see the Village, and better yet to get an opportunity to hit the souvenir shop while they still had a great selection.

After getting back to the hotel, it was definitely time to crash after being awake 30+ hours and recharge the batteries for the next day.

….to be continued