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Buro Happold

22/08/2012 Written by: Neil Smith No comments

I don’t wish  to gloat but I think I really 'lucked in' with our London 2012 tickets; my family were certainly very pleased as we got to see Usain Bolt twice and Jessica Ennis too. Time to collect my perfect dad/husband medal!

We had a very early start as our tickets were for morning sessions, and we wanted to make sure we'd left ample time to get through security. As my son is disabled we had a reserved car parking bay and on the way to the car park we drove past Team GB swimmer Rebecca Addlington walking to the Aquatics Centre; my daughter was starstruck!

The Games Mobility Team was fantastic; Emma, my wife, had torn a muscle playing football a couple of days earlier and so was on crutches. As soon as they saw us they rushed off to get a Games Maker to escort her in a wheelchair to pick up an electric scooter for the day which made everything so much easier.

We were all amazed by the quality of the views of the athletics field in the Stadium (and the sound as the crowd roared), both from the wheelchair user accessible viewing position we had booked for my son, and from up in the 'Gods' where I sat with my daughter on our second trip!

Having been involved in the masterplan for the Park I was keen to take a tour around to see it working in real life. Some of the key challenges were ensuring easy gradients throughout the Park and taking in to consideration the significantly large amount of people who would be using the main concourse. On our second visit we still arrived early; Emma rode on the Games Mobility cart, which followed a fixed route linking all the venues, while I pushed my son Louis alongside. I pushed Louis all the way from the Westfield car park up to the Velodrome and back (stopping regularly to take photos without disrupting crowd flow of course!) and never once broke into a sweat, so I’m please to say I think we got it right!