The New Bull

Started work at 7:00 am at the NEC, my duties for the day were with the lovely Cath, helping the weightlifters and para power lifters travel between the athletes village and Hall 1 where there competition and training facilities were taking place. We are in a secure area for athletes and workers only at the rear of the halls.

Now competition has started security has gone up a notch, we are not even allowed to go into the halls to use the facilities, so there’s a bit of a walk back to the crew area.  It still didn’t stop two members of the general public walking up to us and asking how they could get into the halls! Apparently let in by security from one of the workers access points.  We escorted them back to an access point for them to go through security again.

Afterwards, and despite the rail strike, I managed to catch the train into Birmingham. It was heaving, I had no idea that the marathon had been taking place, finishing in Victoria Square.  I got to the megastore to exchange a couple of t-shirts and hot footed it back to the NEC to drive home.

Extra - with their permission I took a photo of the Ghanaian para power lifters, Oku and Tahiru with their coach.  Such happy people, something so noticeable with the vast majority of athletes we’ve met.