yizhivika

A few privileged hours at the London Paralympics 2012…and a fascinating F11 Mens Triple Jump competition…

Anish Kapoor’s ‘Orbit’ sculpture, in the Olympic Park at Stratford. Not universally loved, but I think it’s wonderful :).

The following photo needs a preface I think. The competitors in the F11 Mens Triple Jump event are all totally blind, and their ‘eyes’ are provided by a Guide who generally stands in front of the sand pit into which the competitors jump, and effectively shouts verbal instructions to them. In their run-up, the competitors have to stay within the two white track lines leading to the jumping board and pit beyond, otherwise they get a red flag and record a no jump. For the most part, they do run in a straight line, although on some occasions they veer off track, and more than once today, we saw competitors ending up knocking the jumping board judge off his chair! The jumping board itself is much wider than that used in conventional triple jump, but even so, if you are blind, it’s very far from easy to judge your landing point on it to best effect. The gold medallist today was a Russian, Denis Gulin, but I’ve included a photograph here of the silver medallist, China’s Li Duan, who is a bit of a showman, with a great personality, and a party trick of whipping off his tracksuit bottoms in less than a second ;).

Li Duan, the Chinese silver-medallist today, with his tracksuit bottoms (see text above).

After leaving the Olympic Stadium today, I sauntered around the Olympic Park for a while, and came across this rather eccentric musical entertainment, a band called Perhaps Contraption :).