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Return to Olympic Stadium shows how much has changed – and what hasn't
Anniversary Games: Memories flood back on return to Olympic Stadium
(about 3 hours later)
"My overriding emotion is, 'Did that really happen?' On the other hand, I can remember everything like it was only yesterday". So says Lord Deighton, the former London 2012 organising committee chief executive, about the first anniversary of the Games.
It was like being pitched back 12 months in a heartbeat: the cameras flashed, the crowd roared, the volume of the music rose, the union flags fluttered. Such is the speed with which modern media moves, and such has been the rush of sporting highs that have followed, that those golden six weeks already seem an age ago.
He's not alone in his dislocation, as athletics returns for the first time to the scene of the greatest sporting event ever held on these shores. Such is the speed with which the modern media machine moves, and such has been the headlong rush of sporting highs that have followed, that those six golden weeks already seem an age ago.
Returning to the stadium for the first time since the Paralympic Games closing ceremony was a discombobulating experience, not unlike returning to a house that one used to live in. Everything looked slightly different and somehow diminished.
Returning for the first time since the Paralympic Games closing ceremony is a discombobulating experience, not unlike returning to a house that you used to live in before moving out with a massive party. If, that is, your typical house party is soundtracked by Coldplay and Rihanna, attended by 70,000-odd people and marked a huge shift in the psyche of the British public. Now everything looks the same, but slightly different, and somehow diminished.
The furniture had been shifted around while we were out. Where Locog's shocking pink branding dominated the eye, now the strident orange of the Anniversary Games sponsor Sainsbury's was everywhere. The pixelated scoreboards read, disconcertingly, London 2013.
Where Locog's lavish shocking pink branding dominated the eye, now the strident orange of Anniversary Games sponsor, Sainsbury's, is everywhere. The BMW Minis that scooted around the infield to sidestep IOC branding regulations have been swapped for Sainsbury's vans. The pixelated scoreboards read, disconcertingly, London 2013. But all else is as it was – right down to the balmy temperatures and blue skies.
Such was the enthusiasm to relive last summer the stadium was packed by the time the pole vault started shortly before 7pm in brilliant sunshine – an hour before any meaningful action on the track.
Outside the stadium, however, the vista couldn't be more different from that of last year's golden summer. Where once the canals that criss-crossed the site were lined with excitable spectators clutching their tickets and excitedly gabbling about medal tables, now there are diggers and dirt.
And judging by the sizeable cheer from those who said this was their first athletics meeting, this was a massive opportunity for UK Athletics to capitalise on an Olympics that seemed to reconnect the British public with the muscle memory of their deep affinity with the sport in the 1980s.
The thousands streaming in from Westfield for the Anniversary Games were asked to walk along a corridor of screens that hide the reconstruction of the park that continues behind. This area, closest to the shopping centre, is not due to reopen fully until spring next year.
As Usain Bolt circled the track on a rocket-shaped car that combined North Korea with Wacky Races, it was difficult at times to work out whether this was a nostalgia trip or an athletics meeting. Yet this was a respectful crowd as well as a lively one.
But compared to a pilgrimage I made here to mark six months since the Games, when there were shopping trolleys in the canal and rain-lashed saplings struggled to take root, you can begin to get a sense of how it will look. The wings are off Zaha Hadid's Aquatics Centre and all the temporary structures are long gone.
Just as the Games themselves made their blue riband event more than the sum of its parts through intelligent staging, music and commentary, so UK Athletics had thought hard about presentation. It even went one louder than Locog by setting off a mildly superfluous burst of fireworks every time a race finished.
And inside the stadium, the view is still enough to take the breath away. Not because this is a particular architectural marvel, though it is certainly clever in its design, but because it is already a monument to the remarkable achievements of Jessica Ennis-Hill, Mo Farah, David Rudisha, Usain Bolt, Jonnie Peacock, Hannah Cockroft and all the rest.
Put bluntly, an evening out at the Olympic Stadium is a much more pleasant experience than rattling round a decrepit stand in the transport desert of Crystal Palace. When Perri Shakes-Drayton, who lives around the corner, ran a personal best to come second in the 400m hurdles the noise approached August 2012 levels. As last year, athlete after athlete came off the track and waxed lyrical about the crowd, the venue and the atmosphere.
Perching high up in what was always a surprisingly intimate bowl thanks to its steep rake and excellent sightlines is to immediately be assualted by a Proustian rush of memories.
In truth, though, much of it could not help but feel like an extended warm-up for the main man. It was difficult to tell what percentage of the crowd had come for the sport and how many had come for Bolt and the sense of occasion. But UKA must stand a good chance of tempting them back.
Unfinished Sympathy involuntarily starts playing, the roar of the crowd returns and the scenes that marked last summer unfold before you, from Danny Boyle's jaw-dropping opening ceremony to the feats of Super Saturday. When they tested the bell before the event started, the memories of Farah or Tirunesh Dibaba were almost Pavlovian.
Outside, the view could not be more different from that of last year's golden summer, already receding into sepia tones. Where once the canals that crisscrossed the site were lined with excitable spectators clutching their precious tickets, now there were diggers and dirt.
The £427m Olympic Stadium, damned with faint praise before the Games as a Meccano structure without the wow factor of a Beijing Bird's Nest or a Wembley, succeeded precisely because of its stripped-back nature and stirring acoustics.
Inside, the vista still took the breath away. Perched high up in what was always a surprisingly intimate bowl thanks to its steep rake and excellent sightlines was to be immediately assaulted by a Proustian rush of memories.
Sitting alone on its man-made island, it provided the canvas on which the memories of a one-off summer were painted.
The Unfinished Symphony involuntarily started playing, the roar of the crowd returned and the scenes that marked last summer unfolded before one, from Danny Boyle's jaw-dropping opening ceremony to the feats of Super Saturday. When they tested the bell before the event started, the memories of Mo Farah and David Rudisha were almost Pavlovian.
Amid the relentless search for meaningful shared experience, the Olympic Stadium provided a focal point for one that is particularly difficult to replicate – especially during the Paralympics, when there were more genuine punters in the stadium, more families and fewer corporates. That was true on Friday night too, with 94% of the tickets sold to the public by a British Athletics desperate to capitalise on the Olympic effect.
The £427m Olympic Stadium, damned with faint praise before the Games as a Meccano structure without the wow factor of Beijing Bird's Nest, succeeded precisely because of its stripped back nature and stirring acoustics.
The stadium remains, until its £160m-plus conversion into a permanent home for West Ham in the winter and athletics in the summer, effectively a temporary structure.
Sitting alone on its man-made island, it provided the canvas on which the memories of a one-off summer were painted. The stadium remains, until its £160m-plus conversion into a permanent home for West Ham in the winter and athletics in the summer, effectively a temporary structure. But the logic in rushing to get back into the Park in general and the stadium in particular over three sold-out days has already been vindicated.
Everything from the giant video screens to the cabling, from the toilets to the television sets, has had to be reinstalled. But the logic in rushing to get back into the Park in general and the stadium in particular has already been vindicated.
When crowds return to this already historic bowl in 2015 for the Rugby World Cup it will be in a state of flux, pressed into use halfway through the conversion process. And when it finally reopens as West Ham's home in 2016-17, it will look very different.
One hundred and thirty thousand tickets for the first two days of the Anniversary Games sold out in 75 minutes when they went on sale in April and 65,000 for the third day of Paralympic action sold out 24 hours later – unthinkable before the exploits of David Weir, Cockroft and company.
The distinctive floodlights that cut into the east London skyline will be gone and a huge cantilevered roof will arc over the existing one to provide shelter for those in the expensively engineered retractable seats that will position fans close to the pitch.
While the two-day Diamond League programme feels slightly stretched, despite the presence of genuine A-listers in Bolt, Farah and Ennis-Hill, ticket-holders were really buying a one-off opportunity to pay homage to the stadium and relive the Games.
Hospitality boxes will be added, along with merchandising stalls and all the accoutrements of the modern mega-stadium. The stadium that provided the backdrop to London's remarkable summer of 2012 will effectively be no more. This felt a fitting way to wave goodbye.
When spectators next return to this already historic bowl in 2015 for the Rugby World Cup it will be in a state of flux, pressed into use halfway through the conversion process. And when it finally reopens as West Ham's home in 2016/17, it will look very different.
The distinctive floodlights that cut into the east London skyline will be gone, and a huge cantilevered roof will arc over the existing one to provide shelter for those in the expensively engineered retractable seats that will place fans close to the pitch.
Hospitality boxes will have been added, along with merchandising stalls and all the accoutrements of the modern mega-stadium. The venue that provided the backdrop to London's remarkable summer of 2012 will effectively be no more.
Towards the end of Danny Boyle's remarkable opening ceremony, the so-called "pixels" that adorned each seat (also rented, also gone) bore the legend: "This is for everyone".
Amid the heightened emotions and relief that Boyle had pulled off the high-wire act, it was impossibly moving. By March, Boyle himself had declared the feelgood factor dead. For the 65,000 who will fill the seats here each day, the Anniversary Games represent a one-off chance to rekindle it.
