I recently saw a of some Olympic venues by some stodgy English architects. My views were a tad different. Then again, I’ve never referred to a sports venue as “delicious.”
The Olympic Stadium is way cool. The seat configuration is a black-and-white triangular pattern that will unfortunately be lost underneath a packed crowd. However, the light standards are very different, holding up lights in a triangular shape, like the legs of giant aliens.
Said architect Amanda Levete, “It’s painfully pragmatic, but maybe that’s OK. I’m a little underwhelmed. What I think is quite interesting is from the outside, the structure supporting the lights is completely integrated and clever, but actually from the inside they’re almost too apparent. It’s the thing your eyes are drawn to. It shouldn’t be. It’s just a little bit of structure supporting a light.”
Added Piers Gough, who if he were any more English you wouldn’t understand his English at all: “I’m not often sitting in stadiums, and you do expect them to take your breath away a bit, but this one unfortunately really doesn’t. Perhaps it’s the fussiness of this seating.
“It’s a shame,” he added with typical English wry humor, “they have to put up with such horrible red of the running track.”
I didn’t think I’d ever see a swimming pool that would top Beijing’s Water Cube, which resembles the membrane of a chameleon fish. London’s aquatic center may top it inside. It’s lined with gleaming white and yellow seats with black-and-white overhead lights that look like giant eyes.
The best features are the diving board standards, which are graceful, curved beams.
“Oh, my God, this is fantastic!” Levete said. “They’re beautiful! It’s absolutely stunning! It’s really a triumph, this building. It is a cathedral. It’s hugely dramatic. It’s pendulous. It speaks to the water. It’s fluid.”
Added Gough: “It was a bit mad putting one of the most complicated roofs over the most complicated game, but there you are. Now it’s done: Fantastic. Very delicious.”
The velodrome has a beautiful wooden roof that looks like bamboo. The inside is splashed with turquoise inside the wooden cycling track.
“It’s lovely, wafer thin, which is pleasing and looks like it didn’t cost an insane amount of money,” Gough said. “It’s a clever shape.”
Volleyball players get on their horse. Speaking of venues, London’s weirdest one may be the beach volleyball site. It’s at Horse Guards Parade, more noted for the annual Trooping of the Colour when soldiers celebrate the queen’s birthday.
To get acquainted with the surroundings, the United States’ defending Olympic champions, Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers, spent the weekend playing at Pimlico Race Course. It was part of the opening weekend of the National Volleyball League.
Rogers told ESPN.com that playing volleyball at Pimlico “ranks highly on the scale of coolness” but that London’s horse parade grounds may top it.
“The women had a test event there last year,” he said, “and the American team could not stop talking about what a cool spot it was.”
Olympics in the Springs. If you can’t make it to London, you can catch a piece of one of the breakout sports of the U.S. Olympic Team next weekend in Colorado Springs. The U.S. Olympic Archery Trials come to the Grace Center for Athletics and Community Service (1655 Pirate Heights). Featured will be Brady Ellison, the first American to win a World Cup final. He has been ranked No. 1 in the world the past two years. Also, seeking her fifth Olympic team will be Khatuna Lorig, who used to train by candlelight while competing for the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
The free competition starts at 9 a.m. Saturday, followed by elimination rounds at 1:30 p.m. On Sunday, June 3, four round-robin matches begin at 9 a.m. with three final round-robin matches at 1:30 p.m. to pick the three men and three women on the Olympic team.
John Henderson: 303-954-1299, jhenderson@denverpost.com or twitter.com/johnhendersonDP
