To restart my 52 New Things I decided to stay close to home and head to the Olympic Park in Stratford. Because of my wonderful, sporting event organiser extraordinaire friend Susan we had tickets to the Sunday morning session at the World Para Athletics Championships. I've never watched Para Athletics before so I was looking forward to the session and catching all the action.
As we jumped off the tube at Startford we were greeted by cheerful volunteers in their catching pink uniform, high fiving kids (and willing adults) and guiding us to the Olympic Stadium. Their cheerful, wide awake faces (on a Sunday morning!) really started the day off well. It also reminded me of the Olympics when all the superb Game Makers really captured the spirit of the Games. I was so pleased the enthusiasm was still there 5 years later for this Para event.
Without further ado we headed inside to find our seats. We were sat right alongside the 100 metre sprint of the track, so we had a great view for the start and finish of all the races.
I've been to the Stadium a couple of times now and I'm still impressed with the layout and the atmosphere. The coverage of the event was fantastic too. Being a mixed event did mean we couldn't see everything, for example the long jump was the opposite side to us, but the coverage kept us up to date, and the big screens showed all the finals of the events.
Having not followed any of the sports or competitors before arriving I had a few favourites by the end, including Akeen Stewart of Trinidad and Tobago who really got the supporters involved watching him win the Men F44 Shot Put, and Cristiano Pereira of Portugal who stormed his way to win the Men T20, 5000 metres.
And of course I can't forget the GB athletes that competed. We were lucky enough to see GB win 3 silvers and 1 gold during our session. My absolute favourite though was GB's Samantha Kinghorn (and not just because of her name) closing the session winning the Women's T53 100 metres. It was such a close race and it was great to see her face as she waited for the result and see it finally dawn on her she'd won.
I left the stadium feeling like I had learnt a lot whilst also having had a really fun time. I would really recommend everyone to get tickets to similar events. Don't worry that you won't not know what is happening or who to support, the coverage during competition will keep you updated and just support whoever you like - they all deserve your cheers. It was such a lovely encouraging atmosphere and a outstanding event. Now I just need to find out where the 2018 event is being hosted...
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