My Trip To Greenwich, Olympic XC

Here are some of the photographs my Dad took from our day at the Olympic Cross Country yesterday. I have a few more photos still to come but I need to sort though them! We had a great day and Greenwich looked amazing. The sun even came out for our day there which we were very lucky for considering the summer we are currently having!

Below is me and my Mum outside the arena.

They had all the countries flags flying around the top of the arena.

I really liked how the arena didn't have seats at one end. It made it look amazing. They also placed a big screen at this end so you could watch what was going on in other places in the course. The commentator also kept everyone up to date with information and big cheers were always heard when our riders were mentioned.

The crowds were quite large and there was definitely not a shortage of spectators. To get a better view of each jump you usually had to wait for a horse to go over it then some people would move onto the next jump  and we could get closer to the front. There were people from all different countries and people wearing flags, wigs, face paint and many other flag themed items of clothing!

There was also a shop to by official merchandise. We didn't buy anything but may have another look when we go back for the dressage as it will be quieter.

We watched Mary King jump the water jump. We had to wait for a while there as there were around 4 or 5 horses to go before Mary and 2 of them fell off! The cheers were so loud when a rider came from GB. We could hear the cheers going all around the course every time they had completed a jump. It was a very different atmosphere than normal three day events. The horses coped really well with the great atmosphere.

At each jump was a poster board telling you the name of the jump and the inspiration behind making it along with any other bits of information. This was the playground jump as there was a playground on the other side of the fence!

The course was quite hilly. This was at the top of the steep hill with the view of London behind.

Below was one of my favourite jump combinations. Not only did it have a working water fountain in the background, each jump had tiny water fountains on them over the flowers! Another jump I will show in my next blog post had two huge horse statues made out of horse shoes.

There were plenty of ambulances and horse ambulances all round the course. This was by the warm up arena while we were watching Zara Phillips warm up.

The only problem we had with the day was with the travelling, I may talk a bit more about that in another post! As we were getting the train back to our coach a reporter came over and asked for a little interview on what we thought about Zara Phillips. Here is the link to the article they wrote which I am mentioned in! Click here! 

We all had a really good day and I am very excited to be going back on the 9th for the dressage. I feel very lucky to have tickets!

Love Laura
xxxx