This Wednesday we travelled to Olympic park with famed British sports historian Martin Polley. Before our trip to Olympic Park, which was the site of the 2012 Olympics, Professor Polley gave us a presentation regarding the history of the Olympics in London. We discovered that London became the first city to host three Olympic games in 2012, with the first being held there in 1908 and the second in 1948. Professor Polley also explained how the Olympic games in London have transformed over time with more nations being included in the later years, more sports to compete in and also more gender equality. Furthermore, we learned of the transformation of the grounds London used for Olympic competition. In 1908, the sight of the Olympics was one grand stadium with a track surrounding a grass field and a pool 100m long for the swimming competitions. Almost 100 years later, the London games used over 25 different sights stretching throughout all of the UK and some parts of Ireland. After Polley’s presentation we took a trip to Olympic Park to tour what was the sight of the 2012 Olympic games.
Upon arriving to Olympic park we began talking about the sustainability and “greenness” of the area which was instantly noticeable. When London won the bid for the Olympic games in 2012 it wanted the primary site to be created in east London in order to facilitate the regeneration of an area that had been traditional filthy and run down. Due to this goal, the 2012 Olympics took a lot of “green” measures when creating the site. There are a lot of green spaces all throughout the site and some of the buildings were constructed to operate partially on solar power. Another measure that was taken by the games was to transport a majority of the materials needed by rail or water to reduce road usage and pollution.
The 2012 Olympics tried to make its self distinguishable in many ways and one of the more unique things it tried was to make the grounds useful after the Olympics. For example, the large stadium is being converted into use for a soccer team in the UK and the area that basketball was played in is now open as a gym to locals. The swimming pool is also open to locals and clubs and we were even able to see some local divers training while we visited. Other buildings are being reconstructed to be used as office space and the park in constantly open to runners and anyone who would like to stroll the ground.
To conclude our trip, we toured the London Aquatic Centre. Here we saw many locals from the community enjoying the state of the art facilities where membership was not much more than at any other pool. Also, those of us who wanted were able to go for a swim with Professor Carlson and Martin Polley.
Olympic park truly proved to be a unique and sustainable area. Considering the immense amount of money that is involved with the Olympics, it was nice to see at least an effort to give back to the people. We all enjoyed our trip a lot and we would like to than Carleton for the opportunity, Martin Polley for the tour and presentation, and the Olympic Park officials for allowing us to visit the area. 
