London 2012 Paralympics

There is no Bundesliga or EPL action this weekend but all is not lost! We are taking the opportunity to go up to see some if the Paralympics before it finishes on the 9th if September.

In this first section of the post we are still onroute to London to meet up at my sons flat in town. We are then heading off to see the last three "sitting volleyball" matches at the ExCel. This will include the Gold medal match. Looking forward to it - more to follow . . .

Arriving at the ExCel Centre
We arrived at the ExCel at about 12:00 and checked out the centre for half an hour or so before going into the events themselves.

We found that we could go into the "day ticket" seats in the wheelchair fencing for an hour or so before the Sitting Volleyball started at 14:00.

This was a real result for us - we didn't realise we could see any of the other events with our ticket until we got there. We got to see TeamGB fence against Russia as well!!

Sadly we didn't do so well but at least we had a chance to cheer them on!

As soon as TeamGB had done their stuff we quickly moved on the Sitting Volleyball arena

Brazil and Egypt warming up . .

The first match that we saw was Brazil v Egypt. It was a tight match with both teams fighting hard. It went to five sets with only two points in it even in the fifth set

Brazil. Egypt
1st Set.     25:14
2nd. Set   15. 25
3rd Set     25. 21
4th Set      5. 25
and the 5th and final set. 15:13 to Brazil!

The Bronze Medal Match
Next came the bronze medal match between Russia and Germany. Naturally I was cheering on Deutschland!! My hands hurt from clapping so hard!!

It was a very tough match with Russia trying to retain the bronze medal from Bejing. It was another five set match -

Germany v Russia
First set      20:25
Second set  26:24
Third set     22:25
Fourth set   25:22

. . and the fifth and final set, 16:14 to Germany!

The fifth set is up to 15 rather than 25 but they clinch it to win the bronze - they were a bit pleased!! The celebration after the match was brilliant.

The Gold Medal Match
Last, but certainly not least, we had the gold medal match between Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH) and the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI)

Iran started as the favourites to win the gold and they had a massive following in the arena with flags everywhere! But things were not to go their way -
Bosnia / Iran
First set   19:25
Second set.  25:21
Third set. 25:22
Fourth set. 25:15
Bosnia and Herzegovina go to take the gold leaving Iran to the silver in a thrilling days play.

Now we "only" had the medal ceremony . . .

Here we have the Germam team accepting their richly deserved bronze medals