Commonwealth Games - Glasgow 2014

After missing out on London 2012 tickets I made sure I applied for Glasgow 2014 asap. I missed out on Cycling tickets but got Netball, Badminton and Squash, three sports that I love. I couldn't believe it so started looking for accommodation asap and £300 per night for a Travelodge erm no thanks. I ended up booking a lovely little B&B in Stirling - http://www.craigardstirling.co.uk/

Just before the Games started I got an email informing me about more Games tickets available so I had a look and purchased Athletics tickets. Happy days 4 events in two days bring it on!!!

We decided to drive up on the West and back home along the East coast staying at Whitby for a few days to relax after the crazy days in Glasgow and Stirling.

This also helped with finding a few more Gold Post boxes. On the way North we found both Jason Kenny and Bradley Wiggins boxes, plus a little stop off to see the football grounds for Bolton Wanderers FC and Blackburn Rovers FC.

Jason Kenny - Men's Team Sprint

More pictures on Instagram.

From here a quick drive up past Gretna and Glasgow to the B&B in Stirling. After a little nights sleep it was straight on the train into Glasgow for the First Event on Saturday 26th July England v Australia in the Netball preliminary rounds. All that needs to be said is WOW!!! What a match. My phone didn't stop buzzing with messages off friends, family and clients who were hooked watching the match. It ended with a very narrow and gutting defeat for England, final score England 48 - Australia 49. The next match was Scotland v New Zealand and it was a master class from New Zealand with a huge 68-26 victory.

England V Australia 26/7/14 SECC Glasgow 2014

We then had a couple of hours gap so had a little walk around Glasgow city centre before getting the train out to the Scotstoun Sports Campus for the Squash. Here we saw some of the best players from around the world playing a sport that deserves to be an Olympic sport. The players have amazing speed, strength, flexibility and CV systems. One match lasted 5 sets taking 92 minutes to finish, playing squash for longer than a football match! Having played squash for years as a child I have the highest respect for the elite players as they are incredible.

Squash in the amazing glass court - Scotstoun Sports Campus 26/7/14 Glasgow 2014

We got back to the B&B at 1 am for a massive 4 and a half hours sleep waking up at 5:30 to be on the train in time for the Badminton on the Sunday morning. Off to the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome for the Emirates Arena. It is a really impressive modern venue with a back drop of Celtic Park just behind, a relaly good vision of the old and new for Glasgow. The badminton was amazing with the Mixed team event between Malaysia and Singapore. Some of the top players in an incredibly fast sports battling it out in the Semi-finals. It was really nice to see the Malaysian team all wearing black armbands for the people horribly taken away on flight MH17. Malaysia won the matches 3-2 and they deserved it playing the better badminton.

Badminton Mixed Team Semi Finals - Glasgow 2014 27/7/14

We then had a mad scramble back into the city centre and out to Hampden Park for the Athletics. We made it in time to see Bethy Woodward claim Silver in the T37/38 women's long jump. As well as seeing Adam Gemili flying in the 100m preliminary round. We were gutted Mo Farah had pulled out of the 5000m as the stadium would have gone crazy for him, but if you're unwell you can't compete at your best. Seeing the men's shot put, women's hammer and the women's 100/400m preliminary rounds was so interesting from a work point of view while being incredibly entertaining from as a spectator too. 

Hampden Park glowing in the sun for the Athletics. 27/7/14 - Glasgow 2014.

It had been a crazy couple of days watching some of the Worlds best sports stars performing in an amazing event. Time for a little chill in Whitby but first a few more Gold Post boxes as I don't know when I will next be in Scotland so Andy Murray and Sir Chris Hoy's were found. A nice drive down the East coast and the beach was calling us. 

Bring on the next major sporting event for the UK to show the World how good we are.

Sports weekend

Not a bad weekend going to the Yonex All England Championship on Saturday 8th March followed by Nottingham Panthers v Fife Flyers on Sunday 9th.

Badminton

The badminton on show was incredible!!! Seeing World No.1 Lee Chong Wei play for the first time was truly inspirational. He lost the first set 14-21 before winning the second 21-19 and third 21-15 without looking like it took any effort at all. It was a near master class at how to make a sport look easy!

One of the other highlights for the day was seeing the Para-badminton. The players were brilliant and the crowd loved it. The wheelchair and short stature players just reminded me of how good the London 2012 Paralympics were. Hopefully Para-badminton can make it into the Paralympics in the near future.

Ice Hockey

Boot Camp Sunday morning was filled with talk of "How many fights will we see later at the Ice Hockey?" haha. A group of 12 of us travelled to Nottingham with 4 people seeing their first Ice Hockey match. It was Panthers v Flyers and the last home game of the season in the league for Panthers. Just like when I saw my first match I could hear people talking about how good are they at skating, how do they not fall over, where's the puck? haha. It's such a fast and brutal sport but 100% family focused with a crowd of all ages enjoying a great sporting event. Panthers came out 5-2 winners making it look very easy in the 3rd period.

Photos from the weekend can be found on my instagram

Racquet-sports

Badminton v Squash v Tennis

This morning I have been reading about Ramy Ashour being "the world's greatest racquet-sport player?" http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/squash/22526762

He is one amazing Squash player and I would love to play against him. I know I would be running round the court like a headless chicken while he had time to showboat but it would be worth it.

BUT in the article they don't even mention Badminton. Lee Chong Wei is an incredible badminton player (currently World #1) and one hell of an athlete with how he moves around the court. In theory he's the Badminton equivalent to Ramy Ashour.

So can you really say one player is the "best" racquet-sport player in the world when each racquet-sport requires it's own unique set of skills to make the shots look so easy. A tennis ball, squash ball and shuttlecock all act totally differently to each other. I would love to see a three way battle between Ramy Ashour, Lee Chong Wei and Roger Federer over their three sports.

 

But Lee Chong Wei is just as fast with the reactions - http://youtu.be/oyFH9KaF6Fo

 

And we can't forget how good Roger Federer is - http://youtu.be/nQ7HvffZpRI