In contrast to the 20km walking race yesterday, this track actually had a formal entrance, to allow spectators in. The photo to the left shows the entrance. Welcome to Delhi - as long as the world's TV cameras don't see it, it doesn't count.
The next photo shows the security barriers: four buses parked across the road. Note the people on the right simply walking around the unmanned security barriers. I guess that if they were terrorists they would have to carry their own bombs around the buses, and that would be really annoying for them. Perhaps that's the deterrent.
I found a spot near the race track, and quickly identified the only other spectators. Indian spectators didn't begin to arrive for hours, so it was a lone Australian and two Welsh supporters. They were the parents of Alex Greenfield, a Welsh sprint cyclist and three-time European track champion. Once again, the only foreign spectators I had seen were parents of competitors. It was great to chat to them, as it was about 20 minutes between sitings of the riders. We took every opportunity to escape from the stifling heat in the shade of a building, then we would wait for the race helicopter to get near us. By this we knew that the pelaton was near and we would come back out into the glare of a Delhi summer's day. I took a few photos, but at the speed they were travelling, most of them didn't work out. So it looks like a career in sports photography is not going to be one of my options when I finish travelling. The photo shows two Australian women leading. I'll be honest - I don't know which ones they were, as they all looked alike whizzing by in their identical uniforms. Australians won gold (Rochelle Gilmore) and bronze (Chloe Hoskings) and I'm hoping that this is a photo of them! :-)
Apart from the heat, the riders (and spectators) had to content with a violent wind. This kept blowing the centre barriers over onto the track, sometimes into the path of cyclists. Luckily, it never occurred when the peleton was going by, since there would have been no room to manouvre and disaster would have occurred. The Delhi Police were very quick in righting the barriers each time, but I couldn't help wondering whether removing the advertising from the barriers might have been more effective.
The men's race was also good to watch. It started out with 125 riders and finished with about 40. Allan Davis of Australia took gold in a really tight finish. The photo shows an Australian team member. If you know who it is, please let me know! :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment