Mamma mia! What had happened to Horse Guards Parade? The grand old royal drill square had been transformed into a beach. And the only creatures on parade yesterday were some of the fittest young women in the world, their bikini bottoms pointing squarely in the direction of Number 10.
With a year to go before the start of the London 2012 Olympics, the organisers are testing their staff, their venues and their procedures with a series of warm-up events called London Prepares. Most spectacular of the lot is this week’s six-day women’s beach volleyball tournament — featuring 24 teams from 16 nations — on Horse Guards Parade.
But for all the hype and gushing commentary, the timing could not have been more unfortunate. This was supposed to be a flagship event at one of the few London 2012 venues which is actually in Central London (unlike the main events on the Essex border).
Flanked by Whitehall, St James’s Park, The Mall and Westminster, it was supposed to beam upbeat images around the world proclaiming a simple message: London is ready for the world, so bring on the Olympic flame! Instead, we had the distant sound of police sirens and helicopters over a half-empty mini-stadium (the 1,500 capacity is a tenth of next year’s Olympic venue). Yesterday evening’s floodlit matches were brought forward to ensure a safe escape in daylight ahead of the rioting rush hour. So much for the Olympian spirit of ancient Greece. This smacked of Nero fiddling in ancient Rome. Still, you could not fault the enthusiasm of the competitors. ‘This is such an amazing, historic venue,’ beamed Mexico’s Candelas Bibiana when asked if she was worried. In any case, she comes from a country where the levels of gang warfare make this week’s scenes in Croydon look like a nursery squabble. |
Horse Guards Parade was, indeed, a jousting venue in Tudor times. These days, it is where Her Majesty’s Foot Guards mark her official birthday by Trooping The Colour each June. One can only wonder what some of those thunderous drill sergeants would make of the scenes here this week.
However hard the beach volleyball crowd and the Olympic organisers insist this is a deadly serious sport, there is no escaping the fact that beach volleyball is a spectacle which owes as much to Baywatch and Miss World as to the Olympic motto of ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius’ — ‘Faster, Higher,Stronger’.
The Olympic Games have long included the sport of volleyball, a worthy, indoor discipline played in shorts and vests by teams of six. Beach volleyball is played by pairs (usually a tall ‘blocker’ with long arms and a wiry ‘defender’ with a lower centre of gravity).
Like their indoor colleagues, male beach competitors remain in shorts and vests and simply remove their socks and shoes. The women, on the other hand, switch to bikinis.
‘The bikini is their choice entirely,’ said Angelo Squeo, technical director of the International Volleyball Federation. ‘If they want to wear long shorts and longer shirts, they can. In some Muslim countries, they wear leggings. But in the heat, a bikini is just more comfortable.’
Indeed. America’s Lisa Rutledge was sporting something so low-slung yesterday that it would constitute a case of ‘builder’s bum’.
The flow of play was interspersed with random bursts of thudding music — pumping bass dance tracks rather than the usual cheesy Olympic anthems.
During longer gaps in play, the players retreated to their deck chairs for a breather. At Wimbledon, this would be the moment for a glass of Robinson’s Barley Water or a trip to the loo. In this sport, it is cabaret time, a throw-back to the early days of Californian beach volleyball when matches (played by men) were accompanied by a female beauty pageant. |
Apparently, they are a specialist outfit shipped in from Tenerife.
The spectators all seemed extremely happy. At £5 a ticket, this was a cheap day out in an unrivalled sporting setting. You could move around freely with a drink and a sandwich with no one in a fluorescent bib ordering you to sit down, move along, drink up or shut up.
‘My pupils would be so excited by this,’ said Wendy Horn, of Wimbledon, one of a quartet of London PE teachers. They were impressed not only by the athletic skills of the players, but also by their manners.
During practice sessions on the outlying courts, the competitors were happy to chat about their sport and to sign autographs. This is only an exhibition tournament with a paltry prize pot of £10,000 (compared with £500,000 at June’s world championships).
There is a refreshingly unstuffy atmosphere. These women take their sport very seriously. But they also appreciate they are pushing a few sporting boundaries.
‘I used to play the indoor game which has more of a tennis vibe whereas, out here, well, anything goes,’ said Brittany Hochevar.
‘I mean, here I am prancing around next to the home of the Prime Minister and the Queen in a bikini! I feel honoured!’
There is no question that this week’s riots have caused serious jitters among the London 2012 organisers. One very senior official cancelled a visit to yesterday’s event for fear of being asked difficult questions about security. |
It fell to Olympics Minister Hugh Robertson to drop in and reassure everyone the Olympics will not be knocked off track by the threat of teenage suburban kleptomaniacs.
As for the beach volleyball, the former Life Guards officer said he was glad to be back on Horse Guards. ‘I was in charge of the Household Cavalry here at the Queen’s 1993 Birthday Parade,’ he recalled happily.
Let us hope he won’t be calling on his old Army chums when the Olympic circus proper arrives next year.
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