Have you ever visited an Olympic game in person?

Went to a Greece-Lithuania bb game in 96 at the old Georgia Dome. The announcer mentioned “Greece Ball” about 40 times during the game... I noticed way more red necks.

Atlanta 1996. One of my grandparents' neighbors carried the torch for a small leg. We watched the pole vault, long jump and some others. It seemed just like buying a ticket for any other sporting event.

84 LA wrote:

Yes.

T&F and both marathons.

What was awesome was about 12 days before the men’s marathon in Griffith Park at night there was a 10k road race and about 15-20 of the marathoners ran it as a tune-up. I ran it and it was out and back so you could see them all. I think Jose Gomez won, or John Treacy.

John Treacy ran the 10k final. Ar you sure he needed another tune up?

London 2012.

Lottery / impossible to get tickets to main events; ended up watching some remote swimming events and some disabled events.

But really easy to get there, superb organization, loads of really helpful friendly volunteers and fantastic atmosphere.

Anyone who loves track and field should try and get to the Olympic Games. It will be one of the great thrills of your life.

1976 - Drove up to Montreal from New York City. Watched several days of track and field.

1984 - LA- Member of the Measuring team for the marathon

1996 - Atlanta - Worked for Mondo (track surface company). On the field of play every day of track and field. Also a member of the measuring team for the marathon and race walks.

2012- London - International measurer for walks and marathon. The most amazing Olympics so far.

2016 - Rio - International measurer for walks and marathon. May not have been the best organized but the people made it special and friendly. Spent a few afternoons on the beach getting some R & R.

2020 - Tokyo - Let's keep our fingers crossed. Been to Tokyo and Sapporo several times to help organized the road events so far. It will be the most organized Games in history.

What I have learned is that the volunteers & staff are what makes the Games special.

Find a way to get to the Games, you will never regret it.

david45 wrote:

If so, which Olympic game did you visit and what was it like? Like how does viewing the different events in-person work?

Was at the Sydney 2000 Olympics saw the 10k with Greba and Tergat and lucky enough to see Cathy Freeman win 400m on home soil. 110,000 people in the stadium that night. You can guess how exciting that evening was.

I went to the Vancouver Olympics and saw Bode Miller win the downhill skiing double event - DH + slalom. First of all, I have never been anywhere more crowded than the olympic area in Vancouver. I mean, it's so packed you can barely move. To get to events, you have to take public transportation and it's very time-consuming. You must buy tickets way in advance or buy off ebay or craigslist. I bought off CL, I think. You'll have to pay some ungodly amount of money to stay in a hotel in an inconvenient location. All in all, it's the most inconvenient thing you can imagine. But it's novel and interesting, definitely worth it if you happen to live near or in a city hosting, or if you just have time and money to burn. I'd say the whole thing is highly incompatible with Covid.