Thursday 28 August 2008

Olympic Medalists

Yesterday (Wednesday) in Edinburgh 4 of the Scottish members of the Olympic Team GB treated us to a parade down the Royal Mile in an open topped-bus! The pavements on both sides were totally packed, with people balancing on top of bins and bollards, hundreds of press photographers, and a cavalcade of police on motorcycles and mountain bikes. We followed the bus down the lower half of the Mile, to the end of the parade in Holyrood Park. The carpark had been closed off and was filled with hundreds and hundreds of cheering supporters, including several groups of school children.



The 4 athletes were Chris Hoy (the triple-gold track cylist), David Florence (won silver in the Canoe slalom), Katherine Grainger (good name that - member of the silver-winning triple sculls ladies rowing team) and Ross Edgar (also a cyclist - won silver in the team sprint).
They spent maybe an hour with the press and the public, giving photos and autographs and interviews. I saw a few people I knew in the crowd, including one of my old cubs, and we met up with my friend Martin, who's the head ranger of the Park, so he was able to get us a lift home in one of their awesome vans!!

I was really hoping to get my picture taken with Chris Hoy, and to touch one of his gold medals, but he was really busy. I did manage to get a really good picture with David Florence though, and was very pleased to shake his hand and discover that even a silver medal is really heavy and really cool!

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