GPS Athletics

I've just returned for the GPS Athletics Carnival at Olympic Park - I had the job of time recorder for the afternoon's track events. All 9 GPS schools were present - all boys, from each of the school, are required to attend; so with parents and others there were several thousand people packed in to the Athletics Centre stadium. Being by the finish line the atmosphere was great - and, for the 100m Open Final and the relays, verging on deafening as the schools bellowed out their various 'War Cries'. Olympic Park is a fabulous site - and, if Sydney is anything to go by, London will be left with a great legacy in terms of sporting venues after the Olympics. It was almost exactly 11 years ago that I worked in nearby Stadium Australia at that stadium's opening, serving in one of the many bars during a double-header rugby match packed with 105 000 people. After the Olympics they pulled up the track from there and moved it across to the Athletics Centre stadium (shifting that track to one of the practice arenas), where today's event was held. I slapped on the suncream, glasses and cap as the sun is pretty strong now and did my officiating armed with a clipboard and wearing my new staff polo shirt:

Went to the Town Hall pub in Balmain (The Townie) with Ludo last night - a great venue to see the Tigers beat the Raiders 24-26 in Canberra to set up a semi-final against the hot favourites, St George Illawara Dragons next week. Tonight I'm trying out a very popular restaurant in Balmain that I've not been to before.

I'm not sure if anyone is interested in them (I post these each week), but here is Clarke & Dawe's political satire offering for this week - on the new political paradigm that sees a couple of country independent MPs (Rob Oakshott and Tony Windsor) propping up the minority Labor Government - who yesterday told the public that 'all bets were off' and that any election promises are meaningless in the new political landscape. I'm not sure anyone was at all surprised.