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London 2012 Insider’s Guide: Seat Fillers, Sustainable Stadiums & Patriotic Tributes

Locations in this article:  Beijing, China London, England Los Angeles, CA

On Friday, I attended my final Olympic event – beach volleyball at Horse Guards Parade. This was probably my favorite of the six venues I visited. It was the one event where you really felt like you were in London. Putting beach volleyball at Horse Guards Parade, right by Buckingham Palace, is a little like putting it on the White House Lawn. But the British seemed to have plenty of fun with this venue.

As I was walking through the long security line, two older British men wearing full suits conversed in the most proper English accents I had heard the whole the trip.

“It’s quite popular, wouldn’t you say?” said one of the men, quizzically.

“I thought this whole thing was a joke, rather, but I don’t know,” the other responded, confounded by his surroundings.

Coming from Southern California, I can tell you that beach volleyball is no joke. In my last post, I noted that a field hockey victory over Argentina didn’t stir much in the way of nationalistic fervor. But watching two girls from Orange County – April Ross and Jennifer Kessy – thrash a Swiss duo of Simone Kuhn and Nadine Zumkehr 21-15, 21-19 definitely had me cheering “U-S-A”. (By the way, I have no idea what beach the Kuhn and Zumkehr practice on, since Switzerland is a landlocked nation.)

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