After a Saturday night which saw in excess of 40,000 people in the Olympic Stadium, a cold, damp Sunday morning was always going to feel a little bit flat by comparison.
There was very much a morning after the night before feeling throughout Sunday's first session.
It was very noticeable that, as people walked down the main concourse towards the Olympic Park, a vast majority of them continued around to the right to watch the hockey at the Riverside Arena, completely by-passing the Olympic Stadium.
Granted, there were international teams competing in the hockey, but there was such high demand for athletics tickets that 6,000 additional tickets, 2,000 extra for every day except Saturday, went on sale due to “exceptional demand” and were only £5.
I can’t work out whether the seemingly low attendances thus far are due to very few people being interested in BUCS Athletics (which would be countered by the paragraph above) or because so few tickets were released.
While the stadium may have felt that little bit emptier, Loughborough’s athletes have continued to go from strength to strength this weekend. Day three of the BUCS Outdoor Athletics Championship may have been dominated by qualifiers, heats and semi finals, but LSAC still managed to add an impressive five medals to their tally, three of which were gold.
The main aim of today’s two sessions however, was athletes booking their places in Monday's finals and in the process giving themselves the best chance of reaching that all important top step of the podium.
LSAC have tweeted this evening that the club has managed 39 people across the 21 finals due to take place between 10 and 2.30 tomorrow morning so it’s sure to be a very busy and action packed day.
I’m excited to see some really competitive and hard fought races tomorrow because, at times, the action has felt a little bit underwhelming.
When the biggest cheer of the afternoon goes up as the last runner crosses the line, well over five minutes after the winner, you get the impression that something, somewhere has gone wrong.
Let’s hope that tomorrow brings the whole package; great action on the track and great atmosphere off it. And of course, you can find out and keep up-to-date with all the action on Label Online from ten.
