Tuesday, July 17, 2012

And we criticised the Indians...

From the "Oh shit" department, Stuff reports:

Australian Olympic athletes and officials were taken on a three-hour "Monopoly tour" of London after a bus chartered by Games organisers, with a lost driver behind the wheel, took three hours to travel from Heathrow airport to the Olympic village.
Beijing gold medallist Elise Rechichi was among the contingent of Australian sailors on the vehicle that was two hours late to collect the party. It then drove around for hours on what should have been a 45-minute trip, before the driver admitted the East London Games village had not been entered into the GPS navigation system.
Australian Olympic Committee media liaison officer Damian Kelly described the bewildering journey that extended an already long trip.
"The driver just said 'I'm sorry, I'm lost, it's my first day on the job and I'm lost."
"We were moving, we were in the Olympic lane and we were going places, we just weren't going where we were supposed to go.
"He just said it was his first day in that bus and they hadn't told them how the GPSs worked and that he didn't know how to use it and apparently the Olympic Village hadn't been loaded into the GPS. 

And to think of all the scorn that the organisers of the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games received! Let's hope that the British can get their stiff upper lip into service, and make sure that the 2012 Olympic Games do not turn into an unmitigated shambles.

Still; if such a stuff-up had to happen, could it have happened to a nicer bunch of athletes?

3 comments:

James Stephenson said...

"Should have been a 45-minute trip"

Heathrow to the far side of London, in a bus, in 45 minutes?

Did they arrive in the middle of the night?

Moist von Lipwig said...

Not all were as charitable as the Aussies..
Some spoiled, pampered, prima donna pricks were enraged that 4 hours were lost from their precious lives.

pdm said...

JS - I suggest that even at midnight it would take longer than 45 minutes to get from Heathrow to Stratford or thereabouts in a bus.