Commonwealth Games 28/07/14 - Men's 62KG Weightlifting & Medal Cermony

Hello everyone! Welcome to my interactive (not really, there's just a load of pictures) tour of my day at the Commonwealth Games! If you didn't know, I'm actually Scottish, and the Commonwealth Games were on in Glasgow last week.. For most of it however I was in Azerbaijan but luckily I got to go see one event with my Mum & my boyfriend, which was the Men's 62KG Weightlifting! 

Now, there's actually a huge plot twist in this day.. I don't actually live in Glasgow, I live about an hour away right on the West Coast, I can actually see the sea from my window (which is lovely by the way) and the seagulls are my best friends. So, to get to Glasgow, I have to get on a train that takes 45 minutes to get there, so we had to plan our day carefully so we had plenty of time..

So we got there okay, everything was fine, spirits were high, the atmosphere was great! Glasgow was busy, the sun was shining, everyone was happy. When we got into Glasgow, the plan was to go to the superstore in George Square to get our merchandise (t-shirts etc) and then go out for dinner before we headed off to the Games. So there we were, just coming out of the superstore in George Square with less than 3 hours to go until the Games.. When...

I FORGOT THE TICKETS.

I FORGOT THE TICKETS FOR THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES.

Literally, my whole world just crashed. I wanted the floor to swallow me whole. I could have howled in front of thousands of people. I. Was. TRAUMATISED. So guess what we did? We ran back to the train station and went home, on a 45 minute train journey. I then ran to get a taxi and practically screamed at the taxi driver to TAKE ME HOME IMMEDIATELY AND THEN TAKE ME BACK TO THE TRAIN STATION PLEASE THANK YOU. So I ran into the house to find the tickets on my bed, just sitting there taunting me like "oh, did you forget something?" I could have just thrown myself out my window there and then. However, I didn't, and we then went back to Glasgow, again on a 45 minute train journey, then had to run to the underground to get a 5 minute train to the venue, and guess what?

WE MADE IT.

WE MADE IT TO THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES.

All be it, we made it 20 minutes late but we actually got there, which was something I just didn't think was going to happen. Literally, I just can't. It was just. I can't. HOW DID I FORGET THE ONE THING WE ALL NEEDED?! Ugh. Anyway.. Onto the actual pictures and day.

So let's start the day off.. At the train station. Every year my local train station whips out a load of flowers and it's just bloody lovely. Enough said.

The tiny mountain/island you can see in the distance past the sea is Arran (google it, it's lovely) :)

Glasgow Central Station!

Just thought this was lovely and really heart warming to see. :)

This was our mascot.. He's a Thistle Man named Clyde. Bit creepy, huh?

George Square!

That's the Superstore where there was every single t-shirt/piece of merchandise you could want/need under the sun.. Seriously.

That's City of Glasgow College and fun fact of the day: My Uni is right next to it!

Another fun fact: The kinda old looking posh building behind the Glasgow 2014 logo statue thing is Glasgow City Council. :)

This is now the bit where I realised I didn't have the tickets, and then had a full mental breakdown before the 10 billion (2) train journeys to get them and get back on time. Cue the Games.

The Squinty Bridge!

Clydeport Crane (Finnieston Crane) is surprisingly famous, it's no longer in use but instead it's used a symbol of Glasgow's industrial/engineering history. The Squinty Bridge (Clyde Arc) is also famous because of it's design (it's curved and pretty cool).

The SSE Hydro!

This is the Clyde Auditorium, where the weightlifting was held (obviously)

I didn't understand that board for about an hour.. How cool does it look though?! Also I don't know anyone's name apart from the man that won (who I was rooting for from the start, just saying..) but I just thought it would be nice to show you the pictures of the actual event and all the athletes, as, that's what it is all about!

This board showed "NO LIFT" and "GOOD LIFT" either when an athlete didn't lift, or did.

SPOILERS: the guy above was the guy I was rooting for from the start.. He got Gold.. Awwww yeaaaaaah!

They regularly had to clean off blood on the weights, which I was surprised by.. I mean I knew the weights were heavy but I didn't think they would cause the men's hands to bleed! When they first announced it I was like what?!

"GIE IT LALDY" if you didn't know is basically a Scottish phrase to MAKE SOME NOISE! So now you can be Scottish and say that to everyone!

The guy who tried to break the record (the guy that got Gold surprisingly enough) didn't get it. Boo. :(

He got Gold. Going for Gold!

Does that make sense to you? It didn't to me for the first hour and then I finally got it. Basically you get three attempts with the snatch and that's when you just lift it up straight (I think) and then with the clean and jerk you don't lift it up straight, it's like you go half way (to your shoulders) then you either lunge forward and lift or you kinda squat and lift, and you get three attempts with that too. Then your final score for both snatch and clean and jerk get added together and if you have the most, then you win! Also, the numbers (like 115 etc) indicate how many kilogram's the weights are. 

Usually you would get flowers with a medal at events, but here in Glasgow you got a Quaich (pronounced klosh) which is traditionally made from wood and it's a shallow bowl that you drink whiskey from.. Obviously, being from Scotland!

Below are now the pictures from my phone, sorry for the crappy quality!

Surprisingly I really enjoyed the Weightlifting (I say surprisingly because I've never ever been interested in it before.. Ever.) The atmosphere was amazing, every time someone went to lift the whole auditorium went silent and you could hear a pin drop - it was so tense! Especially when someone didn't get the lift, but when someone got a lift.. The whole crowd just went mental! 

In general the atmosphere in Glasgow has been brilliant, everyone has been so friendly (hence the name, the 'friendly Games') and watching the Games in my home city has been truly heartwarming and it's been a pleasure to see so many people come and say lovely things about Scotland. It makes me truly proud to be Scottish. I really hope some of you watched the Games too, as they were great, I'm sure there are replays all over the Internet if you haven't.

Sorry this post has taken so long to write, it took some time to get all the photos together and then write it took a couple of days, as on Sunday I was travelling for 15 hours to get home from my holiday and I've just had jet lag/been busy since! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading/looking at these photos in this post! Did you see/watch/go to the Commonwealth Games?

Have a lovely day, and don't stop smiling. :)

Hannah, xx

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