The Opening Ceremony has come and gone at the Commonwealth Games of 2014, with Glasgow carrying it off in its own inimitable way by mixing Scottish imagery with their own sense of wit and humour. A potential last minute glitch was averted by Sir Chris Hoy, as he assisted with the extraction of the message from the torch and added to the feeling that these truly are the "Friendly Games". Clearly the officials at the velodrome had not been watching though, as probably the most famous Scottish sportsman of all time (certainly in terms of Olympic success) was challenged to show his accreditation in order to enter the arena named in his honour!
Sir Chris was gracious in his acceptance of being treated just like every other visitor to the events, but would have been surprised to have not being recognised. Maybe his adverts for a famous breakfast cereal haven't been watched by the anticipated target audience!
The Queen has also been keen to get out and about to watch the action. She was spotted by Rebecca Adlington at poolside during the swimming heats, as the BBC began their coverage of the events, leading to a brief interlude in the discussion of the various merits of the English, Scottish and Australian swimmers' comparative stroke lengths for Rebecca to describe her dress sense. Thumbs up all round, ma'am! Not content with that public appreciation, the Queen was later seen at the field hockey and allegedly appeared in a "selfie" taken by one of the spectators.
Maybe she had seen the famous "selfie" from the Oscar ceremony and wanted one of her own?
The men's triathlon was somewhat predictably dominated by the Brownlee brothers who managed to migrate Team Yorkshire to Scotland for the day. They would have no doubt been slightly amused by some of the lesser well known competitors in their event doing breaststroke in the swimming stage of the competition, some feat for such a long swim, and leading to the very real possibility of them being lapped on the two lap course. Jodie Stimpson, winner of the Women's triathlon event earlier in the day summed up the initial action perfectly, when she called it "awesome"!
