olympic logo and tower bridge

Will queuing become an Olympic Sport?

queuing to get into park

It might just happen. In his article “Queuing could win Olympic sport status” in The Australian, Nicole Jeffery says the big challenge LOCOG (London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games) faces is to keep it from happening.

olyjpics queuing out in field

It’s reported that there will be 100 bag-check lanes at Olympic Park and that extensive training and dry runs to perfect the procedures have taken place for quite a while.

queues likely

But queues are expected. “London 2012 Olympics: there will be queues, says Coe” [Lord Sebastian Coe, LOCOG chairman, winner of four medals for running in the 1980 and 1984 Olympics] is the headline of a recent article in The Guardian.

From reading the article, we get the feeling LOCOG will be relying to some extent on delays upstream to lessen the lines at the Olympic Park gates. These delays are likely to reach all the way back to immigration.

queuing at uk border 

Traffic jams and delays on trains, subways, and buses, will also reduce queues at Olympic Park.

LOCOG estimates the wait to get into the stadium will be no longer than 20 minutes.

20 minutes? A wait of 20 minutes might be perfectly acceptable to the Brits. They have superior skills at queuing.

queuing obentaly

“On weekends an Englishman queues up at the bus-stop, travels out to Richmond, queues up for a boat, then queues up for a few more odd queues just for the sake of the fun, then queues up at  the bus-stop and has the time of his life.” [From George Mikes from his book How to Be a Brit].

queuing t-shirt

But what about visitors from the rest of the world? Is Britain’s reputation at risk? This is  discussed on the blog posting “Queuing as an Olympic sport and a reputational risk” in the blog Olyponomics.

At the end of the day, will it really matter? Looking at the bright side, a not-overly-concerned Brit commended, “We’re expecting a sort of cheerful chaos.”

queuing in front of london statium

June 15, 2012