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Food - or not - at the Olympics

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H

heasandford

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Someone has just told me that no food at all will be allowed into the Olympic Park - if I have to queue for several hours for food that doesn't sound good. Let alone people with gluten intolerance etc.

Who can I lobby about this?
 
Thanks Alan, it looks like sandwiches are allowed but not necessarily my lucozade!! (Missed the bit about medical supplies?) My daughter suggested a medical letter, but not sure carrying food would be included. Ah well. Just like my local school not being able to have sports day called '....... school Olympics' A bit sad really.
 
heasandford said:
Thanks Alan, it looks like sandwiches are allowed but not necessarily my lucozade!! (Missed the bit about medical supplies?) My daughter suggested a medical letter, but not sure carrying food would be included. Ah well. Just like my local school not being able to have sports day called '....... school Olympics' A bit sad really.
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The worlds gone MAD
 
My next door neighbour is involved with the olympics through her job and she told me that it's the branding that is the issue. She advised us to take our marks and sparks sandwiches out of their wrappers and put them in a lunch box. So, if that's correct then the lucozade would be ok if it were in a clear bottle or un-branded flask.
 
Perhaps they are worried about sweeping shots across the crowd and people being shown with any old brand of hypo remedy when some company or other have paid an arm and a leg to be the 'official' soft drink of the games 🙄

Presumably there would be no issues if you treated with Coke as they have stumped up for the privilege.
 
I have sent LOCOG this email:

I have Type 1 diabetes and therefore need ready access to food and treatments for low blood sugar, such as lucozade. Will I be able to bring this into the venues? I may not be able to spend time queuing. Also, I would need to carry my insulin pen and needles, and blood testing meter - can you tell me if I would need anything from my doctor to prove my need to carry them?

Thank you.
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Will let you know what the reply is if/when I get one 🙂
 
heasandford said:
I had already sent something very similar! I have had an acknowledgement email - lets see what comes next!
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Good, the more emails they get, the more likely they are to implment the necessary concessions if they haven't already done so! 🙂
 
That's corporate sponsorship for you - these firms pay their cash, they expect to get their way.

What's more disturbing is many of the parent companies of these firms also seem to make sizeable financial contributors to government as well. You can ask your own questions about whether this might have an impact on official dietary advice....
 
Have you received your tickets yet? These come with a leaflet that lists do's and dont's. I'm at work now so cannot quote directly but both myself and my wife read the documentaion and found nothing in there that willl stop you taking in your own food - as long as you can fit it inside the allowable size of bag.

I had heard the same rumour and was going to ask the clinic to reword the letter they provide when you are flying.
 
Talking of corporate sponsorship and the Olympics, I was awaiting with interest to find out who will be carrying the Olympic torch through our town next month.

It turns out that out of 50 torch bearers in Oxfordshire, 22 of them are being flown in from the USA by Coca Cola as they are one of the main sponsors! I was angry to say the least, especially given that on here Northerner and a couple of others were nominated to carry it (rightly so) and were turned down, so to hear of this I was fuming. Apparently 5% of torch bearers will be from other nations and that is the same the world over at Olympic time. Sorry, but 22 out of 50 makes 44% in the maths I was taught at school.

Apparently it's all down to logistics as to why we get so many of them dumped here, it's just not cost effective to distribute them across the country!

I do hope you all get the food and drink situation sorted out though. As someone else has said, clear wrappers and bottles (plastic only I bet) and you will be fine.
 
I had a look to see who had got the places in my area (Bournemouth, Southampton/IOW) and there seemed to be a preponderance of Chinese runners for some reason - very little on their biographies to suggest why they had been chosen :confused:
 
Any Chinese sponsors I wonder??? Shall we swap some of our Americans for some of your Chinese for a more even distribution? Where did you find out about local runners? I would love to know who is running round here, but it was just a page in the local rag a couple of weeks ago about this seemingly scandalous situation. Well it worked, it got me wound up!
 
Tina63 said:
Any Chinese sponsors I wonder??? Shall we swap some of our Americans for some of your Chinese for a more even distribution? Where did you find out about local runners? I would love to know who is running round here, but it was just a page in the local rag a couple of weeks ago about this seemingly scandalous situation. Well it worked, it got me wound up!
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This page allows you to select a region to see who the torchbearers are:

http://www.london2012.com/torch-relay/torchbearers/

🙂
 
Northerner said:
This page allows you to select a region to see who the torchbearers are:

http://www.london2012.com/torch-relay/torchbearers/

🙂
Click to expand...

Thanks for that Northerner. I feel better now knowing only one of the people running our leg is from Texas, the other 4 are kind of local, if you call 15 miles away local! To be fair, reading their stories, they have all barring one had a big struggle in life and overcome adversity, so I feel much better about it now. They don't put nomination stories on for those from America, and it seems Mexico, who also feature heavily in our region.
 
Well, got the following reply to my email -

Hello,

Thank you for contacting London 2012 about your dietary requirements.

Medication and needles are permitted through London 2012 venue security, provided they are required for valid medical reasons, For details of what you can and can't bring into venues, including water and other liquids, go to london2012.com


Kind regards,

David


Not terribly helpful! However on my spectator guide (thanks for pointing that out Tina) it points out a security link, where it tells you what you can and can't take - if I had a baby with me I could take in a litre bottle of water, but if I am taking lucozade I will have to take it in up to 10 x 100ml containers! no part filled larger containers are permitted. And as you say I can take food providing it is not 'excessive'.
Well I suppose I can't really complain, that should work - it's no different from a lot of venues. Thanks everyone for your help and support.
 
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