Hampden gets a taste of athletics; Scotland uniform causes a stir; royal baton relay reaches Argyll and Bute; and ticket news
HELLO HAMPDEN
The Glasgow Diamond League meeting gives the first glimpse of athletics inside Hampden Park after a £14m refit that included raising the playing surface by 1.9 metres and removing eight rows of seating. It leaves capacity for the Games at 44,000 – some way short of the stadium record crowd of 149,415 for a football international between Scotland and England in 1937. Hampden makes its Games debut when the athletics begins on Sunday 27 July as the opening ceremony on Wednesday 23 July actually takes place over at Celtic Park, featuring a 100m screen in front of the South Stand (the side where the dugouts are during Celtic games) described as the “largest screen of its kind ever seen in Europe”. And among the other venues Ibrox also gets a look-in, of course – Rugby Sevens takes place there over the weekend of 26-27 July.
FASHION WATCH
The Games, with a battle on its hands to draw the attention of the sporting world until the World Cup finishes, at least managed to go viral last week – though not for the best reasons. The launch of the Scotland team uniform caused a stir on Twitter and the inevitable change.org petition against “this travesty of a design, an embarrassment to our athletes and to Scotland”. Scottish Cabinet Secretary Shona Robison backed them, saying they were “bold” and “colourful”.
ROYAL RELAY LATEST
The Queen’s Baton Relay, the equivalent of London’s Olympic torch journey, began at Buckingham Palace nine months ago when the baton, bearing an upbeat message from the Queen, left for Glasgow. On Sunday it arrives in Argyll and Bute.
BEING THERE
While 1.1m tickets have been sold, there are still seats for the first two days from £15. Also available: a selection of £20 restricted view seats for the opening ceremony – which features 3,000 performers plus Nicole Scherzinger, Sir Chris Hoy and Sir Alex Ferguson – plus a batch of tickets for early rounds of the badminton and weightlifting, the latter a real crowd-pleaser at London 2012. More: glasgow2014.com/tickets