Lynley works at BP so as one of the sponsors, her company is lucky enough to get first dibs to the London Prepares Series – which is basically a series of warm-up events testing out some events for the London Olympics. She was lucky to get some to today’s event: the FIVB Beach Volleyball International at Horseguard Parade. Best of all it was the Women’s finals events! Heh heh.

And what a gorgeous day we had for the event!

The London Olympic event is going to feature a 15,000 seat stadium – hard to imagine when today’s event featured a mere 1,500 seats! I really liked this event as we were able to get pretty close to the action, in fact, it turns out that half of winning team (Brazil’s Liliane Maestrini) must have had her parents in the stadium as upon their victory she came charging up in the stands next to us! She was really gracious too with all the cameras right in her face!

I used to play a lot of volleyball (indoor not beach) so could appreciate the sport for what it was but I’ve never seen beach volleyball played at an international level. Boy those girls were good. Yes, I did say on the interview with Clare Balding for BBC Two’s Olympic Countdown that it’s about the sexiness etc. of the sport but its also about the athleticism. They are so fast and quick and flexible.

It’s a shame Great Britain couldn’t bring home from their gold medal match – though they really played with heart.

And don’t forget there are the cheer girls …

Plus a musical performance by these two … can’t recall who they were though!

Celebrity sightings included the Rolling Stone’s Ronnie Woods and Sir Steve Redgrave (who presented the flowers to the teams in the medal ceremony.)