Craig Kinsley, a new Team USA javelin thrower, was smiling from ear to ear as he joined the first athletes dumping their bags in the Olympic Village yesterday. "I've just updated my Facebook status," he said. "England, London, Olympic Village, heaven".
He might have been forgiven for being less upbeat: Kinsley was one of dozens of athletes from the American and Australian teams granted unplanned tours of London as they got badly lost on their way to the village from Heathrow airport. But neither that nor the wind and rain sweeping the Olympic Park was going to dim Kinsley's enthusiasm. "This is my first international competition," he said. "I might as well start big."
The village welcomed its first athletes on Monday and Swiss and Belgian competitors had already draped flags over their balconies. French and Guatemalan medal hopefuls walked around the shopping plaza as athletes from an estimated 40 countries checked in. But getting here had been tough.
Volunteer drivers from Scotland, Ireland and other parts of the UK - along with satellite navigation systems that did not include the address of the Olympic Village - turned what was supposed to be a seamless journey along clear lanes into an exhausting crawl through London congestion. ("Loads of us have never been to London before. It's great. We're like tourists," one coach driver confessed.)
Tom Pukstys, a coach with the USA, described how he and 25 other members of the team who flew overnight to Heathrow from Chicago faced a four hour drive across London when their Scottish driver got lost. "I was following the navigation system and it was telling us to go one way, then another. It was the first time he [the driver] had made the trip. If you are going to competition and get lost that would be devastating. But that's not going to happen."
Two-time world 400 metres hurdles champion Kerron Clement tweeted: "Um, so we've been lost on the road for 4 hrs. Not a good first impression London. Athletes are sleepy, hungry and need to pee. Could we get to the Olympic Village please."
The team's spokesman, Patrick Sandusky, said there had been "some limited challenges for some of our athletes travelling from Heathrow to the Olympic Village" but he commended Locog's organisation saying "one bus trip doesn't detract from that a bit".
After a 23 hour flight, Australia's sailing team had a scare when they briefly lost track of their sails at the airport then had to wait two hours for a bus. It took a further two hours to get to the Olympic Village; the athletes took in Big Ben and Westminster Abbey as the driver got lost.
"The driver didn't know where he was going and hadn't been told how to use the navigation system," said Australian official Damian Kelly. "He was on his walkie talkie, we were on the phone to the Olympic Village getting directions and some of us were trying to guide us in using Google. Look, these things happen. We're just glad it happened now and not in the middle of competition."
It was an embarrassing case of life imitating art. A TV satire on the games organisers, Twenty Twelve, included a story where an official bus driven by a man from outside London who did not understand his navigation system got lost. Yesterday a spokeswoman for the real London organising committee was keen to play down the problem. "It is day one and we have only had one or two issues where journeys have taken longer than planned," she said. "The vast majority of journeys have been fine."
Thick grey rain clouds and strong winds meant the village, which will house more than 11,000 athletes from 204 countries, struggled to feel as festive as it surely will, but spirits remained high. Team GB athletes were rallied with a speech by Dame Kelly Holmes and Team GB footballer Jack Butland, 19, tweeted: "loving this experience already". Guardian news services
