Several US athletes started their journey to London on the wrong foot today as an Olympic bus driver got lost for hours while driving the Olympians from the Heathrow airport to the Olympic village.
According to the Independent , the trip from Heathrow to the Olympic Village took the directionally challenged bus driver four hours.
Kerron Clement, a hurdler for the US Olympic team who took Silver in 2008 at Beijing, took to Twitter to complain about the situation.
Clement wrote:
“Um, so we’ve been lost on the road for 4hrs. Not a good first impression London. Athletes are sleepy, hungry and need to pee. Could we get to the Olympic Village please.”
According to MSNBC, the US Olympic bus driver wasn’t the only one to get lost on the way from the airport. A group of Australian officials had to find directions on their phones after their driver also got lost.
Damian Kelly, an Australian official, said:
“It would have been a great tourist trip if that is what you are here for. One of the doctors on board got [the GPS system] working for him, but then the Olympic Village hadn’t been loaded into the system and everyone was trying to find the name of the street that the village was in. In the end another physio got out his iPhone and gave directors to the bus driver via his phone.”
Um, so we’ve been lost on the road for 4hrs. Not a good first impression London.
— Kerron Clement (@KerronClement) July 16, 2012
Athletes are sleepy, hungry and need to pee. Could we get to the Olympic Village please.
— Kerron Clement (@KerronClement) July 16, 2012
Hugh Robertson, Britain’s Olympics minister, apologized to the athletes and officials who got lost on the way from the airport.
Robertson said:
“If people have been on buses that have got lost then it is of course regrettable. I am extremely sorry, and clearly the drivers need to know where they are going.”
