What did Bede know, and when did he know it?

Aerin never misses a chance to remind me I'm a nerd.  I admit, the evidence is relatively strong.  I have an engineering degree and know how to use the vi editor.  My preferred mode of humor is the pun.  And I played Dungeons & Dragons as a kid.  OK, and in college.  Yeah, even after I got out of college, had a job, and was married.  But by then it was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

Anyway, my love of D & D fueled also my love of Anglo Saxon history.  I think I own more books about the time of Alfred the Great than any other topic except perhaps writing.  So imagine my excitement to read this article about a new archaeological discovery of a mass Viking grave.  How cool!

You don't need to read the article.  You can just get the summary from the sidebar, which I've copied verbatim over there, below on the right.

• 51 bodies were unearthed near the site
  of the 2012 London Olympics
• On Friday, scientists announce the men
  were Vikings from the Dark Ages
• The men, who were beheaded, were found
  near the Olympic sailing venue

But I think the scientists are chasing the wrong questions. It's all well and good to try to figure out where the Vikings came from using iodine or isotopes or dialysis or whatever it is they use. And to examine in tiny detail all the wounds they received, like some sick S&M history voyeur.

What I really want to know is, why were they executed near the Olympic sailing venue?  Why not near, say, the Olympic velodrome?  Or the Olympic fencing venue?  Science may never reveal the answer to this mystery.