It's all over, just over two weeks ago we were all nervous (yes I'm including everyone in this no matter how much you disliked the Olympics) as to how London and Britain would cope with the pressure of hosting the Olympic games. All in all I think it was a rousing success from almost every stand point, the organisation as far I'm aware was well dealt with, the crowds were all enthusiastic especially for the ones who didn't win (although not surprising as we are usually the ones in that position) and the athletes themselves all did very well for Britain.
Right from the word go we marked our intent for these games with the opening ceremony that was brilliantly British right from the way it was performed to the message it sent out to the rest of the world. It basically stuck two fingers up to other opening ceremonies and said this is Britain, if you know our culture you'll understand this, if not then tough to you. Then came the start of the events and we were all talking about certain athletes performing well and then being disappointed when they weren't able to deliver and the obvious shocks and surprises when those who weren't expected to, did deliver. Now I'm fine with the athletes who were expected to win but didn't they obviously tried their hardest but on the day it just wasn't good enough or someone else just performed better but what did annoy me was the amount of times I heard 'Well they've had a disrupted training regime what with the injury they had.' I'm sorry but what athlete hasn't incurred an injury at some point or other, it seemed to be the bog standard excuse for why we didn't win. Sometimes you just have to take your hat off to the opponent and say well done not oh well I would have won but I twisted my ankle three years ago and I missed three days of training which meant you won instead. I'm not blaming this one on the athletes in the slightest this one is aimed at the commentators who couldn't avoid saying it if we didn't win. Yes I'm sure most of them did have an injury that hampered their training but it won't have been the excuse for all of them. Thankfully we did far better than anyone expected us to so this wasn't used half as much as it could have been.
That really is my only grumble at what has been a great couple of weeks for me being able to watch the Olympics from nine in the morning until about midnight and of course within this time slot came the brilliant little show called 'Olympics Tonight' with Gabby Logan. I dunno why but this programme had me hooked from one of the first times it was on. It wasn't the fact that it primarily celebrated British success, it was more the live nature of it and the cheesy links to different features of the show. Even the way they introduced the guests was fantastic, using the old Superstars start theme...you just knew it was going to be a show you didn't want to miss. Then came the interviews with the winning athletes from the day and the delay from the questions to the answer, it was like the interview from Mike Bassett when he's in Rio funnily enough when Gabby was interviewing him...maybe it's just her interviewing technique? Whatever it was about this programme I never wanted to miss is and I think whoever came up with the idea was a genius especially if they suggested to do everything live.
Over the last two weeks there have been highs and there have been lows and unfortunately one of the lows for me was the closing ceremony, maybe we'd set the bar too high but for me and I might be alone in thinking this but it just didn't live up to the success of the rest of the games. It definitely had it's moments of quality but they were just too few and far between. It was as if we'd spent our budget on the three main acts then panicked realising they would take up at most fifteen minutes between them. There are two moments from the closing ceremony that really did make me laugh and neither of them were planned. First was Boris, the illustrious Mayor of London, really jigging away to the Spice Girls and second was probably the best and most unexpected moment. It was during the marathon medal ceremony when Lamine Diack had been tasked with handing out the flowers or posies as one commentator quite rightly named them. Everyone else who has had this job has delicately picked them up by their stems and graciously handed them over but this wasn't the way Lamine was going to do it, oh no. He picked them up like a football or a potato or something, he grabbed them by their heads and practically threw them at the athletes basically saying what we're all thinking: what is the point in this things? When he was told he'd be involved in the medal ceremony I bet his heart jumped at the chance to hand over the medals then this would have been shattered when he was told no you're handing over the flowers. Well he definitely made his feelings very clear about what he thought of that job much to my and sure a lot of other people's amusement.
I'm going to leave you merry people now as I'm sure I've taken up far too much of your time through you reading this but I just couldn't avoid writing at least one blog about the Olympics in London...I mean as so many people have said 'It's a once in a lifetime experience.'
