Well that was brilliant, wasn’t it? Every minute of it. I
just wish it could have gone on for longer.
As I get older, I realise the fragility of time more and
more (and I know I’m not that old!). I look forward to things on the horizon. But
before I know it, they’re over. And then a week, month and year passes and I
can barely remember the thing it was that I was so looking forward to or the
feelings it evoked in me at the time. As time passes it gets more difficult to
capture and return to the moment.
I fear this will be the case for the Olympics, but on a
national scale. Without doubt this has been the best British summer of my
lifetime. The sporting achievements in the Olympics and beyond have eclipsed
anything I have ever seen.
A good barometer is ‘Sports Personality of the Year’. In any
other year Andy Murray, Laura Trott, Andrew Strauss, Victoria Pendleton, Mo
Farah, Jessica Ennis, David Weir, Sir Chris Hoy, Rory McIlroy, Bradley Wiggins
and Ronnie O’Sullivan would have all been standout winners. This year, they’ll
be lucky to get an invite, let alone be featured in the programme.
Many a better writer than me has already waxed lyrical about
the summer of “sporting sensation”, so I won’t try and repeat that here. I do
however want to give my grandkids a short memoir of some of the things that I
will remember – maybe just as a guide for a “When I was younger…” tale while
they sit on my knee crunching on a Worther’s Original.
1) Our superiority in the cycling
The Olympics started for me, like for most people, with the integrally
British opening ceremony. Like millions of others I sat in my front room with
one eye on the telly and the other eye on Twitter as sarcastic pre Olympic
comments about Games Lanes and security turned into an outpouring of national
pride. It was brilliant.
But for me it was only the warm-up act, as my heart was soon
set racing by the sporting endeavours of Team GB. And out of all of these
endeavours, it was the cycling team that I found the most inspiring (To note -
inspiring is a word I rarely use).
On the first Saturday of the Games, I set off on my bike to
Fulham High Street and waited for what I thought would be the British team
leading Mark Cavendish home for Team GB’s first gold in the Road Race. However,
not wanting to miss a moment, I had a pocket radio to listen to the commentary
as they got closer.
Unfortunately this meant by the time the peleton was a couple
of miles away, I already knew that the race had been lost. But it was still an
amazing moment to see the British cyclists, including King Bradley, racing as
hard as they could at the front of the chasing peleton to try and make up an
impossible deficit on Mark Cavendish’s behalf.
It was a shame that Cavendish missed out on a medal again. But
the team effort involved was nothing short of remarkable and not really
something I had really ever considered before. Five cyclists rode 200 miles
just to put one of their team mates in a position from which he could win an
individual medal 500 metres from the finishing line. That dedication to a team
mate is what I found inspiring.
The same spirit carried on into the Velodrome – the most
electric of all of the Olympic venues in my opinion. The team pursuit is now
one of my favourite sports to watch, especially when Team GB smash a world
record every time they take to the track.
2) My super Saturday
Super Saturday will probably go down as the biggest day of
the Olympics. But mine was quite different to most as I was actually busy when
most of the winners took gold.
In the morning, I was running in preparation for the New York
marathon as Team GB rowed to three gold medals. Then when Ennis, Farah and
Rutherford roared to victory in the Olympic stadium, I was busy watching the
Team GB football team narrowly lose in a penalty shoot-out to South Korea with
my 83-year-old Grandad.
But that didn’t mean I missed out on the action. Once again
my pocket radio came to the rescue. In the morning, I was with the rowers every
step of the way and they were with me – I’ve never found a run easier. Then
later, I sat in the Millennium Stadium watching a below par GB performance
while listening to events unfold at the Olympic Park. When Team GB was going
1-0 down to the South Koreans I was cheering for Farah crossing the finishing
line.
Super Saturday was capped off the morning after with Andy
Murray and Ben Ainsle, two of my favourite Olympians, winning gold. The roll
that the British team was on was summed up by Ben Ainsle’s interview a couple
of days before the final races of his sailing class. I mean, how often does
somebody get away with saying something like: “He’s made me angry. And he didn’t
want to make me angry”? If I did that, the person that made me angry would romp
to victory. But not Ainsle. He backed it up by kicking “the Dane’s” arse.
3) The
spirit of the Olympic Park
I was lucky enough to go to the Olympic Park and get ‘taken
up the orbit’ (less painful than it sounds) before the Games. And it was
incredible, much more than just a stadium in the middle of Stratford as I had
imagined. The venues were amazing, especially the Aquatics Centre, Velodrome
and stadium and you could see how much thought had been put into making it an
Olympic park rather than just a venue to watch sport.
And when the Games started it really came to life. I went to
the Olympic Park three times during the Paralympics – to the opening and
closing ceremonies and to a day of athletics.
Each time it was a great day out. For the athletics, I was
there from about 9am-6pm. The sport finished at midday, but I spent the rest of
the day walking around the park in the sunshine, having lunch at the world’s
biggest McDonalds and laying on the large grass areas listening to the live
music.
The spirit on the park was extremely memorable also - so
different to a football match. People were evidently happy and excited to be
there and it had a real family feel. Equally high spirited were the now famous
Games Makers, sitting on their high chairs chatting to the crowd through their
megaphones or signing a song and giving people a high five with their giant
foam hands. It was just a great atmosphere to be a part of.
4) The borderline offensive office decoration
Olympic fever took over everything – even the office.
Luckily I work in a place that takes an open-mind to these sorts of events. The
sport was played on our TVs dotted around the office and every time Team GB won
a medal, a bell was rung and a trolley full of drinks wheeled out in to the
middle of everyone’s desks.
We also had a sweepstake with each pod of desks drawing a
nation out of a hat. This gave people the license to decorate the office in
their adopted nation’s colours in a manner that can only be described as
grotesque and often crossing the line of political correctness. As China, we
soon had pictures of Chairman Mao dotted around, Chinese lanterns hanging from
the ceiling and a nearby pillar claimed as Tibet. My favourite decoration
though was the 5 hula-hoops that one pod of desks taped to the ceiling in the
form of the Olympic rings.
To round off the Olympics, the top performing desks competed
in a final Olympic competition with a school sports day theme. Unfortunately, my
team didn’t triumph in the egg and spoon, sack, and beanbag on the head relay.
5) The intimacy of the victory parade
The final and perhaps most memorable moment from the Games
though was the winners’ parade.
With a day off I decided to get down to Trafalgar Square
early and positioned myself at the front of the crowds on the Strand. Remarkably
I found myself standing next to a 61-year-old from the same town as me who had
attended the same school – small world.
After about two hours of waiting, the parade of 21 trucks
holding the most famous faces of the past two months reached us. It was amazing
how close and accessible they were – close enough to shake their hands.
In hindsight, I think this just emphasised the remarkable
intimacy of the Olympics even though it was organised on such a massive scale. I love football, but it’s stars are never
that accessible. However, the unique thing about people like Tom Daley, Jessica
Ennis and Sir Chris Hoy is that they have a boy/girl next door grounding to
them that makes the public feel like they can relate to them and almost know
them personally. This, I think, is why there was such an outpouring of warmth
as they went past that day. And most pleasing of all, is that it felt like it
was a warmth that was reciprocated by the athletes towards the crowd.
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Anyway, grandson….this is one for you to look forward to.
Thank you London 2012. You certainly made the last few months interesting.
N.B: All pictures copyright Andrew Webster
