I am sitting here listening to the soundtrack to the opening ceremony of the
Olympic games and I got to the track "And I Will Kiss" (that’s the
one with the 1000 drummers) and the sheer sound and emotion that evoked took me back just over 2 weeks to when it all kicked off.
Over the past few years I have listened to my wife saying "we won’t be
able match Beijing, we can’t pull it off, and it’s going to be embarrassing".
I really hate people who say "I told you so" but Carla "I told you so". In fact there were so many negative people who thought the same way, no wonder this country turns on itself from time to time when all we
really need is a great big dose of can do.
There were many who doubted the British public saying we would not get
behind the games and it’s not for everyone but you only have to look back at
the crowds lining the streets, many deep, for the road races and marathons to
realise that we loved every minute of it. There were of course a number of
people out there who did not watch, or even understand why we were doing this but I guess they had their own party.
So we were wowed by the opening ceremony, disconsolate that we had no golds after 2 days, going crazy over 6 gold medals in one day, and genuinely over joyed that we finished 3rd in the world - I will say that again THIRD IN THE WORLD OF SPORT. Not bad for a country of just over 61 million. To put our achievement in to perspective the US would have needed 116 Golds and 416 medals in total - when actually they managed 46 Gold and 104 medals, China would have needed 798 Gold and a total haul of 1848 medals when in actual fact they only wound up with 38 Gold and 88 in total.
Whilst our sports men and women are fit, dedicated individuals who sacrifice
everything for their sport the Great British crowd were a massive influence on
the end result, again proving that whether we got tickets to the events we
really wanted or not we gave enthusiastic support to every athlete, I don't
generally watch sport on TV but even I was going home at night and watching any sport so long as we were in it. In fact even if we were not in an event (rare occasions) I was still watching because the British crowd latched on to other athletes to get behind and give them a boost proving that we are not a jingoistic bunch of miserable bastards as some would portray us.
Now it's all over. What are we going to do with ourselves of an evening or
weekend, and just what excuse will we come up with to be couch potatoes again?
Oh yes the Paralympics start 29th August and, whilst the hype and coverage may not be as extensive as it was for the able bodied athletes, you can guarantee one thing here is a bunch of people who if you didn't feel bad about your fitness levels before you will once you have seen this lot. Through personal pain and suffering, both mental and physical, these athletes will prove that with enough will and a desire to not give in you can be anyone you want to be. Come
on Team GB.
I won't make many friends with this next bit but I never do on this subject,
the downside about right now, apart from the Olympic feel good factor dissipating, is that we are going from a world stage where the athletes worked bloody hard, for no real and tangible commercial gain, to a bunch of overpaid, under achievers who demand a fortune - Yes its Football (some say soccer) season again, whoop-de-fucking-do!
Despite my cynical nature for the 'great game' - there is actually a side line game we can play this season - it's called "see how many
football clubs greedy bastard players can bankrupt through excessive wage demands". My money is on 3 English clubs and 1 Scottish - any takers?
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Location:Twyford,United Kingdom
