Olympics retrospective

A personal look back.

Well that's it then, the 2012 London Olympic Games season drew to a close with a very fitting combined parade through the capital yesterday afternoon.

What a season we enjoyed, it began in the first games with Farah, Bolt, Ennis, Phelps, Adams, Dujradin, Hoy, Wiggins to name but just a fraction of the sports people who delivered their absolute all whilst we dedicated fans and hitherto casual onlookers could only drool at the feast of excellence and applaude their endeavour.

It was four years ago in the 2008 Beijing Games that the lofty GB bar was set at 19 gold, 13 silver, and 15 bronze to total 47 medals and 4th place in the medals table.

This time round with the best home turf advantage any country could possibly have enjoyed, we exceeded every hope and dream with 29 gold, 17 silver, and 19 bronze, 65 medals in all and 3rd place in medals table.

Sadly for very many, the closing ceremony did little to complement the extraordinary high standard of the games themselves and clearly some lessons from the opener had not been learnt. It really only served as an awakening call for the lidless eyed naysayers who once again crawled onto the pages of the print and other social networking media.

What ho though, the Paralympics came along like a whirlwind and was strong enough to send these spectres at the feast scurrying for the shelters. As with the first games ParalympicsGB had a hard act to follow after Beijing where they finished in second place with 102 medals, comprising of 42 golds, 29 silver and 31 bronze.

We were not to be disappointed, a simply fabulous event from start to finish, the teams from China to Sri Lanka kept this old boy for one entertained, enthralled and utterly absorbed for the entire games. What an absolute privilege to watch people like Freney, Storey, Weir, Simmonds, Pascoe, Cockroft and Tuchinov in action. The will and sheer determination that was on display at every event has to be admired even by the hardest cynic.

The final medal tally for GB was 120, comprising of 34 gold 43 silver 43 bronze surpassing that of the 2008 games by 18. This was an important games for me personally and I am mighty glad to have seen as much as I have and loved every second that I have seen.

One of the big surprises for me was the most excellent coverage by Channel 4. We were treated to over 400 hours coverage here at home. The commentators did a fine job and the studio anchors, in particular Clare Balding and Ade Adepitan were a revelation. The Last Leg, the late evening sideways look at the games was a stroke of genius. The team of presenters, Adam Hills, Alex Brooker and Josh Widdicombe were superb and helped to break down a lot of taboos.

The closing ceremony was overlong but pleasant enough although I confess to finding Coldplay a bit bland at best. I would have liked to have heard a lot more from the British Paraorchestra and thought Chris Martin and his chums could have stopped for a longer brew.

The viewing figures are quite heartening, the first games opening was watched by 26.3 million with the closing at 23.2 million. The Paralympic opening was enjoyed by a credible 11.2 million and still reached 7.7 million at the closing. Hopefully a seismic shift in attitude.

The parade yesterday must have exceeded all hopes, from the TV pictures it looked like the whole south of England and his dog had made the trip. Best speech? Boris, by a country mile.

Rio de Janeiro was awarded the 2016 summer games more or less because Brazil had the world's sixth largest economy. The screws are already turning, complaints of the high cost, social unrest and uncertainty on making the deadline abound.

Seems like we have heard something similar before.


Onward.

Re: Olympics retrospective

Fine words George. For me the paralympics were amazing and Ch.4 did a damn good job.

Re: Olympics retrospective

I must admit I didn't see any of either but I was listening to the radio on Saturday when the sports and news journalists were discussing the Olympics and to a (wo)man they said that the Paralympics was by far the most amazing and inspirational games.

It seems to have completely overshadowed the main games as a sporting achievement. Overall the athletes in the paralympics certainly gave much better, more sporting and more thoughtful interviews than their able bodied counterparts when I saw them on the news.