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Monday, August 13, 2012

London 2012: The end of a great adventure for the nation

Flying the flag: Golden girl Jessica Ennis lived up to her billing as the face of the Games
Flying the flag: Golden girl Jessica Ennis lived up to her billing as the face of the Games
Olympic bowl

Mo Farah and Usain Bolt
It's good to share: Mo Farah borrows Usain Bolt's "archer" while the sprinter tries out the "Mobot"
THE BBC REPORTS
After 16 days of adrenalin and delight, of contests fought and won, of teary triumphs and devastating defeat, the Games of London 2012 are abruptly at a close.
Ten thousand athletes have headed home, the crowds dispersed, the cauldron extinguished. In their place, along with the unforgettable memories, is a sadness too that something so fun is now consigned to the past.
Danny Boyle's opening ceremony spoke of "Isles of Wonder". In the days that followed his spectacular, the stars of 26 sports and 302 events made that promise real.
Established icons like Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps dominated the headline sports. Olympian greats like Chinese diver Wu Minxia and Italian fencer Valentina Vezzali lit up the undercard.
Great names known previously only to aficionados stepped into the limelight to dominate and amaze - 800m machine David Rudisha, Dutch cycling queen Marianne Vos, Yorkshire's triathlon titan Alistair Brownlee.
Young talents destined to dominate broke through and stood tall: Ruta Meilutyte, seizing 100m breaststroke gold at 15; Gabby Douglas, aged 16, winning both individual and team all-around gymnastics gold; Kirani James, the future of 400m running, adding Olympic gold to his World title aged just 19.
For the host nation, there was success beyond belief - 29 golds, 65 medals in total, won from Weymouth to Waltham Abbey and drawn from 19 disparate sports.
The slogan "Our Greatest Team" had seemed before the Games to be dangerously close to hubris, a promise that might not be kept and an inadvertent insult to the champions who had come before.
Now, with the class of 2012 finishing an unprecedented third in the medal table, it is instead the most straightforward and accurate of descriptions.
Britons won medals standing and sitting, punching and kicking, swimming, biking and running and sometimes all three in succession.
There was Super Saturday, that giddy day of six golds, more than had been won in 15 entire Olympics of the past, and in the main stadium, three in 46 minutes alone on the greatest night of athletics in British sporting history.
Three or more golds were won by British athletes on six different days, two on each of four other days.
Andy Murray triumphed at Wimbledon. Dave Brailsford's track cyclists thumbed their noses at UCI rule changes and ruled the velodrome regardless. Out at Eton Dorney, the rowers grabbed the regatta by the throat and never let go.
Opponents muttered about magic wheels. The nation just kept celebrating.
Medals were won across class divides and ethnic groups. As new national heroes like Laura Trott and Nicola Adams emerged, sports few had cared about obsessed us all. Double trap shooting, double canoe slalom, double delight in a single afternoon.
At one point last week, Britain won gold medals in dressage and women's boxing within the same hour. World, you found yourself singing - can we play you every week?
During the opening ceremony, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web had emailed a message on to grandstands all around: 'This is for everyone'.
As millions around Britain cheered their compatriots on and celebrated together as they came good, it felt increasingly like a two-week feel-good mantra.
Two and a half million people came to the Olympic Park; seven million saw some part of the Games in the flesh. Those denied access by bad luck or a creaking ticketing system watched on giant screens and small smartphones alike.
There were 70,000 volunteers who gave their time and cheery demeanour for free. Smiling members of the Armed Forces made bag-searches and security checks an easy pleasure.
Britons do not have a monopoly on sporting support, but they will cheer anyone and watch anything - 80,000 watched a single match of women's football. Thousands lined the streets and parks for events as unglamorous and unusual as 50km race-walking and 10,000m of open-water swimming.
In the ExCeL the noise actually hurt your ears. In the velodrome and at the athletics, it threatened to stop your heart.
There were tears where you expected them and tears where you did not.Sir Chris Hoy cracked as his sixth Olympic gold was placed around his neck; swimmer Chad le Clos's dad Bert, celebrating his son's shock victory over Phelps in the 200m butterfly, became a viral sensation with his paternal eulogy.
For some, like South Korean fencer Shin A Lam, it was the pain of defeat that turned on the taps. For others, like 400m hurdles gold medallist Felix Sanchez, it was the memory of family members who were no longer here to witness their moment of triumph.
There were unexpected supermen - American Manteo Mitchell running the last 200m of his 400m relay with a broken leg - and unprecedented superwomen like Sarah Attar, last in her 800m heat by more than half a minute but the first female from Saudi Arabia ever to compete at an Olympics.
There were also curios. A man with a hip replacement won a gold medal for Britain; when we had finished praising Nick Skelton, we looked up to see a German horse called Damon Hill moonwalking in front of the Old Royal Naval College.
Some celebrated with fast food and long-denied guilty pleasures. German discus champion Robert Harting went partying on a cruise liner, lost his clothes and accreditation and spent the night of his greatest triumph sleeping rough at Stratford Tube station.
Was a generation truly inspired, as Lord Seb Coe promised and so many hoped?
It will take more than this month to know. As one wag said, these Olympics dragged millions of kids away from their computer games and motivated them instead to watch endless hours of sport on TV.
For now, with the memories still fresh, we are left with a series of vivid snapshots: Sir Wiggo on a gilded throne, seas of union jacks, Gamesmakers with giant foam fingers, and gold pillarboxes popping up around everyone's corner.
We saw dancing NHS nurses, BMX racers framed against a blue east London sky, a blighted corner of the capital awash with wildflowers, Usain doing the Mobot and Mo doing Usain's archer.
Now it's all over, there is just one more impossible thing to ask for: can we do this every summer?

Two and a half million people came to the Olympic Park; seven million saw some part of the Games in the flesh

Comments

  • 71.

     
    Jeter and co. smashed the unbreakable, a pre 1990 women's sprint world record. Bolt and Rudisha are very special. Watching Mo win was emotional. Seeing the East German record fall after 27 years is an historic moment. Will we live to see the day Flo-Jo's tainted records are broken? Fantastic Olympics, but for me, it is all about the purest sport, running. And we want it drug free.
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    Comment number70.

     
    Does anyone here know where The Queen was and also Prince William?
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    Comment number69.

     
    I'm an expat living in the US.The excitement here is palpable. Not the climax of the greatest show on earth. Not the wit, charm and imagination on display by the Brits. Nor are they stirred by the coming together of humanity for incredible feats of sporting endeavour.
    No a bunch of fat guys in tights are about to spend months beating each other up. Football is back and all is well with their world
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    Comment number68.

     
    As a pom living in Geelong, Australia, I feel incredibly proud of the display by team GB and the games organisers . The opening and closing ceremonies were fantastic examples of British humour and music, with very little of the pretentiousness often seen on these sorts of occasions.

    Unfortunately the local free to air TV coverage here has been woeful, hurrah for BBC live text commentary!
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    Comment number67.

     
    I'm an expat and now US citizen, but I still have to root for team GB. I grew up with GB having a few medal hopes here and there, but now! I love California, but this reminds me there's a big part of me still in the UK. Proud! I just wish I could have been there to see it in person. I've been following the BBC text feed for the past 16 days, now I get to go back and watch all the team GB medals
    • 6.

       
      Great article & couldn't agree more. I am an example of the ever-reaching and inescapable grip which has emanated from GB. Honeymooning in Hawaii has not prevented me from following every event over the past 2 weeks. Watching Tom Daley grab bronze or Marvellous Mo & the superhuman Brownlees from Waikiki beach has been an incredible experience. We nailed it! Good job GB - we're all truly proud!!!
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      Comment number65.

       
      Absolutely super Olympics!
      Legacy now - keep all the sporting facilities running day and night for all of all ages in an affordable way without thinking much about anypaybacks.
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      Comment number64.

       
      Well done London! Incredible! The bad thing: it has been over :-(
      Let's wait for Rio 2016, which btw, those 8 minutes during the closing ceremony, also was incredible! Thanks again to everyone around the UK who made this London 2012 possible!
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      Comment number63.

       
      To Waz my daughter who is my youngest child at 18 (3 older brothers) also jumped,dived,ran and got excited,at age 60 i ran to the fridge jumped up from my chair to go to the toilet and punched the air watching every athlete that took part in every sport,inspired absolutely,and my grandchildren asking if i could do a forward roll,priceless but in the excitement i tried it,inspiration is worth it
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      Comment number62.

       
      Great closing.Great performance from Team GB.
      I hope the citizens of the south of England in general,and London specifically will wake up one day and realise how fortunate they are and always have been when all the goodies get handed out.
      The further North you go the less you see and get from our lords and masters stationed in the capital.
      The nation paid for ALL of this.
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      Comment number61.

       
      @60 I'm with you. I've got so little work done over the past 16 days but I've loved every minute of the Olympics and I'm sad it's all over so quickly.

      At least we put on an amazing games and didn't embarrass ourselves
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      Comment number60.

       
      @55 I think you'll find s/he (@52) is quoting comments s/he made on other Olympic blogs. Me? I thought it was brilliant (the Olympics, that is) but at least I might get some work done now that it's over - until the Paralympics, of course.
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      Comment number59.

       
      From the Houston, Texas USA a resounding BRAVO Great Britain! Probably the best Olympic Games - at least since I've been watching in 1964. We're all so happy and proud of Team USA and Team GB - but especially Team GB. What a feat - 29 medals! It was a blast watching the British Gold Rush. Thank you for a wonderful distraction from the heat of a long Texas summer. Outstanding!!!
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      Comment number58.

       
      @1.

      Yes some of the Governments decisions are unpopular but its not like they could turn around last year and say "Sorry, we need to save some money, we won't bother with this Olympics thing".

      Even assuming they could do this, the sunk costs would already be huge, meaning cancelling it would probably not make financial sense because they needed to sell tickets to reclaim some of the costs.
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      Comment number57.

       
      30.
      Kurt Replei

      Nothing I hate more than people using the olympics to knock football, bearing in mind that the olympics comprises several hundred events and the FIFA world cup is only one, that makes the comparison therefore inappropriate
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      Comment number56.

       
      A view from Brisbane: my 5 year old daughter supported Australia, Britain, China, & basically anyone in a pretty uniform. She went to bed watching the Olympics & woke up to watch; a record has been set in our house, Spongebob Squarepants beaten in to second place whilst in our living room she practiced diving, running, jumping, etc - inspire a generation? I think you did London, I think you did!
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      Comment number55.

       
      @52. I've seen some mixed comments from media outside of the UK but most of this seemed to focus on not liking the Opening ceremony. Ignoring this part, most of the feedback seems to be positive.

      Is this also your impression or have you read/seen/heard comments that have been negative about the actual sporting events?
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      Comment number54.

       
      Must say that this olympics has impressed beyond expectations, I was one of those cynics who that the olympics would be a shambles, make no mistake there will be recriminations after this event, but I've parked my cynicism for the time being and I wish I'd been to see more of the events.

      Well done GB and well done London... proud of these games
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      Comment number53.

       
      I found the Olympics to be a wonderful celebration of everything that is joyous in life: spectators cheered for competitors who performed to their best, sometimes achieving excellence, regardless of their nationality. The locations were spectacular, the atmosphere unbelievable. It was mind-boggling just watching it; how the competitors felt, I have no idea.
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      Comment number52.

       
      The London game is branded as worst ever by many foreign media






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