So, you’re probably either on a massive high or one of those hangover-lows that can only happen after the holiday of a life-time.
How was it for you? Was it the best night(s) of your life, building to a fantastic climax? Floods of tears? Or were you actually quite bored of it all by the end?
I am, of course, taking about the Olympics, and the post Olympic buzz/downer. Was it the Greatest Show on Earth?
From me, it is an emphatic YES. All of the shows over the 17 days were the greatest shows on earth. From the build up to the opening ceremony to the last dying gasp of The Who closing formalities as last night turned into this morning.
Now, let me declare my interest here.
I am not one of those people who just got caught up in the zeitgeist. I was not a naysayer until the first gold medal was won. I was not one of those people who didn’t know any of the sports or the sportspeople.
No, I’ve been in this for the long haul. I’ve long been a fan of the Olympics, since the first one that I can remember in Seoul in 1988. I remember collecting the card inserts from the cornflake boxes, making pamphlets about the sports, and decorating my room with endless reproductions of the swirl and rings logos.
In 1992 we were on holiday in the South of France whilst the Barcelona Olympics were on and the family relented – after very persistent berating from myself – to a day-trip to Barcelona in the space between the Olympics and the Paralympics. I’m not sure that security then was as tight as now as I can distinctly recall peering into the stadium and watching a rehearsal for the opening ceremony of the Paralympics. We
had to buy a t-shirt. And it had to be a specific t-shirt. It had to have the rings, and the official ‘running man’ brushstroke logo, and it had to have Cobi, the mascot on it. I still own it to this day, though I’m not able to squeeze myself into it any more.
So I’m a long-standing fan of the Olympics, and was on incredibly nervous tenterhooks on the 6 July 2005, watching live and awaiting the decision as to where the 2012 games were to be held. Paris was the favourite – though this was a good omen for us as historically the favourite had lost out to second place. And – with
much whooping, yelping and jumping from myself – so it proved, and we won!
I was ecstatic.
I was over the moon.
This was unbelievable.
The games were coming here – to my country – in my lifetime.
And then it went quiet.
Over the following 7 years there was a drip-feed of information, increasing in intensity as the pressure built. And I eagerly devoured all of it with much gusto. I couldn’t hear a bad word said about the games.
Whilst everyone else in the country was deriding the logo as garish, blocky, confusing, aggressive and generally far too modern; I found it bright, simple, clear, distinctive, very different and generally nice and modern.
Whilst they were annoyed by the slanting, angular Headline 2012 typeface, I loved how unique and unifying it was; they only ended up muffled under the ubiquity of it and actually how well it worked as an identity. (If you want a nice, readable but brief analysis of Olympic typefaces and branding, this article by Wired.com is good)
As every arena was completed I looked on avidly watching all the news reports as the velodrome had the last piece of roof lifted, the stadium was substantially completed for fitting out, and then Tom Daley inaugurated the aquatics centre as only he could.
The sense of thrill and delight was only marred by my inability to obtain any tickets whatsoever through the ballot. But, regardless, I would go to London and get as close as I could to the action. Merely to soak up the overwhelmingly electric atmosphere would be an achievement of an ambition of sorts.
However it was not to be.
Because a very good friend of mine had won a pair of tickets and offered me one of them. Well, I say 'won' as though she didn't have to pay for them, which obviously she did. In fact, on paying for them she had no idea exactly what she had 'won'.
I was delighted! I was going! I was actually blummin’ going to watch the Olympics!!!!!
Yes, it was beach volleyball – hardly a headline event. Yes it was at Horseguards’ Parade, so didn’t entitle me to access the Olympic Park and see the stadium up front; but it was still the Olympics!
And so in the run-up to the Opening Ceremony I was more than giddy with excitement. My enthusiasm peaked, the thrill was unbelievable – I was fever pitch personified. Ordinarily at this point, the whole thing could really only be an anti-climax, not live up to expectations, surely?
No. Any lapse or omission was entirely blurred or overwhelmed by the adrenaline coursing through my veins, by the phenomenal achievement of the organisers, the athletes and the volunteers. It was unbelievable. That they could – in just 7 years – turn a patch of contaminated wasteland in the East-end of London with a creaking transport system already bursting out of its seams; into a park of unimaginable beauty, with each of the buildings nominated for awards of architectural brilliance and sustainability; a modern high-speed rail link and an unimaginable fluidity of connection and administration, facilitated by gamesmakers who were not just helpful, but positively enthusiastic; was an achievement that no-one expected.
Particularly with an increasingly sceptical press.
Remember Athens? How the stadia were half-built just a few months before the opening ceremony? And Beijing with concerns over contaminated water and dangerous structures? Well, we didn’t have that. We were on target with each and every building. But the media can’t have that: we don’t do good-news stories. So there were escalating budgets to criticise and security problems requiring the army (THE ARMY!) to be drafted in, albeit smiling and jovial.
But these stories were great. They tried to subdue anyone getting overly carried away, adrift on a sea of unbounded enthusiasm. No, if we bring that enthusiasm under control, if it does all go wrong we can say “we told you so”. And if it goes right? No-one remembers the naysayer or the doom-monger. It wasn’t anti-patriotic. They weren’t doing it to stamp on the Brits; they were doing it because we are Brits – we love an underdog or for someone to achieve in the face of adversity - because when you keep putting something down, it can only look and grown up - and the IOC were not giving them that adversity with the reports that London was “well prepared”, “on target” and positioned to provide the “best games ever” so something had to be done to temper, rationise, very-Britishly-moderate this unexpected display of emotion.
And, of course, the change happened after the Jubilee. I have already discussed the ‘Summer of Britain’ and ubiquity of the Union flag; but once the Jubilee was over, the next big thing was The Biggest Show On Earth. And it was on our doorstep. So they could then crank up the visibility – there were no distractions now, all attention was focused.
Build the buzz. Hype the hype. Cloak the secrets and start the guessing…
How was this show to start?
With Paul bluddy McCartney, obviously. If my Twitter feed was anything to go by, this was the let-down of the century. Surely the organisers had heard the grumblings from the Jubilee? Why is it they have to roll out Macca for every national event? But had it not been Sir Paul, there would have had to have been some other slight blip, annoyance or blunder to provide the contrast with the amazingness of the rest of the show. Someone’s laces would have been untied and we could all sit back and say “Well, if that’s the worst there was, we still put on a damned good show!”
I loved it. I watched it with the said very good friend that I was to go down to London the following weekend with to actually watch the games, and every moment awed me. This wasn’t all-out exuberance, a massive display of force; this was just good, British fun. Who cared if the rest of the World didn't understand it? Apparently not the rest of the World, who seemed to enjoy it just as much.
And that was just the start.
I did go down for the weekend and London was a-buzz. You could smell the enthusiasm in every ounce of air. This wasn’t an interference on the capital, the capital wanted ever second of it, was drinking it in as though it had never tasted excitement quite like it. People everywhere talked of nothing else.
I, of course, had gone all out. I was dressed in my Team GB shirt, Team GB shorts, Team GB wristband Union flag shoes and even Union flag underpants. You couldn’t move for Olympic memorabilia around my person. And it felt good.
I went to the Olympic Park. I didn’t get in, but I was able to have a (very expensive) pint right next door, and I had a very good view from the shopping centre. And I got to try the new high-speed rail link, which was fun.
And I obviously went to the beach volleyball (which I now know is a very different sport to ‘volleyball’) which you must go and watch if every you get the opportunity. Everybody wears next-to-nothing (we had one men’s match and one women’s) and, in the middle of play, for no apparent reason, they bring out some dancers to jig around for a bit. Brilliant.
And I have a ticket with a logo on it to take home. I can say I was there. If you squint very carefully in the corner of the screen you can possibly make out my Union flag that I was waving round proudly, despite the fact that none of the teams playing were Team GB. As an added bonus on the Sunday morning we got to stand in torrential rain and wait for the women’s marathon. A brilliant spirit even in the damp. God bless
the lass from Timor who brought up the rear a good five minutes after the penultimate runner.
And I found out that the differences between volleyball and beach volleyball are more than just the playing surfaces and the dancers.
And it all drew to a close last night with not enough superlatives to describe the fortnight.
Last night was always going to be difficult. It is the closing ceremony. It doesn’t have the hype and expectation of the Opening Ceremony. In fact, people don’t actually want it to happen – it is the inevitable end that we might as well try and make the most of; try to make good out of a funeral by turning the wake into a party. It’s not going to reflect the Opening Ceremony where the end is just the start: here the end
really is the end. It's like turning 30: it's not the start of a new century, it's the death of a decade (hence why I decided to run away for that particular experience.)
And so yes, the closing ceremony was always going to be a bitter-sweet moment, exemplified when Boris Johnson admitted that he had half a thought to run off with the Olympic flag and out of the stadium, inthe hope that we could keep the Olympics forever.
But that is the thing about this, and all festivals. If they didn't end, they wouldn't be special. And so I watched the closing ceremony, not really caring that they could have had some more, dfferent acts on, not caring that George Michael was promoting his new single rather than doing that-song-he-sings-about-having-sex-in-a-public-toilet-and-getting-caught. There was nothing that could lift my mood: this was the end of the greatest experience, my childhood hope and ambition. It had come true in the most British, admirable, achieveable, untaintable form.
And yet for me it was - as my life is - so incomplete. I shouldn't just have been there (I know that was more than many could have hoped for) I should have been in the Olympic Park. In the Stadium no less. For the Opening Ceremony. As an Athlete. With a Gold Medal and a Personal Best and World Record to beat.
I suppose I got as close as my mediocre life allows me. But I think that's good enough for me.
Over the next few weeks I intend to review - in my own entirely unqualified style - various aspects of the games, but in the meantime this is me done, drawn, exhausted, spent.
Fully Olympic'd out.
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