4 Years Later...

Just over four years ago, I wrote the following about hosting the Olympics in London:

To all you non-U.K readers, I will let you in on a little secret: The country as a whole is absolutely petrified about hosting the next Olympics.

Our bid was a load of hot air and blagging and we don’t really have that much money. Plus, the city of London is an infrastructural nightmare and we are very bad at building things 1) Within budget 2)To schedule. I think the fact that our main rivals for the bid were the French, led to it becoming a big “We can’t possibly lose to them”- fest and we just said anything to convince the judges.

Such fears are not helped by the fact that Beijing have just held the biggest and most expensive Olympics ever and we’re worried ours will look like a school sports day in comparison.

Well, Alhamdulilah the U.K did not shame itself and we managed to host a marvellous Olympics and Paralympics, with the latter being treated like the major event (click here for the brilliant tv trailer for the Paralympics) it is, not an afterthought.

Like my previous post, I still loved the the Rhythmic Gymnastics with every fibre of my sequin-seeking heart, and the Artistic Gymnastics too. Of the many, many Team GB highlights (yippee!), I think Jade Jones winning her Taekwondo gold and throwing her helmet into the air with glee is my favourite.

As for the Paralympics, I love the track events best, with the races of Jason Smyth, David Weir and the 400m that Oscar Pistorius won, being my favourite performances.

I could go, but every single aspect of Olympiana has covered and gone over repeatedly here, but I just thought I’d have to document it in the blog after writing about it so many years ago.

E.T.A

Four years ago, Oreo was still the Little Occupant. Now one of her favourite games involves me putting an imaginary medal around her neck, handing her an equally imaginary bouquet of flowers and humming the national anthem, while she stares proudly into the middle distance. It seems the inspiring of generation has started very young indeed!

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