One Night In Stratford - An Olympic Retrospective

When it was announced that London had won the bidding to host the 2012 Olympics, I suppose that I assumed that getting tickets would not pose too many problems. When the results of the first ballot for tickets was announced I realised how naive I had been because I was allocated precisely none; nada, zip, zilch, not a single one. I resigned myself to watching the Games on television, consoling myself that I had seen parts of the Torch relay and that I could perhaps see one of the “free” events like the marathon. Then along came the opening ceremony. I am not normally a fan of opening ceremonies but my elder daughter, who had got a job as a Games Maker, had been to a rehearsal and told me it was a bit special, so I watched it. I was dumb struck by its brilliance and was inspired; I now knew that I had to get tickets for something, anything.

Now it is well known that while most aspect of the Games were a success, the ticketing arrangements were heavily criticised and were something of a PR nightmare for the organisers, so it was with limited expectations that I logged on to the ticketing website. Within minutes I had been able to book tickets for the women’s basketball; not my first choice, but it was something. Then I noticed tickets available for the athletics on the evening of Saturday 4^th August. This was more like it! Frustratingly, although the website showed tickets available, when I came to book them it said there were none, but then a further search for tickets showed some still to be had. More in need of a whinge than anything, I phoned the ticket hotline (after a number of failed attempts) and was told that tickets were indeed available. The price quoted would probably have bought me a small house the last time the Olympics came to London in 1948. Was it worth it, I wondered? Would I regret it if I didn’t buy a ticket? After much dithering I gave my credit card details and stumped up £450, money well spent as it turned out. 

The obligatory shot outside the stadium, with Union Flag.

On Saturday 4^th August I collected my ticket at the ticket office at Stratford, passed through the airport style security and watched probably the greatest sporting event I have ever seen, or am likely to see. Awesome is a much overused word, but truly there is no greater superlative that can be used to describe that evening. Even half empty, the stadium itself looked magnificent. The spectators were enthusiastic and if largely supporting the British athletes, fully appreciative of the talents of the competitors of all nations. The atmosphere was overwhelming good natured, everyone was there to enjoy the spectacle, regardless of who won what event, unlike the partisan atmosphere at say, a major international football match.

As the stadium filled, the level of expectation palpably grew.

Of course Team GB was confident of at least one gold medal with Jessica Ennis leading the Heptathlon with just the 800 metres to go. In the build up to the Games and during the Games themselves, Ennis was pretty much poster girl for Team GB and the Games themselves. It is difficult to imagine the pressure that she must have been under; the weight of expectation was huge. That evening there was no possibility in the mind of anyone in that stadium that she would not claim gold and so it proved. I still find it difficult to watch a video of that race, or even replay it in my mind, without a lump in my throat. As Ennis crossed the line, the stadium rose and cheered with one voice. This couldn’t be topped, could it? Well, actually it could.

Jessica Ennis and her fellow heptathletes take a bow.

 There were high hopes that Mo Farah would claim a medal in the 10,000 metres, but he was nothing like as nailed on to win gold as Ennis apparently was. The twenty seven minutes that the race took will live with me forever. As Farah entered the last lap with a narrow lead the noise in the stadium was tremendous. As he flew down the back straight the cheering had been cranked up. As he came off the final bend, just twenty metres or so from where I was sitting (or standing by this stage), the cheering had cranked up still further. Everyone in the stadium seemed to be screaming at the top of their voices; I was, although by this stage I was incoherent, I have absolutely no idea what I was yelling! Somehow it occurred to me that when he crossed the line, and by now he was extending his lead and was certainly not going to be caught, the noise would increase still further, impossible though this seemed.

Mo duly crossed the finish line and the eruption of noise must be the loudest any group of human beings have ever made. Thinking back now, if Jessica Ennis’s race brings a lump to my throat, then I am likely to dissolve into tears when recalling Farah’s win.

While Ennis and Farah’s races were exceptionally emotional, Greg Rutherford’s win in the men’s long jump should never be forgotten either. In a remarkable period of less than an hour, Great Britain had amassed three gold medals, “quite remarkable” as David Coleman might have said.

This had been such a fantastic evening, such an emotional evening and such a successful evening, that when it was all over, it was with great reluctance that we left the stadium. Everyone present that evening knew that they had witnessed one of the greatest nights in British sporting history, that this truly was one occasion that we would never forget, and one which we wished would never end.

The crowd leaves the stadium with some reluctance.

Some people have been critical of the Games; many have doubted the supposed legacy that they have left. Surprisingly, it was Jimmy Carr who summed up the Games perfectly; “a summer off from cynicism,” he said, as Britain and particularly London, revelled in new found pride and pleasure. The Games did something exceptional; complete strangers talked to each other on the tube and at bus stops; the weather co-operated and one could actually be proud to be British!

I for one will never forget the Games and particularly the Saturday I was in the Olympic Stadium. It may have cost me an arm and a leg, but for the pleasure it gave me it was worth every penny.

Footnote:

As glorious and happy an occasion as the Games were, I find it impossible to think of them without recalling events of seven years previous. The euphoria that followed the announcement on 6^th July 2005 when London’s bid was announced as the winner was cut short by events less than twenty four hours later when bombs were detonated on the London Underground and buses, killing fifty two, injuring more than seven hundred and blighting the lives of thousands.