I had a chance to visit the
Paralympics this week and I have to say my attitudes changed significantly
whilst I was there and also by watching the events on the Television.
The Olympics themselves were an
absolutely amazing spectacle, for months if not years we had been getting the
drip, drip from LOCOG about how fantastic the games would be. I always knew
they would be special but I was totally blown away by the power and emotion of
the event and about how they changed the mood of the country. Every time I
think of this I get tears in my eyes and I do not understand why so I cannot
put it into words, I think it is the pride of being British and of the entire
world looking at us and saying “wow! you did a good job, but I can’t be sure it
is not
something else. I was glued to the TV for two
weeks and I will always remember where I was for “The Golden Hour” when Team GB
won 3 track and field events in 45 minutes and the action in the velodrome
where quite simply we are the best team in the world.
I had deliberately not tried to buy
any tickets to the Olympics as I did not like
the requirement to purchase tickets using a VISA card.in truth maybe it was
also partly driven by a lack of desire on my part to actually be there. During
the Olympics however my objections softened and I found myself purchasing
tickets for the family to a Paralympic track and field session in the Olympic
stadium. In truth I think I was driven by the desire to see the facilities and
the Olympic park before they were closed down and to try to imagine what the
atmosphere was like during the events, a belated attempt to say “I was there”.
Don’t get me wrong I had and immense sense of respect and admiration for the
competitors after all they had had to overcome immense challenges just to get
to the point where they could start training to be an athlete but I was not
expecting a particularly high standard of sport. By the end of the Olympics the
Paralympics had sold all 2.5 Million tickets available the most ever for the
event. I had assumed that the capacity of the Olympic stadium was going to be
cut back but when our tickets were delivered they were high in the stadium,
“fantastic” I was thinking wasn’t it great that we had managed to sell out an
80,000 seat stadium for a disabled sports event. Then I started to see the
events on the TV, this was not a disabled sports event this was an athletics
meeting. The competitors were athletes in every sense of the word and the drama
of the event was every bit as great as the Olympics and the standard of
competition every bit as high. Actually being in the Olympic Stadium and seeing
the long jump competitors jumping over 7 metres on blades and often with only
one arm was jaw dropping. I can saw “we were there” to see medal presentations
to Oscar Pistorius and David Weir, the latter received a cheer from the crowd
the like I have not heard before and the crowd collectively singing the British
National Anthem
was very emotional and
loud!. You could not appreciate the noise of the crowd until you left the
stadium and felt your ears still ringing.
Getting back to my original point
about my change in attitude, I became transfixed by the quality of the sport
and forgot the disabilities the athletes have, the 100 metres sprint final
contested by Jonnie Peacock and Oscar Pistorius was an electrifying 10.9
seconds of drama. The London 2012 games have changed me and I am
immensely proud of the LOCOG team who put them together, immensely proud of my
country and in awe of the competitors. My hope is that the2012 strap line of
“inspiring a generation” encourages a change to “role models in a nation sick
and tired of glamour models and reality shows” to quote Cole Moreton from the
Sunday Telegraph.
