London 2012: A Final Analysis

"Look on the bright side, Harry, at least we
didn't have to pay to watch this garbage."

A supreme irony of Sunday night’s closing ceremony and the hostile reaction it provoked is that a predominating theme over the previous fortnight had been a refreshing change of attitude that the Olympics had brought to Britain. Gone was the sniping. Gone the cynicism. Gone the incessant moaning for which we are world-famous. Only for three hours of lazy cover acts masquerading as musicians to re-awaken the sleeping whinger in all of us again.

A shame that proceedings had to end on such a bum note, but what had come before had been so vital, so joyous, so life-affirming, that not even a show this bad could hope to overshadow it (The Guardian’s closing ceremony blogger summed things up perfectly as he quipped, "Just think: two weeks ago the world thought we were rubbish at sport and great at music")

Mr Bean: a bit naff by now at home, beloved worldwide
(believe me, the Bolivians loved it!). A smart move.

Then again, there were times on the evening of Friday the 27^th of August that I wondered if the sport, let alone the closing ceremony, could produce anything to rival the spectacle of Danny Boyle’s already-legendary curtain-raiser, particularly the spine-tingling combination of sight and sound as England’s ‘dark satanic mills’, forging those world-famous rings, rose to the soundtrack of Underworld’s And I Will Kiss and the beat of a thousand drummers. Boyle, who has always had a finger on the pulse of UK youth culture, was the only director capable of launching a Games whose motto was “Inspire a Generation”.

Hearts stop as one (not least at Ladbrokes).

And, as it happened, the most inspired move of the night was eschewing tradition and giving that very generation the privilege of lighting the Olympic cauldron, comprising a petal for each of the 204 competing countries. The bookies must have fainted in sheer ecstasy.

Beach volleyball: partisanship very much optional.

Pleasingly, those athletes who happened to come from one of the 203 non-British states were given the warmest of welcomes. Thousands of miles from London, I only had ESPN Latin America to rely on, but unless they were experiencing technical difficulties with their sound, it was abundantly clear to me that the foreign competitors were cheered to the rafters, with near-capacity crowds (full-houses prevented only by the IOC members’ indulgent self-service) at every venue.

Now here's an athlete who truly brings the world together. Women love
to see the back of him. And I can think of a fair few men who will too.

That legends were in their midst, and re-writing their own history at that, only added to the fervour. Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt in particular ensured that Beijing was simply an episode of a greater story (though I still feel the Jamaican could have seen off yet another record by going hammer-and-tongs for the line in the 200m).

The girl from the Steel City showed nerves of just that to take the
heptathlon gold.

But no Olympics is complete without home nation success – it just so happens that it’s of particular convenience to me and my compatriots this time. Chris Hoy, like the above mentioned, reaffirmed his place in history, contributing his fair share to the Massacre at the Velodrome. Mo Farah reduced the unflappable Brendan Foster in the BBC commentary box to blithers – twice. In Jessica Ennis, the Royal Family’s latest addition may finally have met her match in the Nation’s Sweetheart stakes. And did I shrug my shoulders in apathy as oor Andy mugged the greatest man to ever swing a racquet on Centre Court, in a sport I didn’t think should even have been included? Not exactly.

A nation rejoices as the King of Centre Court gets a Rogering
on his own lawn.

(Medal tables still grate with me, but the raw data is impressive on this count: compared with our table-topping US friends, we took about two-thirds of their total golds despite having one-fifth of their population – and that’s not to mention the runners-up! Playing at home certainly does the trick.)

It didn’t take long after London’s successful bid seven years ago for realism to well and truly set in – 24 hours, in fact, as Islamist terrorists wreaked havoc with the London transport network on the 7^th of July, taking 52 civilian lives in the process. A couple of years down the line, the world economic crisis hit home and as we watched Beijing in all its ostentatious glory, it became clear that London could not hope to win on such terms.

Trying Really Hard: soooo 2008! 

Instead, something wonderful happened, something which, if anything, would give the world an Olympics truer to its founding principles and London’s own avowed aim, since the bid process, of inspiring youth. As a nation, we have rightly been accused in the past of relying on our past ‘achievements’ – repulsive to the hundreds of millions who suffered under the Empire – to engender respect. The realities of austerity actually freed us to infuse the Games with a spirit of good humour, humility and healthy lashings of self-deprecation, and it appears the watching world has, to a great extent, been won over.

The true heroes of London.

Before coming out to Bolivia, I had a ringside seat to the dramas of British youth culture, working as an English teacher in two secondary schools, while living in a particularly benefit-hungry corner of Glasgow. As we set off for the mission field, absent family and friends would be mourned, but as for the materialistic, something-for-nothing attitude that was increasingly setting in…well, we were glad to see the back of that.

What has happened in London over those ‘happy and glorious’ 17 days has gone some way to restoring my faith in Britain’s ability to see past ourselves and our often trivial needs. 70,000 men and women from all backgrounds took two weeks off their work, travelled to London and paid their own way in one of the world’s most eye-wateringly expensive cities just to give the world a proper welcome – and that’s not to mention the 220,000 who were turned away due to lack of space. The biggest cheer of last night was reserved not for the athletes but for the ordinary Britons who made it all possible. Maybe, just maybe, in more than just an athletic sense, we can indeed inspire a generation.