Monday 25 August 2008

Post-Olympic Blues

Like many people, I've spent much of the past fortnight watching the Olympics, and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Team GB got 47 medals in the end, including 19 golds, which was way more than anyone expected - the team coaches set the medal expectation at 35, roughly 12 of each colour.

I found myself watching sports I'd never watched before - like diving, taekwondo and modern pentathlon. The diving in particular was riveting - I couldn't tear myself away from the men's synchronised diving that I was watching at the gym one morning, and was consequently late getting a shower and then late to work, but it was worth it. I'm quite sad that the Olympics are over - only four years till the next one!

Here are my memorable moments from the Games: -

Happy moments
    Rebecca Adlington winning two golds in the pool - the first British woman to win a swimming gold since 1960 and the first British swimmer (male or female) to win 2 golds since 1908;

    Chris Hoy winning 3 golds in 3 different track cycling events - and the British cycling team winning more medals than any other sport by far: 8 golds, 4 silvers and 1 bronze;

    Ben Ainslie getting his third consecutive Olympic gold medal in the sailing - and the sailing team taking 4 golds, a silver and a bronze altogether;

    Matthew Mitcham producing an almost-perfect dive to win gold in the 10m platform.
Not-so-happy moments
    Phillips Idowu being pipped to the gold medal in the triple jump;

    The same thing happening to the women's quadruple sculls - making it three silvers in three Olympics for Katherine Grainger; I was gutted for her. Still, 2 medals of each colour in the rowing is GB's best result in 100 years;

    Kelly Sotherton (who I feel a kind of affinity to, as we were born on the same day) failing to capitalise on a mediocre heptathlon field and only managing a fifth place.
Beyond-belief moments - for all the right reasons
Beyond-belief moments - for all the wrong reasons
    The US and GB men and US women all failing to make the final of the 4x100m relay because they couldn't get the baton round - then the GB and Jamaican women dropping the baton in the final;

    Angel Matos being banned from all future World Taekwondo Federation competitions after kicking a referee in the face for disqualifying him from his bronze medal match.
London, with its ridiculous logo (although there are 4 years for it to persuade me to like it) is now officially the Olympic City, and Rob and I are already planning which events we want to go and see...

2 comments:

Jenny Greenwood said...

I'm sure once I've got over the busy weekend and had chance to sit down for a few hours I'll suddenly wonder what do I do if there are no Olympics to watch? So I'll join you in the post-Olympic blues after I've watched the highlights of things that I recorded over the weekend.

Jill Fosness said...

Honestly, I was not planning on watching much Olympic action, but one glimpse of Phelps in his speedo torpedoing through the water, I felt like a dirty old woman and I was hooked!

I watched SO many hours of the Olympics and I too watched sports I never would have thought I would have enjoyed. I was really into women's/girl's (they're like 16!!) gymnastics - which surprised me.

My favorites would have to include both US gold medal winning beach volleyball teams - definitely will sign on to see some beach volleyball in 2012 - you know if I'm over there by then ;)