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Olympics 2012
Aug. 6th, 2012 12:16 amI will admit to being completely apathetic towards the Olympics during the run-up to the opening ceremony. The ceremony itself we only watched, grudgingly, because one of our friends was one of the volunteer dancers and, bless, he was so excited about it, how could we not.
I will also admit that aside from feeling that the moment might be one of the most surreal of my life, the moment of watching the Queen purr "Good evening, Mr Bond" before she, the royal corgis, and Bond himself set-off to the fanfare of Handel's Royal Fireworks was one of the few moments I might have been persuaded to say "You know what? I think I'm proud to be British..."
And then last night we wound up at the local pub. Unplanned and all the better for that, we found ourselves gathering round to yell at the screen as Rutherford, Ennis and Farah tried to claim an Olympic medal.
This caught my interest initially because of the name. The Appleton-Rutherford laboratory's canteen used to do a smashing fish and chips which I was very fond of. Call it positive name association. The interest then remained as we marvelled that THAT jump was so good, Rutherford could afford to completely fluff his last 2 jumps and still get a gold. Good for you, lad.
The pub knew she basically only had to finish to win a medal. But even so, oh how we cheered when she pulled away from the rest of the group to finish in true Olympic gold medallist style. There may have been cheering from our quarter of West Sussex.
We started watching this at the pub. But it was getting late and there were 19 laps still to go so we headed home to watch the rest.
Yes, we cheered when he flew across that finish line. BUT we also had to cheer for team USA who did a phenomenal job in the last stretch of charging into silver. Plus we all went "Aww! That's nice!" when we realised they were training partners and their reactions to each other getting a medal.
I will admit he is a great player. But "humble" and "modest" are not 2 words I would normally associate with Andy Murray. So what stood out for me when he won gold was not so much that he won, but that he seemed genuinely overwhelmed, even if only for a moment, by the whole thing. In any case, well played, sir, well played.
Britain and Northern Ireland. Take a good look. It may not stay this way for much longer, but tonight I think we are allowed to bask :)
I will also admit that aside from feeling that the moment might be one of the most surreal of my life, the moment of watching the Queen purr "Good evening, Mr Bond" before she, the royal corgis, and Bond himself set-off to the fanfare of Handel's Royal Fireworks was one of the few moments I might have been persuaded to say "You know what? I think I'm proud to be British..."
And then last night we wound up at the local pub. Unplanned and all the better for that, we found ourselves gathering round to yell at the screen as Rutherford, Ennis and Farah tried to claim an Olympic medal.
This caught my interest initially because of the name. The Appleton-Rutherford laboratory's canteen used to do a smashing fish and chips which I was very fond of. Call it positive name association. The interest then remained as we marvelled that THAT jump was so good, Rutherford could afford to completely fluff his last 2 jumps and still get a gold. Good for you, lad.
The pub knew she basically only had to finish to win a medal. But even so, oh how we cheered when she pulled away from the rest of the group to finish in true Olympic gold medallist style. There may have been cheering from our quarter of West Sussex.
We started watching this at the pub. But it was getting late and there were 19 laps still to go so we headed home to watch the rest.
Yes, we cheered when he flew across that finish line. BUT we also had to cheer for team USA who did a phenomenal job in the last stretch of charging into silver. Plus we all went "Aww! That's nice!" when we realised they were training partners and their reactions to each other getting a medal.
I will admit he is a great player. But "humble" and "modest" are not 2 words I would normally associate with Andy Murray. So what stood out for me when he won gold was not so much that he won, but that he seemed genuinely overwhelmed, even if only for a moment, by the whole thing. In any case, well played, sir, well played.
Britain and Northern Ireland. Take a good look. It may not stay this way for much longer, but tonight I think we are allowed to bask :)
