The Olympics rule

Yep, it's a pretty poor title to sum up the greatest sporting occasion on earth. The last two weeks have easily been the most magnificent spectacle the world has ever seen. Eclipsing the awesomeness of last year's amazing Rugby World Cup and the almost as good Sydney Olympics.

Leading up to the event, most of Britain was a tad worried about hosting the Olympics. The worries fell into three camps: 1. How could they make a bunch of Olympic infrastructure which didn't look shit (in comparison to Beijing) without bankrupting the country further. 2. How on earth could the creaking transport network cope with dragging even more people around? 3. Could it be kept safe in a country which appears to harbour half the terrorists in the world?

Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney did nothing to help matters when he trucked up a couple of days before they started and declared he had huge doubts about London being able to cope. Well nobody likes being cornered and it did just the right thing in making everyone determined to prove the shit wrong. His grovelling apology after being told his future by David Cameron was great fun. I imagine he's pretty much lost the US election now as Obama just has to run those two sound-bites as his election campaign later this year.

All the worries disappeared the morning after the quite beautiful, thoughtful and fun opening ceremony. About a billion people turned out to watch Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggens and Team Sky partner Mark Cavendish. It was then we knew everything was going to be ok. They didn't win but it was still absorbing watching whether on the telly or live. And that was the key to the whole Olympics. The spectators made it. Everywhere it happened, be it the streets of London, in the Olympic Park, the beach in Weymouth or the sides of a hill in Essex, the people came, packed the venues, and cheered, roared, clapped and screamed for the most obscure sports, sports people and events. Every venue was raucous and enthused. It was like everyone finally had something to cheer about after the last five years of recession and they didn't hold back. It was magic.

The AB Enquirer was privileged enough to score tickets to go see the Olympics live in London. Specifically the BMX which was held inside the Olympic Park which meant getting to see all the main venues up close. A power breakfast started the day before the journey via train from Thame to Marylebone and then a couple of tubes out to West Ham station and a 20 minute walk along the Greenway path to Olympic Park.

Where is that stadium?

BMX is mental. it is fast, dangerous as all heck, and dramatic. Kiwi heroes Kurt Pickard and Marc Willers competed in the mens draw and Sarah Walker in the womens. I had tickets for the quarter finals and they were awesome. Marc won through with two wins and a second but it all went wrong for Kurt in the third run of his heat, departing mid-air from his bike and having to be scraped from the track later.

A lonely Marc Willers cruises to victory
after all 7 other riders crashed 

I didn't see Sarah ride unfortunately, the semis and final being the next day, but we all know what happened to her. Having been written off by the commentators for the final, she put in a blistering start and held it for the length of the 450m track to nail down a silver medal. Awesome. I love BMX.

Outside the stadium the partying continued. Through the ParkLive venue with its huge screens located in the river, everybody could relax with a £4.30 bottle of beer and an £8 fish and chips! We retired to the world outside after wandering around and soaking up more of the atmosphere all generated initially by the amazing volunteers who worked so hard to keep things moving and operating. At the Heineken bar outside the Park, we met the remaining members of the Olywhites team that hadn't gone back to their clubs and the NZ mens hockey team celebrating like it was 1999 after beating Argentina in the morning.

Me, Kyle, James, Michael - Kiwi Olympic heroes

Clearly the Olympics still has some issues. There are some truly difficult to like sports in it, eg. Synchronised Swimming, Rhythmic Gymnastics, Tae Kwan Do, Wrestling but with so much on you can always flick to another channel to catch something better.

It's difficult to like sports which are just stupid

The BBC proved that state broadcasters are still awesome and that sheer numbers of people chucked at something can make it brilliant. All sorts of weird and wonderful angles, slow-mos, and hidden views brought the Olympics to life. They had a tendency to talk too much, especially when there was still action going on, and the cycling and athletics fell victim to talking heads pontificating about their past. But that apart, everything on show was filmed and available at least on the website.

Now they're finished everything else seems lame, disappointing and inconsequential. Although this morning I've woken up to find we've won another gold medal after the disqualification of the vaguely female Belarus shot-putter for doping. Well done Valerie Adams. We now have 6 gold medals and a total of 13 medals from this Olympics. Our best for years and a mighty impressive feat in these days of professional athletes.

NZ - WE RULE.

There's a test this weekend. I'll try to care but it's not the Olympics.