By Jonathan Wilkinson
As relevant as always, and over two months after the event, here is part two of my Olympic Diary
Deciding to
take full advantage of my free travel on a day of an event, I took
myself off to the British Museum. I won't bore you with my
experiences there since it has nothing to do with the Olympics so
let's fast forward a good few hours.
Tonight was
a new venue as I headed to the ExCel centre (see what they did there?
Very clever) to take in the table tennis. I got there quite early so
managed to take in a meal at a pub that must have being thanking its
lucky stars as it was the first pub you came across from the DLR
station. While watching the crowds pass by it was clear that there
was a difference from the crowd in the Olympic Park the night before.
Here the crowd was dominated by Americans and Eastern Europeans, most
likely because the wrestling was on and they all seemed to be very
knowledgeable about their chosen event.
It turns out
that Table Tennis is a rather entertaining live sport, ok scrap the
rather, it's bloody entertaining. When a rally got going the crowd
were enthralled and when the underdog started to edge ahead, the
place entered into a frenzy. This experienced proved two things; we
British love an underdog no matter what the sport, and people will
pretend to be experts in a sport after only watching it for 10
minutes. The match I was watching was the team semi-finals between
the South Koreans and Hong Kong, with South Korea being the clear
favourites. The first game was an incredibly tense affair, going all the
way with the Koreans edging it in the end, but it got the crowd on
their feet in support of Hong Kong, chanting during the breaks as if it was Team GB out there. Although it ultimately didn't do them any good as they lost 3-0, with the second game being a walkover but the
doubles went the distance and I feel fairly safe saying that the
sport won many new fans that night.
Day Three:
Yorkshire medals in Hyde Park and outrage at the U.C.(bloody).I
I didn't go
to any events today. Instead I headed off to meet up with Shane (my
co-host) and Emma (our loyal listener) to watch the day's events on
the big screens in Hyde Park. After getting ourselves a prime
location where we could see 3 different screens, we watched the
action unfold. First up was Yorkshire's own Brownlee brothers, who
managed to increase our medal tally and set the mood for a great day.
Giving me a taste of yet another atmosphere as thousands of British
people waved their flags and cheered on our athletes in a way that
really brought home how much we were getting behind the games - remember this is people who are out in force to watch sport on
television.
There was
one low point of the day, and that was the decision by the judges in
the Velodrome to ruin the last great contest between Victoria Pendleton and Anna Meares by harshly disqualifying Pendleton from the first race at
which point the fight seemed to leave her. This did not go down
well with the crowd, but Chris Hoy came to the rescue by picking up
another gold for the British cyclists. Oh, and another low point was the
news that some nobody from X-Factor was going to be playing, so we
quickly decamped to the pub to enjoy the rest of the evening's offerings.
I think it
was this day, more than any other during the Olympics that proved to
me how much the British people took to the Games. To be in the
middle of a huge crowd, essentially watching television was testament
to how much we love sport as a nation, and what a huge role it plays
culturally for us. I'm not sure any other event could have brought so
many people together in such a way. There was none of the cynicism
that accompanied the Jubilee, just the joy of being part of a special
moment in our history.
"The Greatest Events in Sporting History" is available to download from http://www.simplysyndicated.com/shows/sportinghistory/, e-mail us at sportshistoryshow@googlemail.com and you can follow us on Twitter @TGEISH
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