2012 - The Real Olympic Experience

After Athens in 2004, the UK Government poured floods of cash into Olympic sport so as not to be embarrassed at London 2012. It paid off. Personally I’d have walked 500 miles (and probably 500 more) just to be part of the Games even if we’d had no medal contenders at all. Angie and I, thanks to our respective employers, had contrived to have our pictures taken whilst clutching one of the elegant torches (left), and in May I had stood for ages outsde County Hall awaiting the official Torch Procession to arrive in Taunton, through which a perma-tweeting Will.I.Am duly took his turn in the ten-week relay.

Having moved to Somerset, then Cardiff, the opportunity to be a ‘Games Maker’ volunteer passed me by, which left no option but to buy tickets and rely on Mum and Dad’s generosity and spare bedroom.

I don’t care that Britain’s rubbish at water polo, handball or weightlifting. That’s why I applied for, and gratefully received, tickets for those sports at the London Games, and thoroughly enjoyed watching them. It transpired there was no need to walk 500 miles. 20 miles by train from Billericay to Stratford was all it took to transport me into the heart of 2012, the brand. To parrot the proposed slogan by the fictional organising team in BBC’s wonderfully tongue-in-cheek comedy, TwentyTwelve, this was definitely the Way To Go!

So come August 2012 Angie and I arrived in Essex primed for our initiation into the live Olympic experience. We’d already had a week of the Games on TV to stir the juices; now for the real thing. It was around teatime on 6^th August that we changed trains at Stratford and travelled the DLR to the ExCel Arena where I had tickets for the Men’s 105kg weightlifting. All around us, the docklands were particularly heavy with Eastern European and Asian visitors. A bloke from Kazakhstan was roaming through the crowds bearing two hefty sacks, doling out free unofficial yellow baseball caps bearing the five-ring logo, and we helped ourselves to a couple.

Weightlifting had always fascinated me. While highlights suited some events, this sport should be viewed as one whole theatrical performance in two acts: Snatch and Clean & Jerk, with the perfect showstopping finale represented by the medal ceremony. I recalled the mighty Soviet Vasily Alexeyev smashing heavyweight records back in the Seventies as the epitome of muscleman drama. Then in 1988, ’92 and ‘96 I‘d been gobsmacked by the tiny Turkish powerhouse Naim Suleymanoglu. Perhaps the 2012 105kg competition wasn’t quite as absorbing, but there were still plenty of agony and ecstasy moments en route to the Ukranian flag being raised. A pity the Pole Bonk didn’t win but you can’t have everything! A few of my photos and video clips illustrate what we saw, heard and felt that night.

  

                               Toroksiy (Ukr) takes gold                Efremov (Uzb) hits the floor             

The following afternoon, we made our first entrance to the Olympic Park itself. Angie was probably as much entranced by the prospect of browsing amongst the high-end stores of the Westfield shopping centre as the sport, but I found the mix of unaffordable goods and crowds reminiscent of Boxing Day sales rather nauseating. TV screens in the Food Court kept us abreast of the action taking place and, in case we forgot where we were, the windows offered a tantalising view of the athletics stadium. A multinational throng filled the walkways and I was itching to join them.

Once we’d found our way to the security gates, through which we passed mercifully without incident, the ‘park’ opened out before us. The giant purple and pink information boxes directed the crowds to their various destinations, the quirky 2012 logo ubiquitous on signs, T-shirts and banners. Over to the left was the curious red Orbit ‘helter-skelter’ structure, ahead soared the athletics stadium and we passed beneath the ‘wing’ of the Aquatic Centre which was that afternoon hosting some Diving. I was oddly overwhelmed by the amount of sporting action taking place all around me but it was being part of such a huge good-humoured throng that was the most exciting. There was no boorish, booze-filled ranting, just shiny, happy people of all ages and, judging by the array of flags carried or draped over shoulders, all nationalities.   

                                  

There was rain in the evening air but, when we returned later in the week, the scene was bathed in hot sunshine, bringing out the cacophony of colour in the landscaped riverside gardens and the masses milling through them. The buzz was intoxicating.

So was the sport itself. I’d long considered handball to be disgracefully neglected in schools on these shores. It’s much more exciting than basketball and you don’t have to be seven foot tall (but it helps!). Even when the USA’s professional ‘Dream Team’ entered the Barcelona arena, I’d still rather see a tight clash in handball.

The Montenegro v France women’s clash in the Copper Box was a superb example. Before an enthusiastic crowd of 4,550, there was never more than a few goals between the sides in a  game eventually decided by a last-second penalty. Star player Bojana Popovic was in tears of joy (left).

The match was over far too quickly but it mattered not one jot that we headed back to the station in darkness and drizzle. Two days later, it was a glorious Thursday afternoon when we repeated the journey to Stratford, this time for not one but two women’s water polo matches.

  

Even out of the sun it was nonetheless hot and humid inside the temporary building and, sitting high in the stands, we were sweating buckets. Thank goodness for the water points strategically placed below the entrance, although there were lengthy queues to endure. The shiny turquoise pool below was strictly out of bounds, of course but it wasn’t long before the water was rippling with sporting action.

A pre-event video had helpfully explained the rules, without which we’d have been hopelessly lost. I hadn’t appreciated that the players are constantly either swimming or treading water. It looked exhausting, especially with the competitors indulging in under-water dirty tricks, tugging and pulling at limbs beneath the surface, requiring the close attention of umpires. 

The first match at 2.30 involved Great Britain and Italy, with seventh and eighth places up for grabs. It provided our only taste of a partisan Team GB audience and the home team started strongly. However, after four tiring quarters, it was the white-capped Italians who won 11-7. After a break, the other defeated quarter-finalists, China and Russia, met in what proved to be a real nailbiter. Apart from a few clusters of red or red-white-blue flag-wavers, it was a less raucous affair but highly entertaining for the neutrals. At full-time, it was 14-all, but after overtime, China held sway 16-15. Phew! It had been a brilliant finale to our live Olympic experience.

I wanted to savour that atmosphere in the Park, not wanting to leave. After all, I was hardly likely to be part of such an occasion again in my lifetime so it was an inwardly emotional Mike who with a deep sigh weaved through the throng towards the homebound train. 2012 would prove an incredibly popular fortnight, thus infuriating the mostly Tory supporters who’d declared it a waste of time and money which would be riven by bankruptcy and rampant terrorism and were forced into a volte-face. 

When it comes to the Olympics, there’s always a lot of hot air expelled over the word ‘legacy’. Yes, it costs a phenomenal amount of money, and taxpayers need to know that some of that dosh is returning to government coffers, be it through commercial revenue, sponsorship, increased tourist expenditure or whatever. However, as long as the Olympic Park isn’t covered in rubble and tumbleweed like Montreal and Sydney, I’d be happy.

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This seems an appropriate point at which to end my sporting memoir so far. While most of the action I’ve watched has been via TV, occasionally radio and increasingly online, there is nothing better than the live experience. Of course the additional nervous energy expended in support of a particular club/country/individual adds to the flavour of the occasion. Whether winning or losing, the euphoria or misery tend to be heightened by a magnitude of ten. Belonging to a faction, a gang if you will, in the stands, pub or Fanzone can make sport extra memorable, even if the majority of members won’t rmember much of it the following day!

I will never, ever witness QPR winning the Champions League, so I can barely imagine the sensation of those Liverpool fans who travelled to Madrid earlier this year. It must also have been amazing for fully paid-up members of the Barmy Army who celebrated England’s cricket team finally getting their hands on the World Cup. Do fans of Celtic, Juventus, Bayern Munich or the All Blacks ever tire of their run of success? Probably not. And yet probably the most enjoyable personal sporting memories are associated with events at which I was neutral.

It’s a seductive mix of the sport itself and the aura derived by a packed arena of passionate fans, and nothing exemplifies this better than our visits to London 2012. Were there riots when GB lost to Italy in the water polo? Nope. No wars, no threats, no nationalism or xenophobic rantings, just good-humoured multinational crowds mingling as part of one family.  I remain an unapologetic proud sporting pacifist and hope I will continue to be entertained as such for the remainder of my life.