This time, it really is all over, isn’t it?
To be honest, this makes me feel like throwing a tantrum that an under five would be proud of. “Not fair! Want Games! Now! Now! Now!”, but I’m working on the basis that isn’t going to happen. But yet again the nation watched somewhat spellbound over the previous couple of weeks.
After the sheer utter lunacy of the Olympics, it was the Paralympics turn. What with the complete euphoria that greeted Mo and Jess and Vicki and Chris and Bradley and the Brownlees and etc etc etc still in evidence, tickets sold like the proverbial hot cakes and turned out to be the first ever sold out games.
And this time I was going to be part of it. I’d managed to obtain a ticket for the morning session of the athletics on Day 3, the first Saturday. “This’ll be good” I thought, but expected to be sitting in a half empty stadium seeing a load of heats and not a lot else, but it would be good just to say that I had been.
Oh, but I was wrong. Man alive, was I wrong.
Despite staggering across Matalan’s car park at 6am on a Saturday morning to catch the train, I was hopeful of a decent day - the train from Norwich was certainly busy for that time on a Saturday morning, but not exactly packed.
As it didn’t actually stop at Stratford, we sailed past the Olympic Park, which afforded me the first view of the place since I passed it en route to Cornwall eleven months previous. Obviously at that time, it was still a building site, and although even now all you could see was the stadium and the top half of the Orbit from the train, you got that feeling that this was a big deal.
Arrival at Liverpool Street necessitated a quick reverse trip eastbound on the Central Line, and as ever, the conditions on the train were, shall we say, cosy. Arriving at Stratford, there was no danger whatsoever of not realising what direction you had to head in, as lurid pink signage seemed to be everywhere you looked.
A ten minute stroll later, it was the first encounter with a Gamesmaker. This cove sat on a chair that you would normally see at the end of the net at Wimbledon, difference being is that last time I looked, the umpires aren’t bellowing at you through a megaphone. As the throng that I was part of approached him, it was obvious he was trying to whip everybody up in a frenzy.
Now I, along with quite a few fellow citizens I’ll wager , am not one of those who normally respond well to the “Is everybody having FUN?!” style of exhortations, but I have to say, this chap really got things going.
“Who here is going to see the Athletics?” (Huge cheer)
“Who here is going to see the Cycling?” (Another huge cheer)
“Who here is going to see the Swimming?” (Another…you get the idea)
“Oh, you lot are brilliant, you’re the best crowd we’ve had here so far!” to which some wag a few feet behind me piped up “Oi! I was here yesterday!”
“Ho ho” we all said.
“Ha ha” said those brave G4S souls who actually went through with it and turned up.
“Guffaw!” said the chaps from the armed forces who were clearly having a whale of a time.
“Tee hee!” said the boys and girls from the Metropolitan Police whilst brandishing their Heckler and Koch semi-automatic rifles to the fore with their fingers not that far from the trigger,
Which proves the point, if nothing else that security here was absolutely watertight. If anyone was completely dumb enough to even muse on the possibility of even speculating about thinking to try ANYTHING, it would have been a very dumb move. Indeed.
I then found myself shepherded to the Box Office to pick up the Stadium ticket. Now I had seen various reports of Box Office queues stretching from the Olympic Park to approximately somewhere just outside Grimsby (may be an exaggeration) so had steeled myself for the worst. And thought that if I was in the queue for an hour, I’d have done well.
Ten minutes. That was all it took. And again, I expected the staff to be somewhat frazzled and at the end of their tether cooped up in a Portakabin whilst everything was going on, but I found myself served by a chirpy girl who managed to be wearing a hijab in the same lurid pink shade that all the signage was in. She laughed and joked with me before giving me the ticket (of course had to take the confirmation email and photographic ID, which meant me digging out my passport which expired in 2005 and has a picture of me looking like Adrian Mole, but that’s not for now), and you could see that they all seemed to be having a high old time in there.
From there it was onto the Security Zone. And basically it was airport style security. Walk through scanners and X-Ray Machines. Which is all very well and good if you’ve done it before. However, if you’re like me, and take a Dennis Bergkamp or BA Baracus view of flying, farce inevitably ensues.
“Oh, what? You need this? Righto. And the belt? OK, fair enough. Now do I take the bag through with me….?” The chap who “dealt” with me should be commended for his patience.
You then find yourself at the gate of the park. And straight ahead of you is the stadium. “Pshaw!” you say to yourself “It’s not that far away!” Oh yes it is. Because it’s just so damned big, it still takes you a good fifteen minutes to get to it. Passing underneath that large entry signage you’ve probably seen and with the Aquatics Centre to your left, you suddenly realise that you are here. Again, even a simple Flatlander like myself was able to find the particular entrance to the stadium that I needed.
A quick trip up a flight of steps and I found myself with a view that I had seen countless times in pictures, in tweets, in newspaper stories, on the television. Needed to head to Row 71 (out of 75), and, er, I was currently standing at Row 30.
Now, I freely admit, I may not be at the peak of physical fitness as I approach my thirty-tenth birthday next year. I may have to concede that I may not be ready for the Gymnastics team in 2016. Or 2020, 2024, 2028 to about 2060 inclusive for that matter. So as you can imagine, a spot of puffing and wheezing took place as I lumbered up the rather steep incline. However, the view was worth it at the end.
Directly above the 200m start (which would prove important later on as it turned out), and admittedly things could be a bit difficult to distinguish at the other end, but this was compensated by the flipping huge scoreboard in front of which the flame burned happily away. It was breathtaking.
Over the next half hour, the stadium filled up. And when I say filled up, I mean filled up. To the rafters. 80,000 people. That’s basically the population of Chester according to Wiki (so it must be true).
Things got underway. There were the odd things and touches that you’d noticed on the television at both events that became apparent when you were actually there. The crashing single note chord that came through the astonishingly good sound system to let you know that another event was starting. The officials over by the Shot Put and Club Throw making use of remote controlled Mini’s to fetch the equipment back to the throwing circle. (When I first got there they were actually having a little race on the track with them). Those absolutely enormous screens affixed to the floodlight pylons in various points. The cauldron itself.
The first real roars came in the heats of the Womens 100m (don’t ask me which category (it was one of the blind ones), but you’ll soon be able to look it up) as lo and behold, a world record was set. Now this was obviously something special. Yes, there are many more versions of the 100m in the Paralympics than the Olympics, but seeing a world record being set is still quite a big deal. And then enter stage left British runner Libby Clegg. Who then promptly set a new one. And of course, we went what I believe is colloquially termed, nuts.
Only then to see it broken again.
And then to see that one broken in turn. Again. Suffice to say four world records had been set in consecutive heats. Unheard of, and we’d probably seen more records broken in a shorter space of time than since Norris McWhirter was around.
Other heats followed, we had the chance to see the Brazilian Terezinha Guilhermina start her quest for Gold (you know her, ponytail, floral eye mask, perky to the point of lunacy), and whilst all this was going on, the various field events were still taking place and would result in a hat trick of bronzes for the British. One of the Long Jump events were taking place, and seemed to be dominated by a couple of blokes from Cuba.
As time wore on, we had a couple of medal ceremonies, and although I knew the Russian anthem with it’s militaristic pomp and grandeur, I found myself also paying respect to the anthem of Latvia, which was a first.
We then came to a Men’s 200m race. A FINAL if you please. As the competitors lined up beneath us, being introduced with music of such heroicness and derring-do I half expected Jack Sparrow to suddenly descend from the roof, I spotted there was a British fellow running. One Richard Whitehead Esquire. Now this chap was, with Ellie Simmonds and David Weir, one of the few Paralympians that I had heard of prior to August 29. However I was surprised to see him there as I seemed to recall that he was a Marathon runner.
As is well documented now, he couldn’t run the Marathon as it wasn’t available in his category, and so he dropped down to the next longest distance he could run, which was a huge drop down to the 200m. Like Oscar Pistorius, Whitehead ran on blades, having had both his lower legs amputated above the knee. Unlike Pistorius however, Whitehead did not have a knee joint to play with, and so his running style was unorthodox to say the least. Straight legged, almost John Cleese like with his right leg seeming to kick out at every stride.
The crowd settled down for the start, and after one false start, we had another go.
Then THIS happened….
There have been some moments in years of viewing Ipswich Town matches where it’s fair to say, I’ve completely lost the plot. The Play Off Semi Final win against Bolton in 2000 for example, where Jim Magilton of all people scored a hat trick to send us to Wembley. The Simod Cup (look it up) match against Norwich when a Simon Milton strike three minutes from the end of extra time sent Portman Road into ecstasy.
Then there have been other times in other sports: Lewis Hamilton’s title win for example. England winning the Ashes in 2005 and the Rugby World Cup in 2003. Even when Aguero scored THAT goal for Manchester City (who I have had no affinity for before or probably ever will again) in May, I whooped and hollered like a dervish.
What I’m trying to say is that nothing, NOTHING can compare to being in the Olympic Stadium as Whitehead crossed the line. Ear splitting roar I think it’s safe to say. Every single hair on back of neck standing upright. Complete strangers giving each other high fives and clapping each other on the back. Cries of “Yes! You f***ing beauty!”.
Remember the Road Runner cartoon where Wile E Coyote bought some leg strengthening pills which gave him thighs like those sported by Chris Hoy? He downs the pills (made by Acme, natch) and starts to run. Slowly at first, but with attendant sound effects of jet turbines and rockets firing his legs become a blur, and his speed becomes astronomical, leaving a trail of fire in his wake. That is how I can best describe Whitehead’s performance in that race. Although admittedly he didn’t then run off a cliff.
Look at the video of the race again. Both the American and South African runners seem to think “Ha! This is between us!” as they enter the final straight, and then are thinking the proverbial “WTF was that?!” as a blue and white blur hurtles pass them.
So, anyway, we are all going completely off our heads, Whitehead himself is prancing around in front of us clad in the flag, and David Bowie’s playing full blast on the sound system.
However, the show must go on, and so Whitehead leaves the stage, and various track heats continue. This includes a 100m for women which seem to consist of deaf athletes (or at the very least with impaired hearing), and when one of them false starts, the rest of the field follows, and we then have scenes reminiscent of the 1993 Grand National as various officials wave at the field to stop as they sprint past them, the starter firing guns to call them back which are getting louder and louder.
It’s all to no avail, and like that ill-fated afternoon at Aintree, the winner has to be taken to one side and told that it doesn’t count. However, to be fair to them, they’re given an hour or so to recover, and they’ll run it again at the end of the morning session.
As the session winds on, we’re told of various gold medals won in the Cycling and Equestrian sides of things, and this news is met with huge roars of approval. We then come to the heats of the Men’s 1500m.
No Brits in this one, but we’ll cheer these guys along and hope we get a good race. The gun fires, and within 30m or so of the start, it’s clear that for one competitor in particular, something has gone terribly wrong. The rest of the field has already reached the home straight on the first lap as 80,000 people suddenly notice a somewhat forlorn figure slowly making his way round the third bend in front of us at almost walking pace.
Meet Houssein Omar Hassan of Djibouti.
My first thought was that he was simply outclassed, but then I realised that there must have been a qualification process to get through to get here, and surely he couldn’t have got there by simply walking around the track.
He hadn’t. He’d injured his ankle just after the start. However, he was the only athlete that Djibouti had sent. And before you ask, yes, I had to look it up as well, it’s on the Horn of Africa next to Ethiopia. And clearly there was no way he was going to stop.
The other competitors finished in about 3m 45s, an average sort of time at this level, but every single person was focussed on Hassan. This painfully thin one armed figure, who looked like he might get blown over if Richard Whitehead then ran past him at full pelt, made his way slowly round the track. And as it became clear that this was a very special effort, the stadium rose as one, and basically gave the man a seven minute standing ovation. He crossed the line in a time of some eleven and a half minutes, and when he did so, the level of noise hit new stratospheric heights, with some commenting later on Twitter and on Radio 5 that it was the loudest cheer there had so far been in that stadium full stop, even beating the Ennis/Farah double of a few weeks ago.
I can’t begin to describe how it felt to be part of that. And without getting too sentimental how much hope it gave you that the vast vast majority of people are inherently decent human beings.
Next up was Whitehead’s medal ceremony. Now I’m no monarchist. In fact, I think God Save The Queen is an awful dirge, and should be replaced by Land Of Hope And Glory. But I’d be lying if the sound of a full stadium belting out a request for Liz to be sent victorious, (not to mention happy and glorious) was quite an experience.
Bromley’s finest got another royalty cheque heading his way as Heroes was played again, and then apart from the end of the Discus, it was time to leave the stadium.
This then left me with SEVEN hours to kill before my train was due to depart from Liverpool Street, and so it gave me a good opportunity to explore the park. I shan’t go into too much detail here, but suffice to say:
1. My, that Orbit thing’s tall.
2. Standard shrink wrapped Cheese and Tomato sandwich? £4.10. FOUR POUNDS TEN!!!! Opted instead for large Cumberland Sausage in baguette, which, in retrospect may have been a bad move, but more of that later.
3. Noisy people making noise in the Basketball Arena.
4. Park Live, You know, where those big old screens are. Sponsored by British Airways, and so you have to make do with adverts now and again. Fair enough. The feed they use is the Channel 4 feed that everyone else is watching, and so you would have thought that when Channel 4 go to adverts, we would. Wrong. As we found out coming back from a programmed break to see Sarah Storey on a lap of honour in the Velodrome having just won a gold. Now then. Ever heard about eight thousand people simultaneously say “You what?”. Galling. Especially when the gold was won about a hundred FEET away from where we were sitting.
5. Various rucksack wearing types dispensing beer, cider or wine (not for free before you ask). Now, let’s be honest here: Brits + Watching Sport + Alcohol normally = oh dear me. But none of that here. Not even a sniff of that sort of thing here. Everybody was just so damned happy and friendly. Channel 4’s Jon Snow tonight tweeted that over the whole Olympic/Paralympic period, all 27 days of it, and in all sites, there were seventeen arrests. Seventeen. Out of FIVE MILLION who attended. That is pretty damned impressive.
An incredible day. Life-affirming, and made you stop and think about your lot in life. Made you question if what you are doing with your life is really of any great value in the greater scheme of things. Made you realise how lucky you have things to have a body in relatively good working order. Made you guilty about all those times you complained about your lot, when really, you didn’t have anything to complain about at all.
Somehow, the Paralympics managed to carry on without my attendance for another week, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t yell “Get out of my seat you bastard!” the first time I saw the packed stadium again the following day.
Day after day of astonishing feats followed. David Weir with his four medals. Ellie Simmonds scything through the water like a small torpedo. Pictures of the Archery, with competitors with a grand total of no arms holding the front of the bow with their foot and using their mouth to draw the arrow back. Jonnie Peacock’s jaw dropping performance. Alex Zanardi returning to Brands Hatch with two less legs than he had last time, but leaving with two more gold medals.
As before with the Olympics, goodwill absolutely cascaded down from the stands to every single competitor. No matter their race, religion, sex or disability. Everybody was cheered, and the sky was black with hats every time anybody was introduced.
Except.
Some have said that the hearty booing of our esteemed Chancellor was because the crowd was “left-wing”, but you’re not telling me that all eighty thousand in that stadium were card carrying Labour Party members striding in holding hands with Tony Benn and with a copy of the Morning Star under the other arm whilst singing the Red Flag and dressed like Wolfie Smith. (There’s one for the teenagers)
If that was the case, why has Boris been cheered to the heavens every single time? Last time I looked he’s not exactly what you would term left wing.
Anyway, we’re getting away from the point, which is to say that once again, we delivered. Once again, we put on a huge show. Once again, we proved the nay sayers wrong. Even now, after all that has happened, there are still those who say the whole shebang was a huge waste of money. Fair enough. I don’t agree with that view, and would argue until I’m blue in the face, but each to their own.
The knack is now to harness the tidal wave of good cheer and support that seems to have been running through the country since the flame left Land’s End nearly four months ago. Seems like an age now, but have a look at the BBC Torch Cam archive from that first day in Cornwall. Penzance, Falmouth, Truro, Newquay, St Austell, Bodmin, Liskeard. All jam packed, just to see the torch go past. By the time it got to Plymouth nearly two hours behind schedule, there were tens of thousands lining the streets. That should have been the first clue that something special was happening.
It would be nice to think that some of the sports we’ve seen will break the stranglehold that football has on the back pages, but let’s be honest, it isn’t going to happen, is it? Even if at the next athletics meetings at Crystal Palace or Gateshead or wherever there are more astonishing performances, the back pages will still carry reports that Sir Alex Ferguson thinks that Roberto Mancini is a big girl or similar. The media has too much invested in the game to be otherwise.
Point of comparison. The same day I went to Stratford, my beloved Tractor Boys faced Huddersfield at Portman Road, and huffed and puffed to a 2-2 draw. If I had turned up there on the door, I would have expected to pay in the region of £28 for the, er, entertainment.
Cost of Olympic Stadium ticket: £10. In there for four hours as opposed to two.
All we can hope for is that for the sports, people are interested. I understand a new TV channel, LondonLegacy, is in the process of being set up - to show those Olympic (and presumably Paralympic) sports that haven’t really had much of an airing since the days of Dickie Davies on World Of Sport - Judo, Archery, Canoeing and the like. Should be available on all platforms apparently.
For the Paralympic Sports, it will be interesting to see what the appetite is for further coverage of World Championships and the like. I would be surprised if we have the level of coverage for either event that we’ve seen this year by the time we get to Rio, for the simple fact that it’s not being held here, and a lot of the coverage will take place in the small hours of the morning.
And I suppose we need to address Channel 4’s Paralympic coverage finally. They were always going to be on a loser compared to what the BBC had done previously. Plus, horror of horrors, they had adverts. It didn’t look good when the Opening Ceremony was continually interrupted by adverts, even during the athletes parade. Surely they could have just had a couple of hours with no adverts? Sky seem to manage well with F1 races, so it’s not that difficult. It became apparent that the best way to watch an event if you could was on one of the three extra channels that were provided, and it must be said, the coverage on these channels was top notch and uninterrupted.
Meanwhile, over on C4, they seemed to be getting a bit better at it. HRH Dame Balding was stately as ever, Ade Adepitan and Jonathan Edwards proved to be good value for money. By the start of the second week, they bowed to pressure and adopted the BBC policy of only stopping coverage for the news. Before this they were stopping for, of all things, Deal Or No Deal, Come Dine With Me and Hollyoaks, all of which were shipped off to E4 for the duration.
The following day after my trip (Sunday) I felt tired and listless, but just put this down to a very tiring day. I hate to sound all Country Mouse Comes To Town, but I left the Olympic Park with still four hours to kill, and after taking the Javelin High Speed Train to St Pancras (don’t bother, you don’t see anything, you’re underground all the time! We could have been travelling at 14mph for all I know!) mooched around in the West End until it was time to leave.
Turns out it wasn’t just being tired, as I found out that night after becoming stricken with a nasty case of food poisoning. Now I don’t know what caused it, whether it was the aforementioned Cumberland Sausage or whether I just had the misfortune to be behind someone who was carrying a virus and didn’t realise it, but suffice to say, I was ill. I’ll spare you the gory details, but it knocked me for six, and only now, a week later am I something approaching full fitness, although am still coughing and spluttering like I smoke 60 JPS a day. (I don’t)
But it’s been worth it. I would easily do the whole thing again (even with the unpleasantness that followed) - never have I been part of something where the human nature for good and support has been so prevalent. I may never see anything like it again, but as said before, let’s try and make it not just a month long flash in the pan, let’s try and make this place we all live in a good place. Things are being cut to the bone, yes and irrespective of what politicians or the media say, people do mostly care for other people. Ask Houssein Omar Hassan. And I hope there’s really been a sea change in the mood of the nation, I really do, but we will see. Fingers crossed, eh?
Today’s parade was televised by both the BBC and C4, with Sky News doing the honours as well. Yet again, an estimated million people have packed out London to see the athletes. Boris Johnson caused mayhem. Again. And did anyone else notice David Cameron’s smile slowly drain from his face as Bozzer cracked the gags?
As the BBC ended their coverage, they played possibly the only song they could in this situation: Nobody Does It Better.
On so many levels, for so many people: athletes, organisers, Gamesmakers, supporters, the British public as a whole, this was apt.
Thank you Britain. You were bloody brilliant.
