6 Blog posts now made, and one thing has not yet appeared in
my posts. Well, ok, two things, if we
count my lack of interesting stories.
Or, indeed, three things, if we count my lack of anything remotely
amusing... But no, what those first 6 posts have lacked is
a first-hand view of a gold medal winning performance. This is about to change
now.
Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the Diving and
Swimming events in the Aquatic Centre.
Firstly, the Men’s Highboard Diving.
Ever since the games were awarded to London in 2005 (and, to some extent,
before that), Devon’s Tom Daley has been viewed as the “poster boy” of the
event, as the media has relentlessly tracked his metamorphosis from boy to teen
to man. Yesterday was his moment of
truth, as he partnered Pete Waterfield in the synchronised diving event –
Waterfield beating off a charge from Manchester United's Ashley Young, to seal that selection
berth as one of the nation's Top 2 divers.
Anyway, I’m not well versed in the scoring system of
Diving. I know now that the first two
dives are immaterial from a scoring standpoint, almost to the point of being
ceremonial. I didn’t know that
yesterday, and cheered raucously when Tom & Pete stormed to the top of the
leaderboard at that stage, by a margin of something like 0.4 of a point.
Here are a couple of my still shots of Tom & Pete,
followed by a video of their 2nd dive.
Try to watch the video with the volume turned up, and listen to the
reaction of the crowd.
Anyway, back to Tom’s story... for these past 7 years the
nation has been in waiting, expecting that his golden moment would surely come, right
here in London. During his & Pete’s 4th
dive yesterday, the 7 year dream was brought to a shuddering halt, in the space
of a second. Tom over-rotated. Pete under-rotated. The crowd knew it was game over. The judges confirmed this reality.
And, to all intents and purposes, that was that. Tom & Pete will doubtless have
successfully executed that particular dive thousands of times in training –
but, when sitting atop the Olympic leaderboard, something went marginally
wrong. One of my favourite sports
journalists is the ex-Table Tennis player Matthew Syed (someone who I’ve had
the privilege of seeing deliver a talk in person). In
Syed’s acclaimed book, “Bounce”, he discusses the pressures and psychology of competitive
sport at the highest level. What
happened in Tom & Pete’s 4th dive yesterday was driven by pressure - simple as that.
Some sections of the UK media seem to only be focusing on
the 4th place finishers from that event. Myself, I
prefer to include something also, about the gold medallists.
Tom wasn’t the only teen competing yesterday – the Chinese teens, Cao
Yuan and Zhang Yanquan, were in action also, and delivered six flawless dives,
to take a deserved gold medal. My next
video shows Cao & Zhang’s sixth and final dive:
Next to Swimming, and a great example of British patriotism
from the spectators. The life of a
swimmer generally consists of 6am training sessions, seven days per week, in
something close to solitary confinement.
Those competing at the very top level generally need to take early
nights, and abstain from alcohol – at least in the lead-up to competition time. Even when racing in competitions, the venues can sometimes be sparsely populated.
During yesterday’s action, whenever the name of a British
swimmer was announced, the spectators responded with a deafening cheer –
demonstrating hugely patriotic fervour for their new-found heroes. Put yourself in the shoes of the British
swimmers yesterday, and try to envisage the binary nature of the existence,
shifting from the solitary confinement of the regular routine, up to the
realisation of stepping as a gladiator, into an colosseum where 15,000 people are
chanting “Liam, Liam, Liam”, or “Robbie, Robbie, Robbie”, or “Hannah, Hannah,
Hannah”... this shift in normality will have been a life-defining experience
for all of the British swimmers involved.
Here is a video illustration of the Men’s 100m Backstroke
final, which included another Devon athlete, Liam Tancock. Around the mid-point of the race, it looked
as though Liam could break the US monopoly in this event. The response of the crowd was feverish, and
made for a wonderful amphitheatre of noise.
Alas, Liam did not win a medal, but with British gold medal prospects such as Ellen
Gandy and Rebecca Adlington still to compete, later in the week, they are sure
to be given a reception like never before:
One of the performances of the Games so far came from
15-year old Ruta Meilutyte – Lithuanian by birth, but YET ANOTHER Devon athlete
(the third to be mentioned in this post).
Ruta won Gold in the Women’s 100m breaststroke in style, comprehensively
defeating the favoured American, Australian and Russian competitors:
I’ll end this post with a National Anthem. I would have loved it to be God Save The
Queen, but for now, La Marseillaise will need to suffice – played for Yannick
Agnel, after his victory in the Men’s 200m Freestyle:
Hands up anyone who drifted into The Beatles’ All You Need
Is Love, during that video......
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