............ok, so at the end of the day’s action on
Saturday 4th August 2012, I headed to the Athletics Stadium, for what proved
to be an unforgettable evening for Team GB.
My expectation going into the evening was that a Gold Medal
for Jessica Ennis was a formality – assuming she didn’t fall in the final event
of the Heptathlon. A further Gold Medal
for Mo Farah would have put the icing on the cake... but would he be able to
hold off the African runners?
The Long Jump competition also took place, but, despite the
absence of Dwight Phillips through injury and Irving Saladino through failing
to qualify, I only had a vague hope of maybe Bronze for one of the two British
athletes in that event.
Timing is a very important thing in sport. Greg Rutherford’s Gold Medal winning Long
Jump was timed to such perfection, that the distance displayed on the screens AT THE VERY SAME SECOND as Jessica Ennis was announced to the crowd, for her
race. Two big cheers for the price of
one... Jessica’s Gold was expected. Greg’s was a huge huge bonus, to the
already-excited crowd.
Jessica's victory was very pleasing to witness - especially after her injury heartache at the last Olympics. She has been one of the poster girls of this Olympics, and I really admire her warm personality (yes, yes, and her good looks, yes)......
And then we had the 10,000m.
The first 23 laps were, at times tense, as Mo let a breakaway group
establish, only to calmly reel in that group, and he finally got to the head of the race
as it moved into his territory – the final 2 laps. Here is where the patriotism in the stadium reached a
crescendo. 80,000 people screamed vociferously
for Mo on those final two laps, as he held off the brave challenge of his
American training partner, to achieve immortality, and a third Team GB Gold in barely 45 minutes.
Where does the evening rank on the list of all-time great
moments in British sport? Well, I’d put
it ahead of the 2003 Rugby World Cup win – that was just England, rather than
Britain, and was not in a sport that is popular in the whole world. Presumably it ranks behind the 1966 Football
World Cup Final, but that was again just England, and two generations have
passed since that day. Wherever the
night ranks on the list, I will remember for the rest of my life that I WAS
THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!
A few videos:
Jessica’s last lap:
Jessica’s National Anthem:
Mo’s Last Lap (turn the volume up high on this one!!):
...I mean, of course the evening was nowhere near as
exciting as the 0-0 draw between South Korea and Gabon from the other day......
No comments:
Post a Comment