The last gold medal has been awarded after 16 days of competition and the Closing Ceremony is now taking place. For Team GB this has been a spectacular games for they have won more medals than anyone expected, and have finished fourth on the medal table. Shortly the Olympic flag will be passed to Boris Johnson and will reside in London for the next four years.
Now we have to wonder what sort of games we are going to see in London 2012. Personally, I would like to see something along the lines of the Commonwealth Games, known by all who partake as the Friendly Games, for the nations taking part have a common bond. Lavish and spectacular as the Opening and Closing Ceremonies have been in Beijing, I would like to see something a little simpler and that places more emphasis on the athletes who are taking part. I don't care if our sporting facilities don't look as spectacular as those in Beijing, as long as they are fit for purpose and ready in time. I don't want them to cost more than any others in the past, and we already know that they won't, because we cannot afford it and what we really need is infrastructure that can be realistically used in the future.
For me, however, the most important thing is that tickets for all the events are realistically priced so that ordinary members of the public in this country can afford to attend the greatest sporting event to take place here during their lifetime, if they so desire. And if tickets are realistically priced, then there need be no empty seats as there have been at numerous events and venues in Beijing.
And when the Closing Ceremony of the London Games takes place, I hope that everyone can say that we knew how to put on a good Olympics.
Showing posts with label Beijing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beijing. Show all posts
Sunday, 24 August 2008
Saturday, 16 August 2008
Team GB Go From Strength to Strength
It is not going to be quite such a Super Saturday as was predicted because as has happened so often at this games, the wind has failed again at the Olympic Sailing and Ben Ainslie and the three Blondes in a Boat will have to wait for tomorrow to find out what colour their medals are going to be.
Our medal haul from the rowing today was one gold medal and two bronze, and hearty congratulations should go to all our medal winners, but also to our other finalists who were not lucky enough to get a medal. To qualify for an Olympic final is a magnificent feat in its own right.
We are already assured another gold medal in the cycling, and at least two silver medals (although one of these may be gold), so our track cyclists are performing well and reproducing the form that they showed at the World Championships in Manchester earlier this year.
At some Olympic Games we wonder whether we will win any medals; in fact we wonder whether we will get anyone into a final. Beijing is proving to be a successful games for Team GB; we are eighth in the medal table as I write this post, and we are likely to climb higher over the next few days.
Team GB are doing this country proud. They should get a hero's welcome when they come home, and we should remember that so many of them have gone to Beijing to get experience of what it is like to compete at a major games, and successes achieved can help to provide a strong core to build on for London 2012.
Our medal haul from the rowing today was one gold medal and two bronze, and hearty congratulations should go to all our medal winners, but also to our other finalists who were not lucky enough to get a medal. To qualify for an Olympic final is a magnificent feat in its own right.
We are already assured another gold medal in the cycling, and at least two silver medals (although one of these may be gold), so our track cyclists are performing well and reproducing the form that they showed at the World Championships in Manchester earlier this year.
At some Olympic Games we wonder whether we will win any medals; in fact we wonder whether we will get anyone into a final. Beijing is proving to be a successful games for Team GB; we are eighth in the medal table as I write this post, and we are likely to climb higher over the next few days.
Team GB are doing this country proud. They should get a hero's welcome when they come home, and we should remember that so many of them have gone to Beijing to get experience of what it is like to compete at a major games, and successes achieved can help to provide a strong core to build on for London 2012.
Friday, 15 August 2008
A Ridiculous Time to be Blogging
This is a ridiculous time in the morning to be writing something on my blog, but after a long nap yesterday afternoon, and an early night (very early really) where I fell asleep almost immediately, I have woken up just in time for the start of today's Olympics on the television. This is the time when the Olympics programme starts to get really busy because not only do we still have a few more days of exciting swimming to watch, but the athletics is about to begin. One of our real medal hopes, Kelly Sotherton is shortly to start her bid for gold in the Heptathlon; she is due to start her bid in Heat 5 of the Hurdles. Depending on how long this post is, she may actually have begun before I can publish it.
The programme started by showing the inside of the Bird's Nest Stadium, and like so many other occasions during these games there were many empty seats. We then went to the studio that the BBC are using for linking the whole of their coverage of the games, which has a wonderful view of the stadium as a backdrop, and it was possible to see why there were so many empty seats. There were literally hundreds of people making their way across the somewhat strangely named Olympic Green, towards the stadium entrances. It seems that before long the 91,000-seater stadium will indeed be full.
Filling stadia should really not be a problem for the Chinese for they are, after all, the most populous nation on Earth, but it has been remarked at how often there have been empty seats at these games, and this is something that the organisers of London 2012 must ensure does not happen. There is a very fine balancing act to be managed; prices should be high enough to ensure recouping at least a major proportion of the costs of running the games, while at the same time ensuring that the cost of seats at the various sporting venues does not mean that they are priced beyond the reach of the interested population in Britain.
Since the start of the programme, a little over half an hour ago, the number of empty seats has reduced. There are now significantly fewer patches of empty red seats and more spectators can be seen finding their way through the stadium. And as the heats of the Heptathlon hurdles progress, Kelly Sotherton has just run a life-time best for the hurdles and is lying in fourth place after the first event. Producing your best time ever shows that you are committed to performing well, and Kelly is obviously keen to improve on the bronze medal she won at the Athens Olympics and has shown this from the start. We now have to hope that she continues in this vein and produces a performance of which she can be truly proud and without the heartbreak that getting an injury would bring. After all, if Kelly is in with a chance when the 800m, the last event, is run tomorrow, there can be no doubt that she will do all she can to ensure that a medal, hopefully the gold, is her reward.
The programme started by showing the inside of the Bird's Nest Stadium, and like so many other occasions during these games there were many empty seats. We then went to the studio that the BBC are using for linking the whole of their coverage of the games, which has a wonderful view of the stadium as a backdrop, and it was possible to see why there were so many empty seats. There were literally hundreds of people making their way across the somewhat strangely named Olympic Green, towards the stadium entrances. It seems that before long the 91,000-seater stadium will indeed be full.
Filling stadia should really not be a problem for the Chinese for they are, after all, the most populous nation on Earth, but it has been remarked at how often there have been empty seats at these games, and this is something that the organisers of London 2012 must ensure does not happen. There is a very fine balancing act to be managed; prices should be high enough to ensure recouping at least a major proportion of the costs of running the games, while at the same time ensuring that the cost of seats at the various sporting venues does not mean that they are priced beyond the reach of the interested population in Britain.
Since the start of the programme, a little over half an hour ago, the number of empty seats has reduced. There are now significantly fewer patches of empty red seats and more spectators can be seen finding their way through the stadium. And as the heats of the Heptathlon hurdles progress, Kelly Sotherton has just run a life-time best for the hurdles and is lying in fourth place after the first event. Producing your best time ever shows that you are committed to performing well, and Kelly is obviously keen to improve on the bronze medal she won at the Athens Olympics and has shown this from the start. We now have to hope that she continues in this vein and produces a performance of which she can be truly proud and without the heartbreak that getting an injury would bring. After all, if Kelly is in with a chance when the 800m, the last event, is run tomorrow, there can be no doubt that she will do all she can to ensure that a medal, hopefully the gold, is her reward.
Saturday, 9 August 2008
It's The Olympics. Hooray.
I see that The Junior Doctor is a fan of the Olympics. So am I. I have to be honest and say that I do not watch very much sport on television, but if there is a major games on I start to get glued to the box.
The last Olympics were not too much of a problem because Greece is only a couple of hours ahead of us, so I could rearrange my working hours a little if there was something that I particularly wanted to watch, although most of the best stuff was during the hours that I was at home anyway (or at the weekends). But with the time difference between here and Beijing being much greater it means that things are happening when I should be asleep, or when I should be getting up and doing whatever it is that I need to do during the day. It looks as though my sleeping pattern may be seriously disturbed for the next couple of weeks.
Cycling has never been a sport which attracted me in any way, after all a bicycle is just an object that gets you from Point A to Point B quicker than if you had to walk. However, when the Cycling World Championships were held in Manchester earlier this year, I was going through a bad period for sleep and consequently I became hooked on the late night programmes covering the event. As it happened, Team GB were absolute stars and wiped the floor with the other nations, winning almost every gold medal that they could. This meant that the cyclists from Great Britain were going to be a force to be reckoned with when it became time for the Olympics. Although some of the events in which we won medals in Manchester are not going to be be included in Beijing, our boys and girls are still favourites for most events. So I would like to wish then good luck and tell them that I will be shouting for them. Only please don't always leave it to the last possible second to take the lead because my poor old nerves can't stand it.
I have only once tried my hand at sailing, I was about 16 at the time, and I found it a very confusing thing to do. I think that this was partly due to the fact that I have enough problems being able to work out my right from my left, so when things suddenly became port and starboard, it was too much for me to cope with. I'm not counting my day spent cruising around Corfu in a yacht as part of my sailing adventures; I was very much a passenger on that occasion and spent much of my time indulging in beverages from the large supply in the cool boxes on board. Sailing must be difficult when it is very windy, but the almost calm conditions that faced our sailors this morning must make sailing almost impossible. How on earth do you get a boat to move when there doesn't even seem to be enough wind to mess up your hair?
Our rowers have also started their battle to win as many medals as possible. Team GB has had a good record in the rowing for a number of years and it seems that this year we may even have a stronger team than ever before. I expect that many of us rowing as a somewhat elitist sport, although it gained more support and probably more fans as a result of the exploits of Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent. They have nine Olympic gold medals between them and that is more than we sometimes manage to get in a particular games. Food for thought, indeed.
Gymnastics and Judo have also started, although our fortunes have been somewhat mixed so far. But for me the games will be really underway, when first the swimming, and then the athletics, begin. But, one thing that has saddened me a little is that a nation, other than the host, can dictate when events will be held. I am sure that the television rights for the USA will bring in a great deal of money, but is it right that the way in which the swimming events have been timetabled should rely on when it is convenient for the Americans to watch. Instead of having the heats in the morning and finals in the evening (Beijing time) as would be the norm at major swimming events around the world, in order to fit in with American TV schedules the heats will be held in the evening and the finals in the morning Beijing time.
I sincerely hope that when the Olympic Games are held in London in four years time, which I hope I am able to enjoy, that we don't change the timings of things to suit another nation other than ourselves. Many of the sports that form part of the Olympic Games will not be shown in the US, they are really only interested in a few, so it is wrong that they should be able to affect the way in which things are timetabled, just because they are a large, rich nation. Why can't they get up in the early hours, or have a very late night, like the rest of us mortals? Just because they are the USA, and will probably win more medals than any other country (although China will be making a determined effort to see that this doesn't happen) doesn't mean that they have the right to dictate how things are run.
Ranting over; it's time to get a nap so that I can be fresh for when things get going again in the early hours of the morning! Oh, and lots of luck and best wishes to all our athletes, whatever their sport. If you just do your best, we will be proud of you all.
The last Olympics were not too much of a problem because Greece is only a couple of hours ahead of us, so I could rearrange my working hours a little if there was something that I particularly wanted to watch, although most of the best stuff was during the hours that I was at home anyway (or at the weekends). But with the time difference between here and Beijing being much greater it means that things are happening when I should be asleep, or when I should be getting up and doing whatever it is that I need to do during the day. It looks as though my sleeping pattern may be seriously disturbed for the next couple of weeks.
Cycling has never been a sport which attracted me in any way, after all a bicycle is just an object that gets you from Point A to Point B quicker than if you had to walk. However, when the Cycling World Championships were held in Manchester earlier this year, I was going through a bad period for sleep and consequently I became hooked on the late night programmes covering the event. As it happened, Team GB were absolute stars and wiped the floor with the other nations, winning almost every gold medal that they could. This meant that the cyclists from Great Britain were going to be a force to be reckoned with when it became time for the Olympics. Although some of the events in which we won medals in Manchester are not going to be be included in Beijing, our boys and girls are still favourites for most events. So I would like to wish then good luck and tell them that I will be shouting for them. Only please don't always leave it to the last possible second to take the lead because my poor old nerves can't stand it.
I have only once tried my hand at sailing, I was about 16 at the time, and I found it a very confusing thing to do. I think that this was partly due to the fact that I have enough problems being able to work out my right from my left, so when things suddenly became port and starboard, it was too much for me to cope with. I'm not counting my day spent cruising around Corfu in a yacht as part of my sailing adventures; I was very much a passenger on that occasion and spent much of my time indulging in beverages from the large supply in the cool boxes on board. Sailing must be difficult when it is very windy, but the almost calm conditions that faced our sailors this morning must make sailing almost impossible. How on earth do you get a boat to move when there doesn't even seem to be enough wind to mess up your hair?
Our rowers have also started their battle to win as many medals as possible. Team GB has had a good record in the rowing for a number of years and it seems that this year we may even have a stronger team than ever before. I expect that many of us rowing as a somewhat elitist sport, although it gained more support and probably more fans as a result of the exploits of Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent. They have nine Olympic gold medals between them and that is more than we sometimes manage to get in a particular games. Food for thought, indeed.
Gymnastics and Judo have also started, although our fortunes have been somewhat mixed so far. But for me the games will be really underway, when first the swimming, and then the athletics, begin. But, one thing that has saddened me a little is that a nation, other than the host, can dictate when events will be held. I am sure that the television rights for the USA will bring in a great deal of money, but is it right that the way in which the swimming events have been timetabled should rely on when it is convenient for the Americans to watch. Instead of having the heats in the morning and finals in the evening (Beijing time) as would be the norm at major swimming events around the world, in order to fit in with American TV schedules the heats will be held in the evening and the finals in the morning Beijing time.
I sincerely hope that when the Olympic Games are held in London in four years time, which I hope I am able to enjoy, that we don't change the timings of things to suit another nation other than ourselves. Many of the sports that form part of the Olympic Games will not be shown in the US, they are really only interested in a few, so it is wrong that they should be able to affect the way in which things are timetabled, just because they are a large, rich nation. Why can't they get up in the early hours, or have a very late night, like the rest of us mortals? Just because they are the USA, and will probably win more medals than any other country (although China will be making a determined effort to see that this doesn't happen) doesn't mean that they have the right to dictate how things are run.
Ranting over; it's time to get a nap so that I can be fresh for when things get going again in the early hours of the morning! Oh, and lots of luck and best wishes to all our athletes, whatever their sport. If you just do your best, we will be proud of you all.
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