Is there
anything better than home Olympics? I doubt. British athletes who competed in
the Games would probably agree with me. As well as people who took part to it
in one way or another. Many were involved as volunteers whereas others just
picked the cherries and enjoyed the best of it as spectators.
I was
barely excited about the Games before it all began but I had no idea how
overwhelming it would get. I remember dad telling me how big it was 1952 when
Helsinki hosted the Summer Games but the world has changed a lot from those
days. I've never been to Olympics before and had no idea that it would be such
a big thing. But based on my 16 days' empiric research it seems to engross
the whole organizing nation. For the past two weeks everyone lived the same big
dream and there wasn't much else in the world than the Games. I was lucky to
experience it so near. 
I got my
first glimpse of what it would be already a month ago when the torch came into
town. For me it is quite normal to get up 7am on Sunday morning for a morning
run but I was surprised to see thousands of people on the streets an hour
before the torch came. They had their portable chairs, coffees, thermos, flags,
and team GB t-shirts and they had occupied the streets. It was then I started
to realize that it was going be something extraordinary. 
Opening
ceremony was a spectacle per se. Even the Queen herself took part to it after
James Bond went and picked her up with a helicopter. Only after the opening the
nation came properly into life and on the following day everyone was ready to
cheer Mark Cavendish to victory in the men's cycling road race. Instead it was
a Kazakh Alexandr Vinokourov who stunned the crowd and took the gold. It
appeared to be the first and only setback for the home nation. After that
nearly every athlete came up to their maximum and only the colour of the medal
brought up some tears to a few individual athletes. But as a whole the team GB
shone and the favourites kept their expectations. 
You
may see me as antipatriotic as I'm admiring the host nation's success. But it's
not that, it's just living the beat and the atmosphere around you. As much as I
wanted to see my compatriots to take medals I couldn't help admiring British
athletes to come and smash the Games despite huge pressure. Instead of breaking
down under the pressure they just seemed to break their PBs. That's surely
admirable. I was proud of the Finnish success in sailing and jumped up and down of
joy when the medals were clear in women's RS-X and Elliott. In javelin we could
have taken all three medals on a good day. Instead a nobody from a small
Caribbean island came and threw himself to the world map.
One of the
highlights was to see Mo Farah taking the long distance double and joining the
prestigious club of previous double champions Hannes Kolehmainen, Emil Zatopek,
Vladimir Kuts, Lasse Viren, Miruts Yifter and Kenenisa Bekele. I also admired
Tirunesh Dibaba's outstanding sprint on women's 10,000m and Stephen Kiprotich's
strike on the last kilometres of men's marathon after struggling and being left
behind. Out of nowhere he produced a phenomenal spurt and pulled away his
rivals against all odds.
But the
Games wasn't just about Bradley Wiggins winning the time trial and his seventh
Olympic medal, Sir Chris Hoy winning his fifth and sixth Olympic gold, Ben Ainslie
winning his fourth gold and fifth medal in his fifth Games, Andy Murray beating the unbeatable
Roger Federer at Wimbledon or Jess Ennis, Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah claiming
gold on the same sensational evening in front of 80,000 spectators at the
Olympic stadium. It wasn't just about Usain Bolt, making history, or striking
world records. It was it all. The whole spirit and atmosphere around it. Excitement
and emotions. Tears and joy. Frustration and failure. Triumph and glory.
Thousands of people sharing a moment and a friendly marshal smiling and wishing
you good morning in a morning rush.
