The end of the Olympics

We are at the end of the London 2012 Olympics, and it seems like a good time to review them, look back and see whether they are as good as the seem to have been.

 I did express, in various places, concerns with the commercialisation of them. I also expressed concern that the games lanes and other traffic issues would cause more problems and give the main event a bad feeling. I think these fears were valid and reasonable, but not as significant as I had dreaded.

Team GB did get 29 gold medals, and a total of 65 medals. We also had a large number of competitors who did not achieve medals, but who gave of their best and did us proud.

We had an opening ceremony that was stunning - brilliantly put together, brilliantly executed. the closing ceremony was less spectacular, with a few oddities, but it was still a party to finish the greatest 2 weeks of sporting achieving.

The venues we provided were fabulous - including the ones for the "roaming" events like the marathon. The volunteers were out of this world, and thoroughly deserved their standing ovation in the closing ceremony. The sports were clean and largely uncontentious - with a few exceptions there were no challenging or problematic umpiring decisions, no disqualifications to take issue with.

We saw some magical sporting moments - Usain Bolt winning the 100M against some strong competition; Rudisha running a spectacular 800M to break the record, and bring all of the other runners with him to all achieve significant times. I have read that Andrew Osagie, the British runner who managed 8th place in the final, would have won the Gold in the last few Olympics.

All in all, I think we can look back on London 2012 and be immensely proud of what we as a nation have achieved.

But what will the real legacy of these games be? I can hope that we can appreciate some of our less well supported sports, and acknowledge that our footballers, who are some of the most highly paid sportsmen in the country, but who failed to perform, can get less money and less investment. We need to put the money into the areas that need investment and to reward performance. We have shown that we have very skilled and talented sportspeople, and we should invest to develop more in the areas that we can - not just to win medals, but to be the best that we can.

Sporting achievement is not the most important thing, the most important achievement, but it is an achievement. It is a celebration of what we are capable of as people. It is a glorious celebration of humans as beings created in Gods image, reveling and celebrating what we are capable of.

London 2012 - something we can be extremely proud of.