London's Olympic Summer Like No Other: Review of 2012

During the past couple of years, I've used this blog to write about London's build-up to the Olympic Games. In the Autumn issue of Square Meal's Venues & Events magazine, I was given ten pages to review the city's Olympic achievements over a 'Summer Like No Other'.

Below is the opening part of my review (reproduced with kind permissions). The full length article can be read here (PP160-170). A full set of my images showing how London welcomed the world, can be viewed here.

In the words of Mayor Boris Johnson, the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games “routed the doubters and scattered the gloomsters and for the first time in living memory, caused tube train passengers to break into spontaneous conversation.”

Sharing Games-time highlights with fellow underground travellers wasn’t the only act of impulsive behaviour from a normally reserved English tribe however. 

During intervals between play at the Beach Volley Ball at Horse Guards Parade, commuters and tourists, accustomed to avoiding eye contact in London’s streets, were up and dancing together to Queen’s We Will Rock You and the theme tune to Benny Hill. 

They'd then join the back of a conga line snaking its way through the stands or scream ever louder each time the announcer berated the Prime Minister by urging the crowds to distract him from his work in nearby Downing Street. 

To a global television audience of 14.7 billion, London must have seemed somewhat alien. Only the city's iconic landmarks, which served so well as sporting backdrops, kept reminding us that this was the UK capital's time to shine. 

During Danny Boyle’s Opening Ceremony, viewers and spectators had already been caught off guard by the Queen’s readiness to play her part. Footage of her Majesty bidding James Bond a ‘good-evening’ before making her royal arrival into the Olympic stadium by supposedly parachuting in, after jumping from a helicopter with 007 in tow, set the tone for an Olympics which brought the whole country together. 

The next time images of Buckingham Palace were again beamed around the world was during the women’s and then the men’s triathlon in adjacent Hyde Park. 

In the men’s event, Alistair Brownlee swam, cycled and ran his way to achieving Great Britain’s 19th gold, equalling the team’s Beijing total with five days of Olympic action still remaining. 

What had gone before had already surpassed all expectations. To reflect on the sporting achievements still makes hairs on the back of the neck stand on end. 

In the beginning, the crowds had turned out in force, come rain or shine, for each leg of the Torch Relay. They had cheered on celebrity Torch bearers including David Walliams, Sir Bruce Forsyth, Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders. And they had witnessed ordinary people, chosen to run with the torch for doing extraordinary deeds, as they danced up the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral and climbed over the top of the O2 Arena to exchange the flame on the venue’s viewing platform.

Now the public, many of whom gathered each day to watch on big screens at the BT London Live Sites, craved sporting success. 

Shortly after rowers Helen Glover and Heather Stanning had obliged by scooping Britain’s first gold medals, Bradley Wiggins added a gold in the Time Trial to his Tour de France victory a week or so earlier.

He celebrated by sitting on an ornate purple and gold throne in front of Hampton Court Palace and gave a double V for Victory sign. 

Wiggins’ achievement in the grounds of Henry VIII’s former royal lodgings inspired the golden floodgates to open. 

The atmosphere reached fever pitch on 'Super Saturday' in the Olympic stadium as Jessica Ennis recorded a series of personal bests on her way to winning gold in the heptathlon. Then, a few minutes later, Greg Rutherford leaped his way to gold in the long jump. 

Then, a few minutes after that, Mo Farah’s burst of speed on the final lap won him gold in the men’s 10,000 metres. His sheer exultation as he crossed the finish line also won a place in the nation’s hearts for the hands-on-head Mobot celebration. 

British sport had never seen a night like it but it didn’t stop there. 

In the velodrome, Sir Chris Hoy became the most successful British Olympian ever with six gold medals. 

At Weymouth, Ben Ainslie became the most decorated of all Olympic sailors, winning a fourth gold. 

Spectators at Wimbledon rubbed their eyes in disbelief as Andy Murray took inspiration from his fellow Team GB athletes and demolished Roger Federer in straight sets to win his Olympic gold. 

Whilst in the ring at ExCeL, Nicola Adams won the first ever women’s Olympic boxing medal. 

Adams was followed by boxer Anthony Joshua, who won Team GB’s climatic gold medal on the Sunday afternoon after staging a remarkable comeback in the final round. 

As Team GB was preparing to enjoy a Closing Ceremony concert, featuring the Spice Girls’ reunion, Joshua was sealing his place in Olympic history by beating the reigning Olympic champion to claim Great Britain’s 29th gold from an Olympics that delivered 65 medals in total. 

And that was just the Olympics. 

David Weir, the wheelchair athlete won the 800metres, 1500metres, the 5,000metres and then on the final afternoon of the Paralympics, the marathon. And when Jonnie Peacock beat Oscar Pistorius in the men’s T44 Paralympic 100metre final, nearly seven million people watched on Channel 4. 

The concerts that closed both the Olympics and Paralympic Games were moments to rejoice in celebration. They were never going to compete with the pageantry and emotion of Danny Boyle’s Opening Olympic Ceremony but nor were they the only times that London had partied during the 27 days of sporting action.

Across the capital, restaurants, bars, boats, museums, galleries conference centres and unique event spaces had celebrated every single medal win by each of the 205 competing nations. 

National Olympic Committees took over 42 London venues whilst a further 16 were transformed into branded hospitality hubs. 

It was here that the London 2012 party had been raging since Wiggins rang the world's largest harmonically tuned bell to signal the start of the Opening Ceremony. 

Together, they transformed the capital into a multinational map, demonstrating myriad cultures, cuisines and entertainment. 

Many of these NOC and brand houses were free to enter and open to the public.

Visitors relaxed in the sunshine on green beanbags in Perks Field to watch Russian entertainment onstage or toured Brazilian culture with three exhibitions at Somerset House.

Some of the Houses were ticketed to control numbers. Alexandra Palace, for example, had around 6,000 revelers a night celebrating Dutch success whilst enjoying the party atmosphere of Holland’s Heineken House. Club France in Old Billingsgate meanwhile limited entry to holders of a French passport. 

In welcoming the world, London’s venues also rolled out the red carpet for Presidents, Prime Ministers, Royalty and of course, medal winners. 

Czech President Vaclav Klaus played basketball at the Business Design Centre; Francois Hollande, President of the French Republic, paid tribute to the excellent organisation of the Games and to the number of volunteers of all nationalities, during his address at Old Billingsgate; and Italian President Giorgio Napolitano thanked the staff of the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre during his tour of Casa Italia.

Team GB's flag bearer in Beijing, Mark Foster and former US Olympian Carl Lewis partied at the House of Nations in Kings Cross whilst Etienne Scott and Tim Baillie showed off their London gold medal in the canoe slalom to guests at The Retreat - a pop-up members' club at The Brewery. 

Yes, the streets of London were unusually quiet during the first week of the Games and yes, the Mayor’s voice warning commuters to plan their journeys was removed from all stations after it became apparent that the warnings had perhaps worked a little too well. 

But the transport system didn’t fall over as many had predicted. The Tube ran smoothly and ran late into the night. If anybody got lost, there was always a volunteer dressed in pink on hand to help. And getting a travelcard, which covered all zones, free with Olympic event tickets proved it could be done, and may help pave the way for it to always form part of the welcome package for delegates attending major conventions and events in the capital. 

Being a part of the Olympic and Paralympic Games felt like you were seeing London at its best. Venues, events agencies, sponsors, athletes, media, volunteers, organisers and the general public made it happen. 

London's warm-up weekend of sport allows two Olympic venues to shine

A school basketball court is the scene of my most embarrassing moment. I had just scored after coming on as a sub following a time-out and was standing under the basket, my 16-year-old arms aloft, wondering why no-one was celebrating my amazing dribble and dunk from the re-start. The reason no-one was sharing my elation was because the time-out had, in fact been half-time and the teams had swapped ends. I’d been sent into the game unaware and had promptly scored in the wrong basket.

No surprise, that was the end of, not only my basketball career but also any future interest I may have developed in the game. I should add that I went on to achieve at every other school sport but I never returned to a basketball court, until last week.

Game On at the O2 was a four-nation tournament that began on Friday 14 August. It kick-started a Warm-up Weekend of sport that would be the UK capital’s first real test for two 2012 Olympic venues.

Whilst Turkey got the tournament underway with a comfortable 85-69 win over Israel, my Melbourne accomplice was still crying with laughter as we'd swapped the opening game for happy hour on the O2’s entertainment avenue and I’d told her of my embarrassing school tale.

I tried to distract her from recalling my teenage sporting failure by asking how she thought London would measure up as an Olympic host city in 1076 days time.

I was heartened to hear that, compared with her own 2006 Commonwealth Games host city, she believes London already has a much cleaner and more reliable transport infrastructure. I elected not to tell her that the Jubilee Line would be closed from Green Park to Stratford the next day for engineering work, thus significantly reducing the chances of a high-turn out for the tournament’s final day.

The game we’d come to see was Team GB versus Poland. So too, it seemed, had most of London’s youth Polish community and the sounds of ‘Polska Polska’ reverberated around the arena.

We took our seats in amongst a band of passionate Polish supporters who, throughout the game, depending on which team had the ball, kept up their cries of ‘Defense!’ or ‘Polska!’.

When taking free throw penalties, both sets of supporters tried feverishly to put the opposing team off by booing. It proves, in my view, that ‘extra man spectator tactics’ is simply a part and parcel of sports banter worldwide and it only added to, rather than detracted from the overall atmosphere.

It didn’t help the Team GB cause however as their line-up, apparently depleted through injury and unavailability, could only match the Poles until half-time.

A 17-0 run, wrapped around the half-time break, set Poland up for a 70-56 victory. If only my school had put on a half-time show, half as good as the dancers and slam-dunking trampolinist that entertained the crowds at the O2, maybe I’d have paid more attention to what stage of the game we were in all those years ago.

Unsurprisingly, with its wealth of experience for hosting major events, the O2 (or the North Greenwich Arena as it will be referred to during the Olympics) sailed through its 2012 test. It’s already a world-class venue and will prove a fitting arena for 16,500 artistic gymnastic fans and 20,000 basketball supporters in three years time.

The next day it was the turn of Hyde Park to test its Olympic credentials.

One of the Royal Parks of London, Hyde Park is more famous for its Speakers’ Corner than it is for holding large capacity sporting events. In 2012 however, it will stage both the Olympic Triathlon and the 10km Open Water Swim and have grandstand seating for 3,000 spectators.

On Saturday, 15 August 2009, it staged the London leg of the ITU Dextro Energy Triathlon. Participants swam the Serpentine before cycling 40km and running 10km in laps around a park that was created to satisfy Henry VIII’s passion for hunting.

Britain’s 21-year-old Alistair Brownlee was the sporting hero of the day as he stormed to victory, underlining his status as an early gold medal favourite for London 2012. Earlier, in the women’s race, Britain’s Helen Jenkins was edged out into bronze medal place after a dramatic sprint finish.

For me though, one of the most inspiring aspects of the day, on a par with the British triathlon performances, was the aerial broadcast footage, beamed onto big screens and aired by global television networks as it followed the athletes as they made their way around the course.

Hyde Park is a lush green space surrounded by famous London landmarks. On a sunny day, and filmed from either the air or ground, it makes for an amazing setting. When you consider Hyde Park alongside other Olympic backdrops including Horse Guards Parade for the Beach Volleyball and Greenwich Park for Equestrian and Modern Pentathlon, the picture of just how stunning the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will look on a global television stage begins to really take shape.