The closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games kicked off tonight with a mock up of famous London scenes and and mock Big Ben chiming out 10pm. From then on it bore little resemblance to the stunning opening ceremony, in fact the Queen didn’t bother turning up but sent Prince Harry to represent her instead.
Interestingly athletes from around the world seem to be just as keen as much of the general populace to look gormless on telly and scream into the lens. Still I guess they should be excused after four years of hard work and a couple of day’s exposure to the world before sadly these gifted sports men and women largely disappear back to obscurity until Rio in 2016. They have earned the right to let their hair down, although I suspect those that skipped the closing ceremony probably had a better night.
When you look back at the 2012 games for your most memorable moment it definitely won’t be the closing ceremony! There were a few music acts that still have a career, but there were a lot who’s careers definitely ended in the last century. As a celebration of 15,000 athletes efforts and achievements the ceremony pretty much involved corralling the sports men and women into the arena and forgetting about them.
Still there was one last gold for Britain to push the tally to 29 gold medals and cement their position as third in the medal table.
Anthony Joshua’s gold medal win in the Men’s +91kg Super Heavy Weight Boxing
6ft 6in, 18 stone Anthony Joshua swiped the gold from under the nose of Italian Roberto Cammarelle after an 18-18 points score bout. The win was awarded on a countback and came down to three scoring punches but the history books will forget that. All that matters is that he got the gold medal leaving the silver to Roberto.
This is the twenty-ninth gold medal stamp and will be the last to be issued by Royal Mail finalising the set for collectors. It’s being printed and will be in Post Offices around the country by tomorrow lunch time including at the Post Office branch at 165 The Harlequin in Watford, Anthony’s home town.
Royal Mail will be painting the final Olympic pillar box gold on Watford high street, but we’ll be seeing more gold pillar boxes in a few weeks time when the Paralympics starts and the gold medals start flowing once again.
12 Responses
May I question the statemenht about “disappear back into obscurity”. There is a considerable amount of high quality Sport around the World every year. Most Sports have World Championships. There are National Teams taking on National Teams and Major Events. So to the Sports Lovers there are few who disappear back into obscurity.
A few years ago there was just the 5 terrestial TV Channels in the UK. Then along came Sky and the number of Sports Channels(or channels that show sports) increased enormously. So most leading Sportsmen(and Women) in just about every Sport get a reasonable amount of air time.
But the Olympics are the Highest Level of International Sport in so many Sports. There are so many Sportsmen(and Women) who have held on to the Olympics and will now retire. These will definitely disappear back into obscurity except that many of them will now be employed as TV Pundits or Newspaper Reporters on the Sports Pages.
There will be many who can be expected to this morning be thinking about their futures. Will they retire now maybe early or will they hang on to Rio in 4 years time when they will probably be past their best?
Even somebody like Bolt will be looking over his shoulder. 3 Gold Medals this time(and last time) but there are a whole crop of younger athletes in Jamaica inspired by his achievements. They could be expected to be getting better each year while Bolt himself may be declining(even if only slightly).
Being a Sportsman is not like being in almost any other career. You can have a year out of being an Accountant or Solicitor but its far more difficult to take a year out of being a Sportsman. To start with you have to stay fit and healthy. It really doesn’t matter if an Accountant or Solicitor puts on a stone or two but it could be the end of any comeback if a top sportsman has put on a stone or two(except perhaps a Weightlifter or Wrestler).
There was al;so a big block of Sky TV Channels from 450 onwards. All dedicated to the Olympics. I check this afternoon. They are no longer available. So they closed down as soon as the Olympics was over. I did see somewhere that some of them attracted very few viewers. This was a shame as they each gave continuous showing of particular sports rather than keep going backwards and forwards depending on where GB had a medal chance as happened on BBC1 and BBC3
Not certain if these channels will be reinstated during the Paralympics. Hope so for my neighbours wifes sake as she wants to watch the Wheelchair Rugby.