Olympics Close With 29th Brit Gold Medal
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.
Chris says
10:28 am on 13/08/2012
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).
Chris Dawson says
10:42 am on August 13th, 2012
When was the last time you remember watching Jessica Ennis on the telly prior to the Olympic Games? Perhaps you think you’ll see our rowers out in force in a few months time or watch a bit of kayaking and Taekwondo.
Did anyone know the name Peter Wilson prior to him winning a gold? Probably (and sadly) not many.
I predict that the minute the football kicks off people will go back to worshipping our overpaid molly coddled bladder kickers and forget our Olympians regardless of how well they performed and more importantly how well they represented Britain.
Chris says
11:15 am on August 13th, 2012
Many of our athletic Sports Stars have had a lot of Air Time. After all with both Sky Sports and Eurosports Channels showing wall to Wall Sports if there is a Significant Sporting Event on almost anywhere in Europe then it will be on one or other of the various channels.
I will agree in regard to minor sports like Taekwondo.
In regard to Football I always think of that as being a cure for insomnia. They all run up one end with the ball. Somebody from the other team takes the ball and they all run down the other end. Rarely does anybody try to score and when they do they seem to be aiming at the corner flag or to try to get it over the Grandstands roof. Very boring. That why I much prefer Cricket at least that is often exciting, especially in the T20 form.
board_surfer says
8:25 am on August 15th, 2012
how come when i watch cricket on the TV, there is always someone asleep?
I cant really see the table tennis world championships taking over BBC1, can you?
The athletes may not disappear into obscurity, but they will not be shoved in our face, you will need to go find them.
Oh and thank god the footie is back!!!
No more pretending to do it for your country, just straight forward doing it for cold hard cash….bring it on!!!
Chris says
9:20 am on August 15th, 2012
I take it that you do realise that there are several differant forms of Cricket? Traditionally the highest standard was Test Cricket. A Test match lasts 5 days and can be slow and yes you do see some in the crown asleep.
There is County Cricket which again can be slow and yes you do get some in the crowd who are asleep.
There is also at International Level the 50 over, at County Level 40 Over and also the 20 over game. These are the various forms of 1 day Cricket. Some look down on them and make comments about them but as the teams have only a limited number of overs and the Winner is the team that scores the most runs in their specified overs it is often very exciting. In the 20 0ver game it is not unusual for Batsmen to be scoring at a rate of over 100(in other words at a rate of 100 runs per 100 balls). Indeed rates of over 200 are not unusual for the top Batsmen(that is 200 runs per 100 balls).
If you have watched such as Indian Premier League with 30,000 in the stadium(men, women and children) and its after Midnight and nobody has left the stadium because two teams are battling it out. Often you will see many in the crowd wearing construction workers Hard Hats – Why? Because the Batsmen are knocking 6 after 6 into the crowd. I can guantee that nobody is asleep. In fact the noise has often been described as being so loud in the middle that the only way to communicate is by sign language.
You think that football or kick and run as many call it is exciting. They you really do live a sheltered life. Football even at the highest levels is sleep inducing.
JD says
11:22 am on August 13th, 2012
Clearly there will be nothing as high profile as the Olympics, apart from the usual ‘bladder kicking’.
But there will be some extremely well supported upcoming ‘alternative’ events.
eg. Cycling ‘Tour of Britain’ 9-16th September, route here:
http://www.tourofbritain.com/_ns_race/
The event last year produced some large roadside crowds and will be bigger than ever this year. Chance to see a few ‘olympians’ both British and International.
Chris says
12:27 pm on August 13th, 2012
Forgot to mention Sport also appears on ITV4 and of course BBC3 also had a lot of Olympics coverage so as this channel has been basically useless up to now perhaps the BBC could think about using it more for Sport.
radroach says
8:34 am on August 14th, 2012
BBC3 caters for a younger audience (generally under 30s) and is not “basically useless” in delivering suitable programming for this age range. I don’t think that using it “more for sport” would be an acceptable option.
Chris says
10:21 am on August 14th, 2012
I find it astonishing that you believe that BBC3 is not totally useless. Let us look at the channel. It does not start to broadcast until 7pm. Now lets pick a day at random and look at its content. Lets take Thursday August 16th.
7pm-8pm is Don’t tell the Bride: Best Ever followed at 8pm until 9pm Don’t tell the Bride: Wedding Plans. At 9pm -10pm ..From Addiction to Recovery at 10pm there is Wilfred until 10.30 followed by Eastenders to 11pm when there is Family Guy Double Bill.
Now I know that I am considerably older than “Under 30″ but I very much doubt if I was under 30 there is anything that is likely to fire my desire to watch this channel.
Also according to BBC this channel costs many millions of pounds per annum to operate yet the bulk of its output is repeats and often material that has been repeated many times on other channels.
Perhaps its low viewing figures may indicate that the viewing public agrees with me that BBC3 is totally useless.
radroach says
5:39 pm on August 14th, 2012
If you are going to use viewing figures as a benchmark (which for the BBC aren’t the only factor anyway) you should be targeting BBC4 for your additional sports coverage – it also doesn’t broadcast till 7pm, and has significantly lower viewing figures than BBC3.
Chris says
8:31 pm on August 14th, 2012
I agree about BBC4 It is even more totally useless than BBC3. If you look at the BBC Accounts each of these channels which only start broadcasting at 7pm each night and attract few viewers soak up a very significant amount of our money(we all pay for the pleasure of watching TV but the bulk goes towards keeping BBC in all its forms going).
Making either BBC3 or BBC4 a dedicated Sports Channel makes a lot of sense. After all regularly BBC1 or BBC2 are given over to Sport and the usual programmes are disrupted causing numerous complaints from regular viewers of those programmes.
So it makes a lot of sense to put all of BBC Sport onto a currently little used channel.
Chris says
6:32 pm on 13/08/2012
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.