Friday 3 August 2012

From Olympic skeptic to Olympic enthusiast


 When London first won the Olympic games, I was far from overjoyed about it. I was twelve, so my opinions on the situation were primarily the opinions I’d stolen from my mother, which were pretty much:

-The Olympics is pointless.
-London doesn’t have the infrastructure.
-It will cost a tonne of money.
-It will be overcrowded and stressful and horrible, in exchange for no real entertainment value.

This was my opinion of the Olympics for the next seven years while London prepared.

I mean, it’s true I’m not a big sports fan; except for one one nations match, which I watched to see Wales win the grand slam, I never watched sport as a kid; in general it just doesn’t really hold my attention. And it’s true I rely on the tube as I travel from greater into central London all the time, so the potential of delays and overcrowding was a pretty legitimate worry.

But my completely negative attitude to the Games was just…silly. Aside from the fact that there are real benefits to having the Games, there’s just no point in being negative about such things. It’s there, why not enjoy it?

It was fully grasping the advantages of the Olympic legacy that first started shifting my attitude towards the games, though. The building works and improvements to infrastructure have been quite amazing for London. It wasn’t that I didn’t know this. But it was that by this point I was so determined to be negative that I wasn’t prepared to do more than grudgingly accept “well…it’s nice but it would still be better if we didn’t have the Olympics”. It took someone really hammering it into me that we needed this investment, and it probably wouldn’t have happened without the Games for me to feel actively pleased to have the Olympics in my city.

And then I went to see the torch. I only went to see it cause my friend asked me to. But I have always quite liked the torch and the symbolism behind it. We saw it run past Downing Street and Westminster and it was just…really cool. Not often is so much emphasis placed by society collectively on something that is especially symbolic and conceptual. And that’s really cool. Plus the energy and the sense of collective experience was just…it was really great.

Then came the opening ceremony. Words cannot even begin to describe how much I loved it. It was amazing. And it made me wish I hadn’t been so cynical about the games. Because then I would have made an effort to be watching it with friends, or be out, or just…something. It’s sad that I was just at home, with a family that only cared so much. I wish I’d made more of it. But it was still a wonderful, incredible ceremony. An imperfect once in a lifetime is still a once in a lifetime.

I flew to America on 1st August, so I’m missing most of the Olympics. I don’t regret this; it’s s worth it but…I am sad about it. Which I didn’t expect to be. In the few days I was in London at the same time as the Games I saw all the Olympic-y stuff on the South Bank as well as checking out the BT Live Zone in Hyde Park. And it was a whole heap of fun.

And I watched a lot of it on TV. Of course I could do that where ever was hosting it, but there was something more immediate and vibrant about knowing it was in London. I’m never going to be a massive sports fan. But I can appreciate sports like diving and athletics for the sheer wonder of what people are able to do with their bodies; their power and their control. And even sports like football I put on in the background while doing other things; I’ve learnt to somewhat enjoy the incredibly raw, pure drama that is sport.

The Olympics have London this constant sense of fun and excitement. It was certainly far from over crowded, and public transport really wasn’t all that bad.

By the time I left I might have become almost overly obsessive (I was watching sport faiiirly constantly…and I bought a souvenir pin badge); my friend commented that “you didn’t care about this until two days ago!”

But I’m glad I woke up to the fact that…the Olympics is something you might as well enjoy. There was no way to zone it out, after all; it was pretty omnipresent; and sport is cool, and investment is cool, and showing our city off to the rest of the world is cool. It brought London a lot and by being cynical I was just…making myself feel bad when I could have been embracing it and feeling happy. Which in the end I did. And I’m glad.