About Last Night...

I'm trying to put this in some sort of context, and it isn't easy.  For sport in this country I can think of only two nights better, and each ended with a world cup being lifted.  Both were won in the name of England, though.  For Britain?  Individual achievement, Sir Steve Redgrave.  Team success, there was the night in the Laoshan velodrome when Britain won three gold medals (and a silver and a bronze!) in the men's sprint, women's sprint and team sprint.  But those dramas played out on foreign fields, witnessed in person by only a lucky few of their fellow countrymen.  Roger Bannister's iconic mile gripped the nation, but the stage was many times smaller than this.  Eighty thousand were privileged - honoured - to share this night with their trio of heroes.  Seventeen million more looked on at home.

"It's been one hundred and four years since a British competitor last won an athletics gold medal in London.  Tonight you might even see two."


The American stadium announcer began the evening with what sounded like a hopeful statement but ended up looking like pessimism.  I remember thinking 'hang on, what about the boys in the long jump?' but knew they had qualified only fourth and fifth.

Then the evening got off to the worst possible start.  When the stories of tonight are told, few will include the semi finals of the 400 metres hurdles, when World, European and Commonwealth champion Dai Greene appeared to miss the final of his event by finishing fourth in his semi final (there were three).  Greene lay motionless in horror on the track two full minutes.  The next British runner hit the third hurdle and collapsed injured.  A third struggled home well out of the places.  I was watching from behind a block of approximately one thousand empty seats.  Then things changed.

We heard that Greene's time had been enough for him to make the final after all.  The crowd trapped behind the empty seats were brought down into prime viewing position.  The long jump finalists were introduced, with double British hopes.  Christine Ohurugou looked strong in her 400m semi final.  The giant laughing Pole who won last night's shot put competition came out for his medal ceremony looking like a roadie for Pantera.  Greg Rutherford took the lead in the long jump, with fellow Brit Chris Tomlinson in third place.  Everything started to roll.

When Jessica Ennis stepped out onto the track for the final event of the heptathlon, she needed only to finish within ten seconds of her challengers.  She went out strong and led until 600 metres, when a couple of her rivals passed her.  That was when the first roar happened.  It didn't seem to come from outside my head.  The entire crowd turned a force of will into a sea of sound, and Ennis kicked for home.  She didn't need to cross the line first, but she did.  The heptathletes took their wonderful group lap of honour, and Jess Ennis took the hearts of the nation.  Rutherford took to the runway almost immediately and the crowd made that noise again.  Carried by 80,000 pleas, he extended his lead to a decisive 8.31.

Photo: Alistair Scott

At the moment Mo Farah was introduced to the crowd I actually pinched myself.  It sounds absurd, but it was the only response my mind could find.  The ovation for the start of the men's 10,000 metres was so great that, sadly, Tomlinson was called away from the runway where he had been preparing to make his last attempt in the long jump.  It cost him his composure, and a final effort at a medal.

With five laps remaining in the race, the roar began again.  Farah was being followed around the track by the world's slowest Mexican wave, every spectator rising to their feet as the men kicked past.  Then, on the last bend of the last lap, they took it to a level I have never heard.  I was screaming in a voice I never knew I had.  'Please, Mo.  Please'.

When the stadium had roared for Ennis, they did so in celebration.  Her position before the last race made victory a near certainty.  For Rutherford they roared in surprise and delight.  When Mo Farah kicked onto the back straight of the most important race of his life, the crowd roared to help him. Farah was shadowed by the fastest sprinters in distance running, the outcome was in very real doubt.  They roared and they roared, begging him down the straight.  That was what made that moment the most special thing I have ever seen.

After the race the show was stolen by Farah's family, his wife two months removed from giving birth to twins, and his daughter dancing around the stadium.  When it was time for her to leave the track, she ran fifty metres in a single lane, imitating her dad and the rest of the athletes she saw tonight.  'Inspiring a Generation', the games promised.  This was like the first raindrop of a monsoon.

Once this dreamlike hour had passed, we watched the final of the women's 100m final, and the medal ceremony for the women's discus, after which the gold medalist threw her bouquet of flowers into the crowd with such force that she missed the entire first section.  Old habits die hard.  The stadium announcer terrified us with the news that the result of the heptathlon was under protest and appeal, then brought the house down with the explanation that Ennis' position was not in question.  Paul McCartney appeared and led the stadium in a singalong of 'All You Need Is Love'.  Seb Coe himself put the medal around Jess' neck.  Are you kidding me?  This night cannot really be happening.  Am I really there?  The next morning I find a photo that I have no memory of posing for.  Seems I really was.