Big Screen Action

After the Water Polo, we head for the giant viewing screens placed to one end of the Olympic Park.  Fantastic idea, but poorly executed, to be honest, as I noted a week ago.  In the pre-athletics hours, when the park is at capacity, there are queues to get onto the slivers of grass that offer an angled view of the screen on the West side of the river.  The trick is to go over to the basketball arena in the East, where there are no queues and a far better angle from which to view the screen.

The massive crowd, obviously, love all the British success stories.  I find it interesting that Becky Adlington is the most popular of all, even in defeat.  I think we have to let Adlington off her ill-judged claim that swimming medals are harder to win than those in other sports, understanding the pressure of a post-race interview, and the gathered crowd certainly don't notice.

There's also great support for Michael Phelps.  Real respect for what he's done in his career.  I think there's a sense of pride that London will now always be associated with the great American's record-breaking exploits.  On a side note, Michael Phelps is a phenomenal swimmer, and a lovely guy, but there's something undeniably geeky about him too.  In an alternate universe where competitive swimming is banned, alternate universe Phelps is wearing a bow tie and winning more gold medals for chess than anyone has done before.

Adlington's race is remarkable.  When her fifteen year-old opponent first breaks away from the field, the first reaction is to stay calm, because fifteen year olds can't sustain world record pace for 800m.  Then at some point we all start to realise that the thing about fifteen year olds - one in their first ever international meet - is that nobody's got a clue what they can do.  And Katie Ledecky can, it turns out.  There's not as much dishonour in losing to such a wonderful swim as Adlington seems to worry that we all think.  I hope that the huge crowds gathered outside the broadcast centre as she gives the BBC an interview for their late show start to convince her that we're not going to disown her over this.