Mini diary

This afternoon is the first of the games where I've not been at an event.  I'm envious as hell of those lucky enough to squeeze into the velodrome, or to have been at that superb canoeing triumph, but if I'm honest it's actually quite nice to sit in front of the TV for a session.

As soon as I'm in I catch an interview on BBC3 with the British pairs who've won gold and silver in the C2 slalom canoe.  Without realising that it's being shown off-tape on BBC1, I manage to spoil the surprise for everyone.  Once we've all got back on the same page and watched Gemma Gibbons' brave silver medal in the 78kg judo, it's cycling time.  This is where the games are meant to really take off to the home competitors, and with the day already having delivered double gold and a clutch of other British medals, I think it's time to try my hand at something more like a live blog for a couple of hours...

16:16 - Monstrous effort from Pendleton to make up that first-half deficit in the team sprint.  World Record!  Then the Chinese break it in the next race.  Spoilsports.  Jess Varnish is going to have to start faster than that against the Chinese

16:25 - New Zealand have one guy who can post a sub-WR split in the team sprint, and two who are so far behind him they're almost disqualified.  Not sure why being too far back from your team-mate gets you a DQ - surely it's only a disadvantage to lose the slipstream?

16:35 - Empty seats don't make me angrier anywhere than at the velodrome.  That's a six thousand seat arena with the biggest demand for any event except Athletics and Swimming.

16:37 - Nightmare for the Brits as Philip Hindes' bike falls to bits out of the start gate in their qualifier against the Germans.  They get a do-over though.  Will this rattle the Brits or Germans more?

16:42 - The German team look about as German as three men in lycra on bikes can do.  Which is extremely German.

16:43 - Gary Lineker once said that football was a game where twenty two men chase a ball round a field and at the end the Germans win.  Well, cycling's a sport where you go round the track for three laps and Britain does.  The time is an Olympic record.  This track looks fast.

16:46 - Jamie Staff, a member of the GB sprint team who won gold in Beijing, reckons Hindes had no mechanical issue but just, basically, fell off.  Apparently if you wobble at the start you're better off falling off because then you get to try starting again!  What a surreal rule.

16:49 - The 'ssshhhhhhh' noise they play over the PA at the velodrome before races start is really creepy.  Wondering whether they could use the technology in libraries, quiet carriages and cinemas.  It would scare you silent every time.

16:55 - The British women have made the team sprint final, but suddenly things are looking very bad for the women's team.  A technical infringement may have occurred in the change from Varnish to Pendleton.  Possible relegation to the bronze medal race, or even disqualification.  Cycling supremo Dave Brailsford looks concerned.

17:04 - The debate is still going on.  Mark Cavendish tries to explain the situation, then realises he's sitting next to a man who won gold in this event last games!  Over to Staff.

17:05 - Not looking good.  Brailsford has given reporters a 'DQ' gesture.

17:10 - While waiting for news at the velodrome, I'm checking out the post-competition interview of Peter Wilson, the shooter who won a home golf in the double trap.  The moment at the end where he breaks off with a shout of 'Dad' is superb.

17:17 - Pendleton gives a very dejected interview as the girls have heard they're definitely out.  'Now and again rubbish things happen, and this is just one of those days.  We've had a wonderful run.'  She's pleased that she set the fastest second lap of her career, which bodes well for her individual sprint effort, but bitterly disappointed for Varnish whose Olympics are over.  The youngster must be devastated - she'll be back in Rio, but this is a unique moment passed.  If there's any consolation for the fans, it's that the Chinese looked pretty untouchable in their semi-final win.  Scant, though.

17:20 - "Four years ago in Beijing, every [British] cyclist on the track left with a medal" Jake Humphries begins, in the studio.  Sitting next to him is Mark Cavendish, the lone exception to that rule.  Cav looks pretty annoyed for a second, then Humphries contines "...except you, Mark.".  Nice one, son.  Putting the offensive in charm offensive.    "I found it more hard the questions getting asked" says the Manxman, a little curtly.  Zing.

17:26 - Chris Boardman has just told Jake that the GB team are using 'hot pants'!  The footage cuts to a VT of Vicky Pendleton, and starts to pan downwards... sadly for the collected male viewership this turns out to be a pair of warmed-up trousers that keep heat in competitor's muscles between their warm-up and race, just like tyre-warmers on a Formula 1 car.  Where can I get me one of those for the chilly winter mornings?


I've found some live-blogging software, so might have a crack at that one of the days I'm not at the Games at all next week.

The Best of The Best

While watching the tail end of the boxing this afternoon, I realise that the men's cycling Time Trial must be approaching its conclusion.  One weakness in this games is how hard it is to see one sport while at another's venue, and there was no television or screen in the ExCel centre to gather around and give some national support.  I think I imagined that the Olympic park, and smaller venues, might have small televisions showing footage from all manner of other events.  It would have lent the games more of a unified atmosphere, more of a single festival of sport than a series of independent events.

No Englishman, as you may have heard, had ever won the Tour de France. This Summer, Bradley Wiggins did that. Nobody of any nationality has ever won an Olympic track cycling gold medal, and gone on to win the Tour de France. This Summer, he did that too. Then, for an encore, Bradley Wiggins rode the cyclist's 'race of truth' – the Time Trial – and became the only man in history to win the Tour De France and Olympic gold in the same year.

The Tour is something you leave halfway through if you want to chase Olympic glory, conventional wisdom says. A normal human body cannot ride for 2,200 miles, then two weeks later sustain speeds of 35mph for 28 miles. Bradley Wiggins is certainly not a normal human. He hardly seems human at all. The pre-race favourite today, Fabian Cancellara, had flown out of the French race as soon as the Tour hit serious climbs. Wiggins stayed on the climbs. He won out on the climbs. He came home and in the finest lap of honour any sportsman could take, circled this corner of his home city in front of a vast adoring crowd before his final curtain call on the podium.

This would be an incredible racing career if Wiggins were French, or Spanish, Italian, Belgian or even American. That he was able to achieve it as a member of the first generation of British cyclists ever to matter on any stage outside of the track and occasional prologues is nothing short of unbelievable. Like Boardman and those before him, he conquered that, but then he mastered the road for an encore, as if it were the logical progression rather than a staggering, unprecedented achievement.

Arise Sir Bradley, cries the nation as one. I'd like to see the great man given the chance to finish his astonishing career without that label, but the day he hangs up his riding shoes is the day he can write himself whatever title he chooses.

Five Rings - 1/8

First lie-in of the games for me today, as I'm 'only'at the boxing today.  Have had a couple of great things passed my way already, so a quick run trough the rings before I head to ExCel:


Blue - Stuart Harvey pointed me towards this video on Deadspin.  Wasn't watching the swimming last night, so missed this wonderful interview with Bert Le Clos, father of Chad - who had just beaten Michael Phelps in the 200m butterfly.  You'll never find a more heartwarmingly proud parent.

Black - Can Bradley Wiggins become the first man in history to win the Tour De France and Olympic Gold in the same year?  The man the French lovingly call Le Gentleman will be racing the streets of London in the men's Time Trial from exactly seven and a half minutes past three this afternoon.  Tune in, or better yet get down to the course and give the best pair of sideburns in sport some encouragement.

Red - This gem of a clipping was sent by Fionn Napier.  The Croatian fans in full voice are somthing to see:

Gold - Rower Dana Feletic hopes to celebrate her 35 birthay in golden fashion today.  The Australian goes in the final of the Women's Quadruple Sculls at Eton Dorney this morning.  I'm rooting for the British boat of Melanie Wilson, Frances Houghton, Beth Rodford and Debbie Flood, but I'm biased as hell.

Green - According to actor Andy Venning, 'The first person to use the phrase 'Olympian Games' was the humble Elizabethan playwright Mr W Shakespeare in Henry VI part 3'.  Mr Venning is currently appearning in the Oxford Shakespeare Company's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, so he ought to know.

Five Rings 28/7

Blue - Cav Cav Cav... we just didn't give him a chance.  Gutted for the guy, the tactics were not got right and that's more galling somehow than missing on ability alone.  Horrible to see drug-monkey Vinokourov take gold.  Don't like to see Cavendish criticising other teams (like Australia) for their tactics though.  The Brits should not have put themselves in a position where they needed to rely on outside help.

Black - Great day for our gymnasts.  Louis Smith tweets: -

On the way back from the competition, 3 apparatus finals, team final and 2 all-round finals..  so proud to be a part of this team http://twitter.com/LouisSmith1989

Britain's men were only out-qualified by super powers Russia and the USA.  Huge achievement.

Red - I have to give a massive thumbs up to the guys who are already looking like the unseen MVPs of the games, the massive corps of volunteers.  From Wimbledon station to the AELTC, 20 minutes up the road, I don't think I was ever more than a hundred metres away from a patient and invariably cheery guide to make sure I didn't lose the way.  Once at the club, packs of volunteer ballboys and girls could be seen swarming around the club from court to court.  Every one a massive credit to London and the games.  Thanks guys!

Gold - Tomorrow the British women get a chance to succeed where their male counterparts failed.  Can defending champion Nicole Cook and co marshal their resources to deliver her successor as team leader Lizzie Armitstead to gold?  We also get our first sights of Ben Ainslie, the US basketball team and Rebecca Adlington will try to cling on to the 400m crown she won so narrowly four years ago.

Green - Look ma, I'm on the computer!  http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/19033887  (5 minutes in)