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.

Home Advantage

I enter the sunken bowl of the Olympic Stadium on the first morning of track and field competition to the slightly unexpected sight of Joanna Lumley on the big screens, telling us that she would make speed knitting an Olympic event, given the choice. My seat looks like the last one added in the whole stadium – a lone one tacked onto the end of an accessible seating section where another wheelchair couldn't be accommodated. Feel over the moon at that tiny design fault.

Meanwhile, the shot putters are warming up at my end of the Stadium (the North). They are vast men. I have to say that the build-up and commentary here is excellent, streets ahead of what I've seen at any other venue. I still don't like that Muse song, mind. Sit replaying some of my favourite Olympics track and field memories in my head. Linford in Barcelona. Jonathan Edwards in Sydney. That magical 4x100metre relay gold for Britain in Athens. The is the seat I've wanted since I was seven.

At 9.55 we're led in a countdown. To what? Nothing happens. Events start five minutes later. Oh well, it woke the crowd up. Then at five past 10, we have the start of the women's heptathlon (the title is tautological, in fact, since the men compete in a decathlon). The crowd makes an incredible noise when Jess Ennis wins her heat in a heptathlon record, national record time – one which would have won the gold medal in Beijing, astoundingly. For a multi-event girl to have that standard of performance in a single event is almost unprecedented. Top runners are setting personal bests in early heats – this is potentially a very quick track. How fast can Usain go on it? The Americans are in an all red strip, which I love. It reminds me of the kit Carl Lewis wore when he equalled Jesse Owen's record of four golds in Los Angeles 28 years ago.

There is a new round in the women's 100m, a preliminary where athletes from smaller nations compete against one another for the right to take on the big guns later on. One from Yemen races in a headscarf. Later in the 400m we see the lone female athlete at the games from Somalia, ZamZam Farah, who shares her name with another runner born in Somalia, Mo. I'm reminded that it's been almost fifteen minutes since I pictured the naturalised Englishman taking gold in one of the long-distance races next week, and shredding every prejudiced generalisation about asylum seekers in Britain. More of this later.

There crowd gives a big roar to every home athlete, and it seems to visibly lift several. Yamile Aldama races through her triple jump qualifier to become the second finalist. After World, European and Commonwealth champion 400m hurdler Dai Greene opens his bid for a full set with a comfortable win, his near namesake Jack Green is pulled from from sixth to second place down the final straight by a mighty ovation. Christine Ohurugou is defending an Olympic title in the home borough of her home city. Could she ever have dreamed this as a young athlete?

The failures are even more affecting than the successes. A young girl pulls up barely twenty metres into her games in the 100m. A Japanese hurdler finishes a race while painfully injured, reminding me of Derek Redmond's inspiring moment in Barcelona. The back-marker in a steeplechase heat is given a tremendous cheer as he clears the final water jump, but he falls at the final hurdle and lies injured 50 metres from the end of his race. As he leaves the track on a wheelchair, it's impossible not to feel devastated for the man.

Suddenly the skies open and a very British summer monsoon arrives. Those top price seats aren't so desirable now – they're exposed and flooded. People take refuge behind in cheap seats at the back.

The heptathlon high jump is at the far South of the stadium. It's miles away, but the South grandstand make sure we know exactly how the three Brits are progressing. The men are also throwing the hammer from that end. One of the most technically and physically demanding field events, it's totally different seeing it from underneath the flight of the hammer rather than the TV view. The best job of any volunteer at the games might be to drive the remote control cars that shuttle across the stadium, collecting hammers and bringing them back to the throwing end to be used again.

When it's dry there can't be a bad seat anywhere in this stadium, it is superb in every respect. The crowd is close to the action, the top deck banks steeply, the iconic pyramids of floodlights look fantastic. The crowd are kept invested and informed by fantastic commentary. Exactly how an Olympic event should be presented. Hardly a spectator leaves a seat through the whole four hour session. This is how it's meant to be. A morning that I've imagined as long as I can remember has, improbably, lived up to all my hopes.

[A word of unofficial advice to anyone travelling to the Olympic Park for one of the athletics sessions from North London – there were huge queues in St Pancras, so I took the underground to Liverpool Street and walked straight through onto a Stratford train. That may not be everyone's experience, but it was mine this morning. I have to praise the security personnel at the games, who despite the vast crowds had the entry into the park as smooth as it was on my first visit. My other top tip is to use the WCs and water taps before crossing the bridges into the main stadium, rather than afterwards!]

Five Rings - 2/8

Blue - Eight badminton players have been sent home from the games after intentionally trying to lose games late in pool play in order to gain an apparently easier draw later in the tournament.  The punishment is very severe given the fact that there was no rule expressly outlawing such a strategy.  However, the athlete's oath taken on behalf of all competitors at the opening ceremony promises to compete '...in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honor of our teams'. I don't think there's any question that those players were ignoring that oath, and as such don't really understand what it is to be Olympians.

Black -

Red - Tickets have been the biggest source of complaints about the whole London Games, I think.  First it was the ballot, where some people ended up with more tickets than they knew what to do with and most were left frustrated.  Then the unused tickets and empty seats which have blighted the past two Summer Olympics struck London.  Now there are tiny releases of spare seats which are triggering electronic bunfights and in practical terms mean a 25 minute wait to find that the seats you requested are no longer available, during which time all your second, third, fourth and seventeenth choices have gone too.  I spent a fruitless hour tilting at windmills tonight, not for the first time.

Gold - I'm still angry about the hidden Olympic flame.  Seb Coe has been very defensive when questioned, saying that "not a tourist attraction" and that LOCOG is following the example of the London games in 1948, when it was also kept inside the athletics stadium.  Just a thought, Lord Coe, but maybe the reason that was last done in 1948 is that someone had a better idea?  At that point scaffolding was probably rationed, or rooftop cauldrons of flame judged a risk for bombing raids.  Seb, you've misjudged the mood badly on this one.

Green - All home champions are to be commemorated in special edition stamps by the Royal Mail.  The Glover and Stanning one gets there faster than any of it's competitors, and the Bradley Wiggins stamp is equally valid in France.