Thursday 16 August 2012

London 2012 Review

The Olympics came to an end on Sunday night with quite a surreal closing ceremony. It had moments of brilliance and moments of madness but all told it was probably quite a fitting end to the London Olympics which had its own mix of emotions.

On a personal level I thoroughly enjoyed the 30th Summer Olympic Games and even found myself taking a keen interest in sports I wouldn't normally be a big fan of.  My main interests are Soccer, American Football and Basketball.  Obviously American Football is not in the Olympics but Soccer and Basketball are.  I have to be honest and say I watched very little of either.  I saw the second half of the Gold Medal game between Brazil and Mexico and all of GB v Senegal and that was only because it was played before any of the other sports started. I did watch a bit more Basketball, mainly games involving USA and Spain but the sports I found myself fascinated with were Cycling, Athletics and Swimming.

I’ve always had an interest in Athletics but Cycling and Swimming are sports I’ve never really been interested in.  In these Olympics I found myself taking a huge interest in both.  I did watch some Swimming in 2008.  I saw most of Michael Phelps races and was delighted to see him clinch his 8 Gold Medals.  I can remember watching a few of Ian Thorpe’s races in 2000 and 2004 and I can even remember watching Michelle Smith win 3 Gold and a Bronze for Ireland in Atlanta in 1996.  That is pretty much as far as my Swimming knowledge goes.  In these games however I watched every evening session and as many of the morning sessions as I possibly could when I wasn’t at work.  I found myself fascinated by swimmers who only days earlier I had never heard of.  Embarrassingly just three weeks ago the only Swimmers I knew in these Olympics were Michael Phelps and Rebecca Adlington.  However the action at the Aquatics Centre soon became must see television in my house. 

I started off by watching it on the first day to see Michael Phelps in the 400m Medley.  I had heard that he was going head to head with another American, Ryan Lochte (whoever he was) and that these two were going to be the stars of the Swimming so I thought I'd tune in to see how it went.  After watching the heats I was hooked.  Phelps squeezed into the Final in 8th place after him and Laszlo Cseh cruised in the penultimate heat and then five swimmers finished quicker in the final heat.  The unfortunate Cseh missed out on a Final place and Phelps qualified by the skin of his teeth.

In the Final, I was expecting to watch the dual between Phelps and Lochte and to my amazement Lochte beat the invincible, unbeatable Phelps who in the end only finished in 4th place.  Was Phelps human?  He didn't seem to be in Beijing but I put the defeat down to him saving something for the races to come.

Phelps followed up that disappointment with another when his USA team were stunned by France in the 4x100m Freestyle relay.  I do have to mention the swim from Yannick Agnel in that race.  He began over half a second behind the now seemingly invincible Ryan Lochte and managed to finish almost half a second ahead of him.  It was fantastic stuff from the Frenchman and it only served to get me more interested in the action in the swimming pool.

A few days later, Phelps was in another Final and this time the media were telling me this was his event and he wasn't going to lose.  It was the 200m Butterfly and all was going to plan until a young South African called Chad Le Clos, pipped him right at the end.  To be honest I was beginning to write the obituaries for Phelps career.  It was all looking a little sad and it seemed that Phelps was no longer the same man who won those 8 Gold medals.  So many superstars before him have let their careers go on for too long.  Although their performances are still often on a world class level, it is sad to watch someone who was miles ahead of their peers look so ordinary. 

Fortunately, Phelps had other ideas.  That same night he went on to clinch gold as part of the USA's 4x200m Freestyle relay.  In truth his team mates had given him a huge lead but it seemed to be the confidence boost the American needed.  After that race he won two individual golds in the 200m Medley and the 100m Butterfly.  He completed his Olympics with yet another gold in the 4x100m Medley relay race.  That left him with a personal haul of 4 golds and 2 silvers from his 7 events in London 2012.  He is now the most successful Olympian of all time with 18 golds, 2 silver and 2 bronze.  It appears unlikely that Phelps will extend that record.  I suppose we should never say never but what we definitely can say is that it will be a long time before a swimmer or any other athlete has a record at the Olympics that can rival Michael Phelps.

No write up on Olympic swimming would be complete without mentioning the dominant performances of Ye Shiwen in the Medley races, Missy Franklin in the Backstrokes and Katie Ledeckey in the 800m Freestyle.  All three are between 15 and 17 and will no doubt go onto great things in Swimming.  I already can't wait until Rio in 2016 to see how many medals they can claim.

Finally on Swimming I have to mention the young Lithuanian, Ruta Meilutyte who won gold in the 100m Breaststroke.  She is only 15 and her reaction every time she won a race was priceless.  It appeared she was in a state of disbelief every time she won.  She eventually managed to win gold by just about holding on to beat a fast finishing, Rebecca Soni.  It was a huge achievement for such a young swimmer and it was great to see someone from a country that isn't a swimming super power perform so well. 

Another sport that got my attention was Cycling.  I did watch a bit of the Tour de France throughout the summer and tried to tune in as often as possible to see the end of the races.  I do enjoy watching the sprints to the finish line and I was hoping Mark Cavendish would get a medal as he had been particularly impressive in the last few races of Le Tour.  Unfortunately for Cavendish it wasn't to be and a group of riders made a breakaway and Cavendish ended up down in 29th place about 40 seconds behind the eventual winner.

In the Time Trial event, Cavendish's Team GB and Team Sky team mate Bradley Wiggins managed to add a gold medal to his Tour de France title becoming the first man to win an Olympic gold and Le Tour title in the same year.

Wiggins victory on the road was more than matched by his Team GB cycling colleagues on the track.  In 10 events, Team GB picked up 7 golds, a silver and a bronze.  The one event they didn't win a medal in was the Women's Team Sprint.  In this event Victoria Pendleton and Jessica Farnish had the second quickest time and were due to race against China for a guaranteed Silver medal but they ended up being disqualifed when they changed positions too early.  Had they got that changeover right, Team GB would have picked up 10 medals from 10 track events.  When one team dominates a sport as much as that it has to be respected and credit must go to Dave Brailsford who has been at the centre of this transformation in the fortunes of British cyclists.

Probably the most popular sport, and my favourite Olympic sport is the Athletics.  They did not disappoint.  The Golden Boy, Usain Bolt, was once again the star of the show.  He managed to successfully defend all three of his Olympic titles in 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay.  Much had been made of his duals with Jamaican team mate Yohan Blake but it was Usain Bolt who walked off with the golds when it really mattered.  Credit to Blake, he proved himself to be very much the second quickest man in the world with silvers in both the 100m and 200m.  He also ran a very good leg in the Relay Final against USA's Tyson Gay.  Gay was ahead of Blake when both men took the baton but Blake outrun his rival and handed the baton to Bolt at much the same time as Gay handed over to Ryan Bailey. Bailey was able to get the baton home in a very quick 37.04 secs, matching the World Record time set by Jamaica in the 2011 World Championships in Daegu.  Unfortunately for USA, Jamaica smashed their own World Record, winning in a time of 36.84 secs to show the world that right now there is nobody who can touch them in the sprint events. 

As if a 1-2 wasn't enough in the 100m, Jamaica managed to complete the 1-2-3 in the 200m, with Warren Weir taking bronze.  The success of Jamaican sprinting at the moment is absolutely amazing considering the islands population is under 3 million.  Other countries will have to look into the techniques and training if they want to be able to compete.

Team GB had its own success in Athletics with the popular duo, Jess Ennis and Mo Farah taking home 3 golds between them.  Ennis managed to win the Heptathlon by over 300 points, setting three PB's in the process.  Farah picked up the long-distance double with golds in both the 10000m and 5000m.  I am a big fan of both Ennis and Farah so I was delighted to see them perform so well.  Ennis was superb throughout and all her main challengers failed to take advantage in events were they usually out perform her.  In the end Ennis only had to protect her lead in the 800m and rather than take a cautious approach she took the race to her rivals and ended up winning the race to seal her first Olympic title.

Mo Farah’s races were some of the most exciting of the entire Olympics.  I have always enjoyed watching distance running and I try to judge how much each athlete has left in the tank by their body language and expressions.  I have to be honest and say in both races I wasn’t convinced that Farah had enough to win but he seemed to gain strength in the final few laps and once he got into a sprint there was only ever going to be one winner.

Another long distance race I took a keen interest in was the Men’s Marathon.  The race was eventually won by Uganda’s Stephen Kiprotich which was remarkable as he seemed to hit the wall and dropped off the pace being set by his Kenyan rivals, Abel Kirui and Wilson Kipsang Kiprotich.  The commentators were looking back to 4th place and discussing whether the Ugandan could hold on to a bronze medal when he set off at a storming pace to leave the two Kenyan’s behind.  Kiprotich was able to keep the pace up for the remainder of the race and had time to collect his national flag from the crowd, before walking across the finish line.

One of the more amazing stories of the Olympics was the case of USA 4x400m runner, Manteo Mitchell.  In the heats, Mitchell completed his leg of the relay with a broken leg.  He done the first leg of the relay but after 200m he felt a sharp pain and heard a crack.  Mitchell continued on to the end of his leg and his team qualified for the Final, eventually picking up a silver medal for their troubles but an x-ray showed he had a broken fibula.  Very few athletes will have gone through as much pain and trauma to gain an Olympic medal as Manteo Mitchell.

As I’ve already mentioned I didn’t watch a great deal of Olympic Soccer.  The way I see is why should I waste my time watching it when most of the teams involved don’t really care themselves.  Of the 4 European sides in the tournament only GB made it beyond the group stage and they were defeated in the Quarter-Finals.  I know the European Championships were this summer but that is always going to be the case as the Olympics and Euros are on the same, four year cycle.  It saddens me that so few players are interested in taking part in the biggest sports event in the world.  You only have to look at the players selected by the 16 participants as there overage players.  Very few of them picked the 3 best players available to them.  Sadly Olympic Soccer is a second class competition and at some point in the future I’d be delighted if the issue was addressed but I doubt it ever will.

The other sport I usually follow but didn't take a huge interest in during the Olympics is Basketball.  The reason for this is Olympic Basketball is ridiculously one sided.  The USA are by far, the best Basketball team in the world.  They have the vast majority of the best players in the world & every single member of their squad would be worthy of a starting place for every other country in the tournament.

Team USA went 8-0 on their way to gold with only Lithuania and Spain running them close.  It has to be remembered that this USA squad were missing Dwight Howard, Derrick Rose & Dwyane Wade through injury.  Those three would all be regarded in the top 10 Basketball players in the world. 

People say Team USA are like an All-Star team but in my opinion they are even better than that.  All-Star teams are the best players in each half of the league, East v West.  Team USA or Dream Team 2012 were a team picked from the best of both conferences.  All 10 players who started the 2012 All-Star Game were from the USA.

Having said that, I have to give Spain credit as they gave USA a few things to think about in the Gold Medal Game.  Spain were ahead at one stage in the 4th Quarter & were still in with a chance until the last minute or two.  The man responsible for that was the Los Angeles Lakers Forward, Pau Gasol.  Gasol was very impressive & at times completely unplayable. Unfortunately for him & his team mates, USA were able to step up to another level in the dying moments to seal yet another gold.  Spain can be extremely proud of their efforts and perhaps they may even wonder if their star Point Guard, Ricky Rubio, not been injured, could they have done even better?

A sport I didn’t watch a lot of but I want to mention is Weightlifting.  In total, I watched less than 30 minutes of Weightlifting.  One of the very few occasions I did watch it was Sunday 29th July and it was the Men’s 56kg B Final.  A North Korean, Om Yun-Chol came out and in the Clean and Jerk section lifted a massive 168kg.  That is three times his body weight.  He managed to follow it up by doing enough in the Snatch to clinch gold from the B Final.  He made it look simple and I wish Weightlifting followed a similar process as the High Jump in Athletics, where the competitors keep going until they fail three times.  It would have been very interesting to see just how much Om Yun-Chol could have lifted.

My first Olympic memories are of Barcelona 1992.  I can remember being very proud that Michael Carruth won gold and Wayne McCullough won silver in the Boxing.  In 1996, 2000, 2004 Ireland never won a Boxing medal.  In 2008, we picked up 3 medals with Kenny Egan winning silver, Paddy Barnes got bronze and the late Darren Sutherland also picked up a bronze.  2008 was a great Olympics for Irish Boxing but unbelievably 2012 has been even better.  

Belfast duo, Paddy Barnes and Michael Conlon both picked up bronze medals. In doing so Paddy Barnes became the first Irish Boxer to pick up a medal in two Olympics.  Whilst I am discussing Paddy Barnes, I have to mention his Chinese rival, Zou Shiming, who must be one of the luckiest gold medallists in recent years.  I thought Paddy Barnes beat him in the semi-final and Kaeo Pongprayoon of Thailand definitely beat him in the Final.  In the semi-final, Barnes was beaten on “Countback” which I believe is an extremely flawed method to decide the winner of a fight.  The system at present is if 3 or more judges press the button, a point is scored.  In countback any time a judge presses a button it is counted.  This means that a fight is ultimately decided on punches which the majority of judges did not believe was a scoring shot.  Surely a fairer method would be an extra round or deciding the fight on shots that 4 or 5 judges deemed to be scoring shots.

Another Irish medallist was John Joe Nevin of Mullingar who picked up a silver medal.  Nevin looks like another good Irish prospect and he was superb in his semi-final win over Cuba’s Lazaro Alvarez.  I have to give credit to his opponent in the Final, Luke Campbell.  Campbell was absolutely fantastic in that fight and his style reminds me Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Finally, my favourite moment of London 2012.  Ireland’s Katie Taylor winning a gold medal in the Ladies Lightweight Division was a moment that would make any Irish sports fan proud.  We have been well used to Katie being a success.  She is after all a four-time World Champion but for her to become the first ever Ladies Lightweight Olympic Champion was incredible.  Everyone in Ireland was delighted and extremely proud of her.  I watched the fight on an outdoor screen at Belfast City Hall with hundreds of other fans.  The roar when she was announced as Olympic Champion was something I won’t forget for a long time.  It had been 16 years since Ireland had won an Olympic gold medal and there is a bit of a dark cloud over that achievement after Michelle Smith was caught tampering with urine samples.  On this occasion, we have a boxer who has now shown 5 times that she is the best in the world and that is something the Irish people will take immense pride in.

Overall London 2012 was a fantastic spectacle and the organisers & athletes can be extremely proud of their efforts.  It was the best Olympics ever but then again I said that in '92, '96, '00, '04, '08 and I can barely wait until I get to say it again in 2016.  Over to you Rio!

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