I have been, against my initial thoughts, completely absorbed by most of the events. I am competitive so I guess its why I like most sports. And I don't want to put a damper on anything but we had a management meeting yesterday regarding the effect the Olympics has had on our business. We send a 40ft Tuffnells trailer out everyday and use other logistics companies. We have many customers well the M25 corridor. And quite a few very close to the Olympic Park. Because of all the sponsorship deals, deleiveries have to be made in unmarked vans and trucks. Within the M25 corridor, we have to pay EXTRA at the rate of £10 per pallet and £1.60 per parcel. Within 1 mile of the Olympic PArk we have to pay EXTRA at the rate of £20 per parcel. And we send out hundreds per day. Its because of security apparently. Not greed obviously. These charges were set by LOCOG not our transporters. We can't absorb all of this extra cost so we are passing on as much as we can to our customers. So they aren't buying until after the ParaOlympics. And we are in the middle of a double dip recession. Admittedly they didn't know that 7 years ago but they could have deferred the costs surely. As I said I don't want to piss on anyones fire and tonight I will be cheering on Pendleton and Co. But I think we should enjoy the party now and by 10 September we will know the true cost.
We've had similar issues Redruth, I think there's about 20 letters with Boris Johnsons name at the bottom telling us what time we can deliver, unmarked lorries etc etc. Not very business friendly, but I have to say inside the Olympic Park, these massive sponsors are not that evident, I was quite surprised!! Yes there's McDonalds all over the place but it's all blends in, it's certainly not in your face, thankfully!! ILD OTBC
on radio 5 live this morning they were dissapointed that 'sour grapes' has no meaning when translated into French!
gold and bronze in the triathlon for the brownlee brothers! what incredible stamina those guys have, make it look easy
Dream on! As dreams go, this must be near the top of those that have no chance of being realised -- unlike some Olympic dreams. PS Thank you ILD. Almost as good as having a ticket!
I wonder how many of todays youth have been inspired by the Olympics and the desire to succeed. Or is it just the mature ones among us. Ijust have this awful bloody feeling that the next idol will not be the pretty Jess Ennis but some twat with false tits on XFactor.
Some really outstanding performances in the cycling. GB have completely dominated - so much for all the Aussie talk prior to the games about how they were going to beat GB in the cycling events. We've taken more gold medals in just the cycling than they have taken in the entire games!
Out of TEN track cycling events we won NINE medals - SEVEN golds, a silver and a bronze - and the only one we didn't claim a medal was in the women's team sprint when we were disqualified on a technicality. When you chuck in Wiggo's time trial gold that makes eight gold medals out of twelve cycling events - now that's what I call complete and utter domination of the event, surely unprecedented at any games in any event I'd have thought. It is absolutely awe inspiring, nothing short of phenomenal and makes me totally and utterly proud to be British
Not bad eh - big respect to the coaching team for making that extra distance - hoys hat in the Kierin! People can moan that a lot of medals have come from cycling and rowing, but I'm sure if you break down chinas medals there is some domination eg the diving
USA, with a population just over five times bigger than GB only have ten more gold medals than us. Also, USA have won a lot of medals in the swimming. Considering that there are many distances the swimmers can swim and many different strokes there are a lot of medals to be won in swimming. So if you're good at that you're going to get a lot of medals. Just look at Phelps. In athletics you can only really run a certain distance with or without hurdles. It is far harder to get a lot of medals in athletics than it is in swimming.
Yeah agree, if GB was the size of America and China we would dominate the Olympics. Like you say America dominate the swimming but Phelps has so many medals because they have so many events. Fair play to the guy but I think if Chris Hoy had the same amount of events he would be just as successful as Phelps in terms number of medals, if not more. Did anyone see what Andy Murray said about Mo Farah. When Mo Farah did his 10,000m race he done his last lap (400m) in 53 seconds after already running 9,600m. When Andy Murray is fresh the quickest he can do it is 58 seconds. That's pretty incredible if you ask me.
Check out Alistair Brownlee's splits for the 1500m swim, 60km cycle and 10km road race, all would have been competitive in the individual events in these games and he did them all straight after one another, absolutely incredible! I also totally agree with the comments about the swimmers and how many different events they can all enter. Michael Phelps achievement is super-human, absolutely astonishing and he will rightly go down as one of the greatest Olympian's of all time, however him breaking the record for number of medals isn't the 'moment of the games' for me, though I'm struggling to decide which one it actuallt is!
Sunday 5th Aug, (day 9), I won’t bore you with the getting there details again, but it has become a part of the experience, and it’s bonkers. Only evening session today, but we’re in the park having lunch, it’s going to be another long day. Now we know the layout it’s a lot easier to find our way around, the big screen is showing events from other venues and there’s thousands of people sitting on the river bank, watching and cheering everything and anything. I have never seen so many Union Flags, it’s another emotional experience, you just feel that the whole place is on the verge of bursting into tears! Yesterday they said that 575000 people had entered the park, it felt like more!!! Our seats today are about halfway down the 100m track and about halfway up, we didn’t get to choose them it was just the way they were allocated. So we’re in and sitting, well I’m not, I can’t, I’m so lit up, I’m up with my flag, I’m proud, excited, on the edge!! A Mexican wave starts, it’s spine chilling!! The Brits are still getting cheered, but it seems as if this session is only about the 100m’s. There is other stuff going on and I’m looking forward to the women’s 400m, Christine Ohuruogu trying to defend her title. The semi finals of the 100m about to start, strange but I don’t feel too excited, Bolt cruises his semi to rapturous applause, this all feels like a foregone conclusion, must be just me as everyone else seems to be going loopy. There’s also a drug cheat in this race (Justin Gatlin) and he’s qualified for the final. He’s been caught twice before so why is he here? Men’s 1500m semi’s we don’t have a serious contender in this race!!! What’s happened to our middle distance running??? Woman’s 400m final, Christine Ohuruogo gets a massive reception, her smile is sooooo wide, but she’s got Sanya Richards Ross to beat which will be a big big ask! Gun goes, crowd goes mental, this is more like it, Christine looks to be struggling in about 6th place going into the final bend, then......she takes off, passing one runner, ‘louder cheering’, past another, then another, can she do this? Come on Christine.......now she’s in second place catching Richards Ross by the metre, I’m sure the crowd is pushing her on, the noise is deafening!! Silver; she’s got silver, I’m sure another 10metres and she would have caught R Ross. Now I’m excited again that was just great, her lap of honour, she smiling she’s happy, we’re all cheering her, love it!! 100m final, the crowd is really going wild, there’s expectancy in the air, all around me people are cheering their heads off, this is what they’ve been waiting for and they’re ready for it!!! I’m still strangely subdued, I can’t get excited, I feel I already know what the outcome will be, and that feels a bit of a anti climax! OK I’ve got 10 seconds to get into the mood, I find I’m rooting for Blake, he does well but as expected Bolt wins fairly easily, and the drug cheat is third! I’ve watched the Olympic 100m final won by the fastest man on earth and I feel a bit deflated, really strange, maybe we knew what the result was going to be, and maybe it’s because it’s my last event, we have to go now, it’s over for us. Exiting the stadium, the mood lifts, again as everyone is buzzing about what they’ve just seen, and I feel better about things. After all I was there on Super Saturday, which was to date the best experience of my life, and I got to go again on Sunday, I will never forget this experience, it was truly magnificent!! A lot of people have knocked these Olympics, the security scandal, the train drivers threatening to strike, the queue’s at Heathrow, the Olympic lanes in London etc, and for a while it didn’t look good, but the Olympic Park and all its buildings is fantastic, travel to and from was a breeze, and the security was handled brilliantly by the Army, and a special thanks should go to all the Volunteers and greeters, you were great! But Great Britain’s sportsmen and women, you did us proud, it was phenomenal to be a tiny part of it, thank you for giving me that experience! ILD OTBC
