It's been a triumph

I've used this blog to say some sour things about the Olympics over the past couple of years,  so as the Games draw to a close, it behoves me to say that the event has been a massive success on just about all levels.  Londoners have risen to the challenge brilliantly.  The weather has mostly cooperated (though it was maybe a bit chilly for the late evening beach volleyball sessions).  There have been few complaints about transportation, the patched-together security arrangements have worked just fine, and even the initial griping about empty seats at the venues seems to have died away.  And of course the sport itself has been marvellous.

So, aside from the medallists, who are the winners here?

The biggest winner of all, and it hurts a bit to say this, has to be Lord Coe.  Give him almost £10 billion to play with, and he can put on a heck of a show for you.  Of course his ego, never far from view, must now be big enough to eclipse Alpha Centauri, and he's setting his sights on even bigger goals.  David Cameron has already tapped him to manage the UK's Olympic legacy programme, but Coe has hinted that the job he really wants is to be head of the global governing body for track and field sports, the IAAF.  I hope their budget is up to the strain.

Then there's the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.  BoJo wan't actually mayor when London was awarded the Games -- that was Ken Livingstone -- but he's been an enthusiastic booster, and now that it's been a big success, he stands to reap a lot of the glory.  David Cameron's star as Prime Minister seems to be waning fast, and the media are focusing more and more on Struwwelboris as the man in waiting.

The BBC has had a good Games.  Its decision to set up an array of digital TV channels in order to show every single minute of sport live has surely set the standard for all future Olympiads.  It's sad to hear that NBC, which has been broadcasting the Games in the US, has been using an old fashioned, commercial-laden pick and mix approach. They even showed the men's 100 metre final on a delayed basis, in order to broadcast it in prime time.  It's to be hoped, or indeed expected, that nobody will dare to do anything like that when we get to Rio 2016.

Sports commentators have emerged as winners.  Those we heard were generally well-informed and enthusiastic without being jingoistic, though the BBC did shoehorn some of its contracted staff into some unusual locations -- Jonathan Edwards, triple jumper, seemed very uneasy commentating on the white water kayaking events.  We also learned just how much we have come to depend on commentators, because on may occasions, for the more obscure sports, the BBC opted simply to show the pictures with no commentary at all.  Trying to figure out the differences between the various martial arts sports, without the aid of a guy with crib notes on a clipboard, was a real challenge.

What about losers?  Apart from pre-Games Cassandras like yours truly, there really haven't been many, but I will give a mention to newspaper columnist and sometime TV pundit Matthew Syed.  Matthew, as he never ceases to remind us, was himself an Olympian, in table tennis.  Oddly, however, a large part of his contribution to our understanding of these Games has been repeated and tedious references to how much sex all the athletes try to cram in once their events are concluded.  There's something almost Victorian about that obsession, which I'm sure is the exact opposite of what he's trying to achieve.

Once the big party's over, a hangover must inevitably follow.  It won't be long before we start carping again about how much it all cost, or how it didn't provide the promised boost to the economy, or the uncertain fate of the main Olympic stadium (prediction: if West Ham FC move in, they'll be screaming/litigating to get out within 5 years), or the slow progress in turning the Olympic site into a new neighbourhood. But all that can wait: at this point, we can only compliment the organisers, the volunteers, the spectators and most of all, the participants on a really great show.