Olympic Party's Over

The Olympics are over. Women's Modern Pentathlon, the last event, finished a while ago, and the Closing Ceremony is coming up. It's been incredible. Exceeding expectations beyond plausibility. The weather's been glorious, the performances have been spectacular, the coverage has been fantastic, the city-wide mood has ranged from cheerful to jubilant, and London put up as distinctive and supportive a show as anyone could have dreamt.

BBC v NBC
What a difference a letter makes. US coverage apparently horrific. BBC, on the other hand, broadcast every sport live in HD. Every event. Live. On the TV and on the internets. I didn't need the streaming internet because I've got a perfectly good TV but I did check it out and it worked just fine. The commentors were uniformly good. Enthusiastic homers without falling into simple-minded jingoism. Charmingly engaged. The experts they had on with them actually added to the enjoyment rather than detracted from it. American commentators who joined, such as the legendary sprinter Michael Johnson, were insightful and engaging. It's like being on the set with the British journalists adds 20 IQ points, whereas on a US sports panel everyone competes to say the dumbest and most obvious thing. This was 21st-century coverage with just the right tone. Brilliant. Live sports covered this way provided both a sense of place and a communal experience. Gold medal for the BBC.



The Weather
My current hypothesis is that LOCOG built a top-secret weather control lab and turned it over to the resurrected corpse of Nikola Tesla and the guy who came up with the idea of landing a mars probe using a rocket-powered sky crane. That is the only possible explanation for two weeks of such nice weather in England in the summer.

The Sports & The Support
Well, I loved it. I'd gone native and fully supported TeamGB. Not that I wasn't in awe of Phelps's retirement, but the UK athletes were just wonderful. Gracious and grateful to a fault, they provided more glory and thrills than anyone had a right to expect. I watched as much as I good. Track cycling is a favorite, along with swimming of course, road cycling, bmx, mountain biking, a bit of judo (incomprehensible), fencing (likewise, even though I fenced sabre for one year in college), plenty of athletics, and many, many more. Part of the delight of the olympics should be seeing lots of sports your normally wouldn't get to see, all being delivered at world-class level. Thanks, BBC, for making that happen.

The performances were often thrilling. GB got so many more golds than anyone expected. Olympic fever? US sportswriter Bill Simmons wrote about the middle weekend in with Jess Ennis won the Heptathlon in champion's style by crushing the field in the final 800m even though she didn't need to in order to win, describing the 80,000 in the stadium as "totally, completely and irrevocably losing their shit." It's like every venue was competing to see which could produce the most deafening roar. Along with Jess, Mo Farah's two golds in the stadium were ear-bleedingly loud. The velodrome, in my vote the most spectacular of the venues, produced crushing walls of noise time after time, despite the relatively small capacity. (And if you're unmoved by Chris Hoy's final lap, ending with a guard of honour from all of British Cycling's track coaches and support team, well, I can't help you.) Not to be outdone, the Excel Centre was "bonkers" for women's boxing. Seemingly the entire cycling road time trial course was lined with several hundred thousand people. There was a big crowd for open-water swimming! And the marathon loop had spectators several deep along almost the entire course.

Many athletes, from all over, graciously sited the crowd support and enthusiasm. The UK athletes in particular were often overwhelmed. It will be hard to watch professional sports after this, played by people who take that level of support for granted.


The City
London was gorgeous. Equestrian cross country through Greenwich Park. Beach Volleyball setup on Horse Guards Parade. And the Olympic park, with wildflower gardens along the canals and river. All just beautiful. The transport worked! The tube had a couple record days. But regulars seemed to spread their day out, so the big rush hour peaks got flattened and spread out. Not everything worked. The cycle hub in Victoria Park was completely unused. I don't think it ever went above maybe 5% capacity. I don't think anyone knew about it. It would have helped to have set it up weeks in advance, not a day, and to have gotten the signage for it right, rather than wrong, and to have advertised it better. Likewise the nearby Victoria Gate was nearly completely unused, even while masses were queuing in and out of the main Stratford Gate. I suspect the other 2 Gates were little used as well. Most visitors probably didn't even know that Stratford was not the only way in or out. But given the lack of catastrophe for the transport network as a whole, this is a minor complaint. A gold medalist took the DLR! Then the US men's basketball team actually took a train, an event so astonishing even the New Yorker covered it.

The live-viewing party in Victoria Park was huge and festive. The free venue had big screens, music stage, activities, and an unabashedly cheerful vibe. I loved the snatches of music floating in the window in between events. I loved hearing a roar for Mo's winning kick in the 5000m even more. Doesn't take much to get an East London crowd to enjoy themselves even with less spectacular excuses.


And Now
The big hangover. Tomorrow: work, rain, and no olympics. I've got a couple weeks to wallow in despair before going back to the Olympic Park for the Paralympics. The echos of these past two weeks will still be knocking around amongst the walkways and wildflowers, washing over the canals and the river valley. Then more stretching of the limits of human achievement. And after that, well, a park, eventually, and that's it for a lifetime.