This time only one month ago, I was one of many Olympic critics. Yet now, they are seemingly a dying breed.
"I was dreading the Olympics"
I love sport, but for these Olympics, I had decided to temporarily disregard my affection for it. Difficulty purchasing tickets and overcrowding of the city and its transport networks were just two of my many worries. Greenwich Park, a short distance from my house, spent all of last summer closed and is spending all of this summer closed. The reason it's closed? To allow a few equestrian events to take place. Have I enjoyed watching equestrian events at previous Olympics? No. My local train station is in restricted use. Blackheath looks like a building site. All of these things left me dreading the summer of 2012, in fact dreading them so much that our family holiday was booked for the second week of the Games in order to escape them.
"This summer has been the most enjoyable of all my life"
Oh how wrong I was. This summer has been the most enjoyable of my life so far- Olympic fever has hit hard. I am yet to visit the Olympic Park, but the events I have seen so far at Horse Guards Parade, Wembley Stadium and in Greenwich Park were all fantastic. The events I have seen on television have been equally fantastic, even without the atmosphere of being there in the flesh. The Opening Ceremony, which I watched on one of London's many so-called 'Big Screens' was absolutely fantastic, which is due not only to Danny Boyle's hard work, but also the fifteen thousand volunteers who create one of the greatest shows on Earth. Admittedly, even after such a wonderful show on the Friday, I was not hugely looking forward to seeing the dressage in my local park last Sunday. But, even dressage, in a thunderstorm, was rather enjoyable. I had to leave that event early in order to reach Wembley by five o'clock to see Senegal defeat Uruguay 2-0, but more importantly to watch Great Britain beat UAE 3-1. However, it had to be noticed there were huge amounts of empty seats at venues and events that were supposedly sold out, which lead to resale on a huge scale on the London 2012 website. At midnight on Monday, I found tickets for show jumping at the equestrian eventing final. Living so close to the park, it was not a problem to have found the tickets at such short notice. The tickets were bought and the final attended. I sat only two rows in front of almost the entire Royal family, watching Great Britain's team of five win silver. Having had such great success with tickets on the first night of trying, I went about trying for more every following evening. My next ticketing success was in buying tickets for Beach Volleyball at Horse Guards Parade for Friday morning, which was great fun.
"This week has been wonderful"
As said previously, it hasn't only the events I managed to get tickets for that I enjoyed, but just as exciting were those that I have watched on television. For the best moment of the first week (of course not counting GB medals), you can't look past Chad le Clos's 200m butterfly win in the Aquatics Centre, and perhaps even more so the reaction of his father, Bert le Clos, live on the BBC. This week has been wonderful.
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