egafd.com

Throughout my life I have watched sport, particularly the Olympics, but I have never ever seen such a fantastic day of sport as yesterday.

The rowing was monumental. If you want to get kids involved in sport, forget John Terry and Rio Ferdinand and the rest of the pampered primadonnas, just show them the video of the Saturday morning rowing at Eton Dorney.

The men's four training every day for four years to beat the Aussies in the final. The women's lightweight sculls who had been together less than a year, won easily. And the wonderful modesty of the winners e.g. Kat Copeland "I would like to thank my coach because when I started at Yarm Rowing Club I was really rubbish!!"

And then show the kids the other side of the coin, the men's lighweight sculls, Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter who got overtaken in the last 10 strokes. Hunter was so exhausted he had to get lifted out of his boat and given a shoulder carry to the pontoon where he was interviewed by John Inverdale. "I'm sorry I let everybody down" said Hunter. Purchase was in tears. John Inverdale was in tears.

Then 3 gold medals in the athletics. A ginger haired white guy from Milton Keynes; a mixed race girl, the daughter of a white mother and West Indian father; a Muslim who fled the Civil War in Somalia and came to Britain as an 8 year old not being able to speak a word of English. I am sure all forumites without exception will welcome the above as a stunning example of British multiculturalism in action. !wink!

Great "reality" TV. Great camera and stills work. God Save the Beeb.

Only a choad could manage to get the sad old lefty "multicultural" bollocks into a great day's sport.

You obviously missed the !wink!

!wink!

I thought John McEnroe's comments after the Murray final win were spot on, as his comments usually are I must say, when he said pretty much the same as you have Dave. Watching the real dedication of the 'other' sports people had been an incredibly humbling experience for him and he urged all the prima donna tennis players to take note with all their wealth and hype.

Fantastic days entertainment on Saturday and Sunday ! Anyone who hates sport isn't a very complete human being in my book !

Good on ya Dave, agree entirely.

I had to take a break this afternoon to go for a walk. I had a build up of lactic acid in my legs with sitting on the sofa so long!!!

And then when I got back in and switched the tele on, Murray is hammering Federer three sets to nil in a Wimbledon final, having beaten Djokovic in the semis.

Pinch me someone, I must be dreaming!

The icing on the cake, is the fact that Team GB have, at this moment, 37 medals, of which 16 are gold.

Argentina, after that stupid insensitive stunt, where the argie hockey player was seen training all over the Falklands, including running up and down the war memorial steps, claiming that the Falklands !penguin! are Argentinian soil, have precisely 1 medal and that's bronze !happy!

I mean hell, even I got a silver, just for walking to my local co-op and back in under 15 minutes !wink!

What a wonderful weekend.
I don't think any of us will ever forget these two remarkable days of sport, capped by Usain Bolt's unreal 100m to win in a new Olympic Record time.
When that Flame goes out a week tonight, I bet there'll be many a tear shed up and down this country.
It's been quite something, it really has.

I'm entering the 100m at the next Olympics, so Bolt better up his game, I have already cut down on the Port and cigars.

Entirely agree.

Although the superstars such as Jessica Ennis and Vickie Pendleton will probably do well financially with advertising contracts post Games, a lot of our Olympic competitors, despite a supportive infrastructure, struggle to make ends meet.

There is something about their huge dedication and commitment week in and week out for years, which I find both noble and inspiring.

And there are hundreds of moving stories. For example I remember watching Katherine Grainger, the rower, at the Beijing Olympics. She already had two silver medals and was the favourite to get a gold. Alas, her boat was overtaken by the CHinese in the last few strokes and she was utterly distraught and in bits. She considered giving up and going into retirement, but decided to plough on.

And finally, last week she got a well deserved gold medal. What rounds it all off is many of the athletes come across as modest, humble, genuinely likeable people. A listener told the BBC a story about Grainger. Her 10 year old daughter had written a letter to Katherine Grainger asking for a signed photograph. Out of the blue one evening, Grainger who lived in the region turned up unannounced at her house with the photograph. Her 10 year old was completely gobsmacked that any "star" would make the effort to come and see her personally.

And Grainger herself can still get very emotional about her win as she did a couple of days ago on morning TV when she was talking about the experience.

" bet there'll be many a tear shed up and down this country."

Well I am not ashamed to admit that this particular poster has already shed a tear or two watching the box this past week.

David Johnson wrote:

> And finally, last week she got a well deserved gold medal.
> What rounds it all off is many of the athletes come across as
> modest, humble, genuinely likeable people.


I've noticed this as well. It's in sharp contrast to professional footballers, nearly all of whom come across as arrogant and/or semi-articulate chavvy fuckers and the kind of blokes who start fights in nightclubs.

- Eric