An opportunity of a lifetime

I've always been interested in the Olympics and one of my lifelong ambitions is to attend one. In 1996, I wrote to the IOC asking for tickets for Atlanta 1996 - they sent me a pin badge commemorating the Olympic centenary. Having failed to make the grade to volunteer for Beijing 2008, I was hoping for better luck for London 2012 as I was born within walking distance of the Olympic Park. So I was rather pleased to discover that I was one of the chosen many aka Gamesmakers.

My role was to chauffeur clients around in one of these.

If G4S seriously underestimated how many security personnel would be needed (that actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise because the armed forces personnel who stepped in to fill the breech impressed everyone with their exemplary professionalism), then LOCOG/IOC seriously overestimated the demand for our service. After all, if you're doing a 10 hour shift, you don't want to have to spend the vast majority of it waiting around - the weekend before the Opening Ceremony, I made two trips from the airport to central London. One of the people I drove on the day of the Opening Ceremony seemed pretty confident that things would pick up from Saturday, but once again it was a case of supply exceeding demand and then some!

I drove ministers, IOC staff, NOC representatives, significant others of IOC and international sports federation officials and it was my great privilege to drive the person who conceived the idea of staging an Olympic games in London nineteen years ago - Kirani James who became Grenada's first Olympic champion when he won the 400m is 19.

The Wednesday before the Opening Ceremony, I was in the Olympic stadium to watch the final dress rehearsal before the main event - the forging of the Olympic rings was one of my standout moments.

It was nice to see the efforts of the Gamesmakers recognised at the Opening and Closing ceremonies and at the celebratory Olympic and Paralympic parade and I suppose when sufficient time has passed, that will probably be my abiding memory of London 2012.

There WILL be medals in 2012

The sport that embodies the Olympic motto of Citius, Altius, Fortius is athletics (some of you may know it as track and field) and that's my first love given that I was a high jumper and sprinter back in the day. So it was very nice to be back at Crystal Palace yesterday for the second day of the Diamond League London meet.

On my way to my seat I stopped to congratulate the person responsible for British success at the recently concluded European Athletic Championships and urged him to tell UK Athletics to give Linford Christie a more prominent role in the lead up to 2012 as he knows how to get his athletes to medal at major championships (Mark Lewis-Francis, silver medallist in the 100m and Christian Malcolm, silver medallist in the 200m are two of the athletes Linford coaches). His response left me in no doubt as to who calls the shots at UK Athletics.

Nigeria's Blessing Okabgare, who won her 3rd 100m title at the African Athletic Championships in Nairobi a few weeks ago, shocked the second fastest women of all time, Carmelita Jeter (PB of 10.64s), in the heats and recorded a PB of 11.0s while doing so. Sadly, she was unable to repeat this success in the final, but once again Carmelita Jeter was defeated, this time by her compatriot Marshevet Myers. Allyson Felix completed the 200m/400m double but had to dig deep to secure victory in the one lap race. She intends to emulate Valerie Brisco-Hooks and Marie-José Perec, who completed this illustrious double in 1984 and 1996 respectively, in London 2012. Kenyan women are starting to make their presence felt in the 3000m steeplechase, Milkah Chemos stopped the clock at 9:22.49 which was an ACR. The Empress of Entoto aka Tirunesh Dibaba unleashed her devatasting sprint finish to secure victory in the women's 5000m, but overall Kenya secured more victories than Ethiopia. Augustine Choge wrote his name, literally, into folklore by winning the Emsley Carr Mile, the meet's last event.

Une médaille pour chaque couleur du tricolor

Christope a gagné une médaille pour le rouge, le blanc et le bleu, les couleurs de son drapeau, le tricolor.
Félicitations à Christophe et Renaud. À Teddy, pas mal.
Voyez-vous à  Londres en deux ans.
Allez les trois mousquetaires, allez!!!

2 year countdown begins

Over the weekend, "I took part in the London 2012 Open Weekend challenge" by playing table tennis at different venues in London. Having last played in 2005 on the rooftop of a famous Manhattan building, overlooking the East River, I was pretty rusty on Saturday, at Brunswick Square, and it showed when I lost my opening game (I wasn't fully focused), but won my next 2 games before losing my final game to the best player. On Sunday at The Hub in Regent's Park, I lost both double series (best of five) that I played in, but won my singles series. I also picked up some tips on how to refine my strokes - now I just need to find an indoor table so that I don't have to compete against the elements as well.

Being serenaded by a preocious, bilingual 2+ year old was the pièce de résistance of a weekend full of highlights.

Like a fine wine, he's getting better with age

So a former world junior record holder for the 100m has finally lived up to his potential by becoming the fastest European this year with this run in Norway yesterday. What's more he's done it in the face of enormous adversity. If the men in white on Friday had a quarter of Dwain's mental strength, then England would probably have 6 points instead of 2.

Dwain, I certainly hope you get to run in 2012 because without question, if you run the qualifying time, then you sure as hell will deserve to don the British vest and represent.