Singapore, Innsbruck, London. in a short two years i've been to three Olympics. can't say there's another bigger fulfilment of my childhood sports reporting dream.
London 2012, my first main Games, outstripped the rest easily in terms of scale and emotions. here are for me the moments of this Games.
1.
if Beijing was remembered for two names out of the thousands of athletes who are world-class in their own right, London might just be as well. it wasn't quite Michael Phelps headlining Part One and Usain Bolt Part Two again. sure, Bolt did, but Phelps pulled away and cemented his Most Decorated Olympian status that will be here to stay for a while.
whether the Baltimore Bullet is the greatest is no doubt arguable, but six medals here of any colour put him at 22 all-time, easily overtaking Larissa Latynina's 18. Phelps had an average (by his standards) swansong, swimming to a wtf fourth place in the 400m IM and losing his pet 200m fly to 20-year-old Chad le Clos, but it just made his eight-gold milestone four years ago look sick.
whether the Baltimore Bullet is the greatest is no doubt arguable, but six medals here of any colour put him at 22 all-time, easily overtaking Larissa Latynina's 18. Phelps had an average (by his standards) swansong, swimming to a wtf fourth place in the 400m IM and losing his pet 200m fly to 20-year-old Chad le Clos, but it just made his eight-gold milestone four years ago look sick.
he wasn't the star of this Games; he transcended it. mind you, Phelps' collection of gold medals alone equal Latynina's total.
2.
i'm not too impressed by Bolt's claim to be a "living legend", but the fact is he has become the first human being to achieve an Olympic sprint double, or sprint triple if you include his 4x100m relay golds. not even Carl Lewis or Michael Johnson managed that. he is now the world-record holder in all three events, so it is fair to label him the fastest man ever.
still, the big picture is, London provided possibly the greatest Olympic track event, which says a lot since athletics is the centrepiece of the five-ring movement. in a first, the blue-riband race featured the four fastest men in history -- Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell, Yohan Blake and Bolt -- plus Athens 2004 champ Justin Gatlin, and ended with all but one dipping under 10s. the eighth, Powell, did not because he pulled his groin.
two other track stars mentioned in the same breath as Bolt here were David Rudisha and Mo Farah, two Africans of slightly different distances and of vastly different journeys.
from that great lung-bursting territory of Kenya, Rudisha has been christened by world media "the greatest runner you've never heard of". he smashed his own 800m world record here in front of a crowd proud of their own middle-distance tradition, but what set the achievement apart was the difficulty of the race -- six of his seven foes that day ran personal bests, the last-placed fella was the quickest slowest ever. Rudisha overcame them all.
Farah was born in Somalia but moved to England at the age of 8. he's now as English as anyone. and with a vociferous crowd behind him, Farah did not capitulate, winning the long-distance double in style.
elsewhere, an almost-35 Felix Sanchez turned back the clock to beat a strong 400m hurdles field. the Dominican stuck a photo of him and his late grandma under his bib, and the motivation from the skies gave him extra legs. his granny raised him but died the day he was to race in Beijing. he crumbled then and vowed to win a medal for her eventually.
combined events are seldom big, but local girl Jessica Ennis captured imaginations with a field-crushing performance. her hurdles, especially, was a best-ever 12.54s. significance? this timing would have placed her 4th in the hurdles individual event.
captivating performances aside, the track also threw up some apt Olympic lore. American 4x400m runner Manteo Mitchell ran half a lap with -- you won't believe it --a goddamn broken leg. "It felt like somebody literally just snapped my leg in half."
yea that's the kind of pain, if you can relate. but Mitchell, his team's lead runner, didn't want to let his mates down. "I figured it's what almost any person would've done in that situation."
he completed his lap in 46.1s. Johnson's world record is 43.18s.
the other drama that one thought couldn't take another turn was Liu Xiang. champion in Athens, injured and couldn't start in Beijing in front of an expectant home support, and now in possibly his final Olympics Liu did go off but cleared not one hurdle. injury curse struck again. the great Chinese hope is no more. a lot of conspiracy theories swirling around now, but Liu did gain the approval of the London spectators -- he hopped the length of the track to a roaring ovation.
athletics did so much more for this Games. for the first time in history, there was no American in the men's 400m final. the relay quartet were then upset by the Bahamas. there was however some consolation for an overall underwhelming track performance by the US -- the 4x100m women's team broke a 27-year-old world record, while its likeable star Allyson Felix finally won a first and well-deserved individual gold. sprint powerhouse Jamaica were also ruthless in dominating the US -- it swept a 1-2-3 in the men's 200m.
3.
not all the "moments" took place during the Games or inside the arena. organisers gave the arriving world a worry when it was revealed mega security firm G4S could not deliver its promise of 10,000 personnel. as a result the military was activated to top up the numbers.
liberal democracy also gave a post-Beijing Olympic movement a rude awakening. for weeks up till the Opening Ceremony, there were striking threats from bus and taxi drivers to customs, tube and train workers. the government dug deep into its pockets to appease many of whom were opportunists.
midway through the Games, the military was given a new order -- attend the sports events. organisers were left red-faced after so-called VIPs did not turn up, leaving thousands of high-demand seats empty. it led to an outcry from the British public, and unable to solve the problem, organisers readied soldiers to sit in.
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| another sort of Guard-of-Honour for Tony Tan. |
4.
lighting the cauldron has to be a "moment". this act at London's Opening Ceremony was even more anticipated as the ritual was kept top secret in a country known for its extreme transparency (plus David Beckham sort of lost his right after being dropped from the football team). but eventually, i don't know what to make of it -- Becks and Sir Steve Redgrave each had a part to play, but the Olympic flame was collectively lit by former Olympians and a bunch of youths.
5.
gymnastics managed to earn a few more inches in the papers this time. making the giant stride were five tiny girls, newly dubbed 'Fierce Five', for Americans Gabby Douglas, Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney, Jordyn Wieber and Kyla Ross whambammed opponents into surrender. they were simply too good, too superior, too perfect in a sport that was always much closer than this. someone probably mentioned "Dream Team" too much prior to the Olympics and the girls began thinking it referred to them.
wasn't all good news though. world champion Wieber didn't even make the final in the individual all-around. rules state only two per country can qualify. Wieber was as usual darn good, but she was fourth and ahead of her included Douglas and Raisman. no problem for the US -- Douglas proceeded to pummel Russians Viktoria Komova and 2010 champ Aliya Mustafina in the final.
6.
Oscar Pistorius became the first amputee to compete at the Olympics, running in the 400m and 4x400m.
7.
they won't beat the original Dream Team, but USA Basketball's 2012 gold medal-winning crop posted the heaviest defeat in history, brushing Nigeria aside 156-73. in the 40-minute game, Carmelo Anthony scored also a record 37 points in less than 15 minutes of game time. the team totalled another record 29 three-pointers, as star men Lebron James and Kobe Bryant sat out the second half.
8.
the blot on this impressive Olympics was one so big it questioned the whole idea of sports. after having taken an oath of "respecting and abiding by the rules... in the true spirit of sportsmanship", four pairs of badminton players attempted to rig the draw by playing to lose. they were all disqualified, but i feel for the Koreans and Indonesians, as they were merely reacting to the world number one Chinese, who wanted to lose so as to avoid their compatriots until the final. it's a shame the BWF never acted on China's scheming ways and it reared its ugly head here at the biggest stage of them all.
9.
9.
of course local papers were all about Team GB, but taken in perspective, Britain did perform outstandingly, its 29 gold medals and third place overall the team's best haul for more than a century, despite a slow start.
if all the talk before this Games was of Redgrave, now it's about Sir Chris Hoy. the Scottish cyclist overtook the rower to become Britain's most successful Olympian, owning six gold medals.
Bradley Wiggins rode on his Tour de France high to grab another gold medal here, and with seven Olympic medals in all, is joint most decorated British Olympian.
the final shining light was Ben Ainslie, whose fourth gold makes him the greatest Olympic sailor, and the first-ever athlete to medal at five Olympic Games.
10.
minor alarm for everyone when a media bus knocked over a citizen cyclist and killed him.10.
11.
to a minor sport that isn't minor for powerhouse China, the nearest blow to its unsurprising medal sweep happened in the 4th round of the men's singles. Vladimir Samsonov is good, one of the best Europeans ever, but not many gave him a shot against the haloed world number one Zhang Jike. but the Belarussian came out fearless, made Zhang look ordinary at times, and was twice just four points from winning. as envisioned, Zhang destroyed everyone else in London.
12.
traditionally the partner to athletics as the Olympics' rah-rah sports, swimming didn't disappoint here. other than the imminent retirement of Phelps, most of the talk were about heir presumptive Ryan Lochte and the possible domination of the pool by the Australian nation.
interesting then that we are bidding farewell to Phelps and welcoming Lochte, who is actually 11 months older than his rival. Lochte has been around for a while, was at Athens and Beijing, but fact is he wasn't a 15-year-old Olympic finalist like Phelps. the New Yorker really arrived as the next backstroke king in 2007 when he set two world records within two hours, including beating legend Aaron Peirsol. he cemented that title at the following year's Olympics by beating Peirsol again. Lochte went on to be a key member of the US freestyle relay teams, but the challenge on Phelps really came when he proved his all-rounded excellence in the medley events. he first broke Phelps' world record in 2009, before defeating him in a competitive race in 2010. the next two years were basically 'Lochte time' as he consistently triumphed over Phelps.
as we know by now, Phelps took most of the headlines in London. Lochte managed a modest five medals. disappointingly, he lost the shorter medley race to his great foe, was third in his pet backstroke event and couldn't medal in the 200m freestyle. although his achievements make him the second most successful swimmer, observers have called his campaign underwhelming.
Down Under, it was sheer disaster. often cited as a proud swimming country, Australia put in their worst showing in 20 years, winning only one gold. there were none in individual swims, for a lineup boasting James Magnussen, James Roberts, Stephanie Rice and Alicia Coutts, and the last time Australia failed to do that, Mao Zedong was still leader of China.
the one they let slip that would be remembered was the 4x100m freestyle relay. despite being an extremely competitive event, the Australian men touted "Weapons of Mass Destruction" were expected to win it. eventually they were relegated to fourth, while the other plot was of France avenging their photo-finish loss to the US four years ago. this time a low-profile team anchored by the superb Yannick Agnel overhauled the Yanks.
elsewhere the meet was defined by youth. a pair of 15-year-olds gripped the world, Katie Ledecky smashing her 800m opponents by at least four seconds, unfancied Ruta Meilutyte winning the breaststroke sprint.
but the story of youth and swimming belonged to Ye Shiwen. the Chinese 16-year-old won both medleys, but it was in the 400m she wrote herself into Olympic lore. she beat the silver medallist by three seconds, broke the world record by more than a second, and in one Olympics chopped five seconds off her personal best. even more shockingly, her final freestyle leg was faster than Lochte's, the male champion. defeating stars like Alicia Coutts, Elizabeth Beisel, Stephanie Rice and Kirsty Coventry, Ye is the new face of China's explosive rise in the sport.
