LOCOG Failed. They tried to crush my dream but they failed. Despite the 'no kitten' rule I attended the Olympics and it was nothing short of superb. You know what made it superb? The gamesmakers! Were you a gamesmaker? well then I thank you - seriously I thank you from the heart of my bottom, you made the games alright! You made them friendly, you made them easy to attend, you welcomed me and helped with my travel, you high fived my DD, you called funny messages over the loud hailers you were, in short, awesome.
We attended the dressage event in Greenwich, what a perfect setting. We sat high up (last row!) in the stands but had a fabulous view of the action. beautiful horses, stunning control, a sport once only performed by Cavalry officers, designed to perfect control of horse by rider in a battle situation the sport has moved on into one of grace and elegance where even women can have a go (wry smile) and 'have a go' we did! Well done Team GB. A fine display to witness on our wonderful day out.
But wait, I hope I haven't used up all my superlatives because we also attended the Paralympics. In fact we had tickets to Swimming (twice), the Olympic park (where we watched Wheelchair Tennis), Equestrian, and Wheelchair Basketball. And boy oh boy was the Paralympics a great event! (yes, yes it was)
Once again the gamesmakers were on top form. Chatty, helpful, so friendly, so smiley, was it the training or did we just pick the nicest people in the UK? Who knows, but they were excellent. Again, I salute you all, I wish you could be in London to welcome strangers every day - what a welcome that would be!
And the sport...well it's all been said, the athletes were amazing, in that I was genuinely amazed! Wheelchair tennis? I couldn't even move a wheelchair that accurately and fast let alone return a fast serve at the same time! Fantastic game, loved watching the skill in the play, wish it was on TV more, and I'll be looking online to see if I can watch it anywhere.
Wheelchair basket ball....crikey o'reilly!! Crashes, trick shots, speed, action, way better that 'on your legs' basketball! Had the best afternoon watching that EVER!
The swimming was phenomenal. I can't swim. No seriously I can't, I hate the water, was put off swimming at school with the worst 'lessons' ever and a freezing out door pool, but these swimmers ... I don't even know where to start, we watched blind swimmers, swimmers with only ONE limb, yes one, just one limb! We watched men with no legs swagger out of the changing rooms on artificial legs, then take them off to win races in the pool. I have no idea how these people swam so amazingly fast...yeah I do, they work bloody hard at it. It was brilliant.
And then we watched (amongst others) Sophie Christiansen win Gold at the dressage. She has cerebral palsy. She rode a horse with the sort of precision you could only dream of. You sneering at 'horses dancing'? I'd love to see you make a horse do what she did with the accuracy she managed. I watched her ride out trying to ensure she didn't give the horse the wrong signals at any time with a body affected by cerebral palsy and I .... got something in my eye ... quite a lot of something...still there when she rode out grinning from ear to ear because she knew she'd ridden fantastically. *sobs even thinking about it*
The Paralympics is not about brave it's about bloody awesome! Insipiring a generation? Inspiring EVERYONE that saw it!
Thank you to anyone and everyone that made it happen.