I Went For A Run: Why London 2012 Will Have A Lasting Legacy

I have just got back from a run. I did not go very far and I most definitely was not going at any great pace as the stitch set in after about three minutes. Despite that I do feel like I accomplished something. I got off my lazy back-side and completed something that I had set out to do. It is a feeling that I have not felt for a very long time and it felt good. However I would not have made that small amount of effort had it not been for a magnificent Olympic Games in which the feats of all the athletes involved were remarkable, especially when compared to the average person. The whole point of hosting these Games was for it to have a positive impact on Great Britain and I think the great Olympic 'legacy' that Lord Coe kept rumbling on about three weeks ago will materialise. 

As a bog-standard British student it is easy from my point of view to see what an impact the Olympics has had on people. My younger sister almost made it to London 2012 as a rhythmic gymnast and the rest of my family have normal working lives. I see first hand what it is like for a gymnast that has to fight for the smallest amounts of sponsorship while she is mainly funded by her parents. It is athletes like this that represented GB in London and the amount of work that they have put in just to be there should never be under-estimated. Before the Games people were sceptical of the claims that hosting the event was going to be beneficial for Britain and said that hardly anyone was going to be inspired. People mocked the idea of using the 'great British countryside' in the opening ceremony, but crucially, no one envisaged that this Olympics would be as special and unique as it has been. 

To see British athletes like Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis, Bradley Wiggins, Sir Chris Hoy et. al compete with such heart and no little skill can only make young people around the country want to emulate them. When Farah crossed the line last night there was a feeling that that was the moment that London 2012 would always be remembered by. As a young boy he came to London from Somalia when he was eight years old and grew up here. Since then he has matured into an athlete that has made so many sacrifices just so that he can win gold medals for his country. He moved to the US so that he could receive the very best training and his dedication has paid dividends. Budding sportsmen and women all over the UK have seen success in a variety of sports and will want to do the same. 

Lord Coe has recently been made 'legacy' ambassador by David Cameron and his job will be to ensure that Britain profit financially. It is hoped that Britain will have an economic boost of 13 billion pounds as a result of hosting the Games. Cameron said: "I am determined to make the most of the economic opportunities on offer from hosting the Games - making sure that we turn these Games into gold for Britain. I cannot think of a better person than Seb to be our ambassador to the global market-place and make sure we achieve our ambitious legacy targets." 

Coe echoed the Prime Minister's hopes for the future: "In terms of delivering world class events, Britain is at the top of its Game right now. Capitalising on this within the UK and around the world is clearly a priority and I am delighted to be involved."

Team GB will endeavour to make sure that 2012's great medal haul and third-place medal table finish is not a flash in the pan. The average decrease in gold medals won for a country four years after hosting is 30% and the British athletes will want to buck that trend. With 28 golds and possibly two more to come for the boxers in the ExCel Arena it will be very difficult to match that tally in Rio. However there are so many people across the nation that do not usually take an interest in sport that have been completely consumed by the last 16 days. 

Attendance records have been soundly beaten with over seven million people flocking to watch the action unfold while there has been a profit of £80 million from official merchandise alone. Belgian International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge was ecstatic as he said: “The superlatives created here in London will live on long after the cauldron is finally extinguished. In the true spirit of Britain, huge crowds have cheered on not just their athletes but those of the world.” 

London has put on a show that the world has appreciated and now Great Britain looks set to reap the rewards, in a sporting sense and economically. 

Sir Chris Hoy Signs Off In Style But Pendleton Misses Out

Team GB's track cyclists won three medals including two gold on the final day of action in the velodrome to take their tally to seven golds, equal with the amount that they managed in Beijing four years ago. Sir Chris Hoy and Laura Trott stormed to take their second wins of the Games in the keirin and omnium respectively. The gold medals took Great Britain and Northern Ireland up to 22 gold medals in total and strengthened their stranglehold on third place in the process.

After Hoy and Pendleton had easily progressed into their finals Laura Trott was up in her 500 metre time trial, the last event of the omnium. She went into it needing to finish three places above American Sarah Hammer to take the gold after being pushed back into third place in the scratch race earlier in the afternoon. She absolutely went for it in the time trial and won it in a time of 35.110 seconds ahead of Annette Edmondson. Hammer could only finish in fourth place behind Sanchez of France to give Trott a dramatic victory and gold medal. It was the 20-year-old's second win of the Games after also taking gold with the women's team pursuit. Thanks to Trott's great performance the stage was perfectly set for the elder statesmen to take centre stage.

Pendlton faced old rival Anna Meares in the final in what was always going to be a classic. The Australian 2004 Olympic time trial winner won the sprint world title in 2011 but lost it this year to the Brit in Melbourne. Meares was hoping to beat Pendleton this on her own patch this time. The first race was highly controversial as Meares appeared to elbow Pendleton, forcing her out of her lane in the process. Pendleton won by a tyre width but was then relegated for leaving her lane. Despite some heated discussions in the centre of the track the decision stood and the Brit faced having to come back from one-nil down. It wasn't to be for the queen of the track in her last ever race as she failed to hold off Meares who stormed through to take her second Olympic gold, equalling Pendleton's tally.

The last to ride for Britain was Sir Chris Hoy as he set about surpassing Sir Steve Redgrave's total of five Olympic golds and levelling Bradley Wiggins's total amount of seven medals. The hunky Scot went out behind the pace-bike in third place before making his move almost as soon as the pacing bike made way. With still three laps to go Hoy stormed away from the field but German Maximilian Levy passed him with less than a lap to go. In the face of adversity Hoy immediately fought back as Levy struggled as a result of covering more ground and the home favourite came through in fine colours to win his record sixth gold medal.

It was a fitting swansong for one of Britain's greatest ever sportsmen and at the age of 36 he confirmed that this would be his last Games: "I'm in shock but this is just surreal and this what I wanted, to win gold in front of the home crowd. After seeing my team-mates win gold I wanted to come to the party. Unbelievable. The perfect end to my Olympic career. You won't see more, not in the Olympics as I'm 99.9% sure that I won't be competing in Rio."

GB Take Unprecedented Three Athletics Golds On Glorious Olympic Night

Super Saturday was back and improved at the Olympic Games as Team GB claimed six magnificent gold medals on day eight in London. The wins came from three different sports, one in cycling, two in rowing and an unbelievable three in the Olympic Stadium. The men's four and Sophie Hosking and Katherine Copeland in the lightweight double sculls won on the water at Eton Dorney before the women's team pursuit added gold number four for Team GB in the velodrome. However what was to come late into the night at the Olympic Stadium was surely not predicted.

The Games's poster girl Jessica Ennis stormed the women's heptathlon to win by over 300 points ahead of her rival, Russia's Tatyana Chernova. The Sheffield girl started off in the morning with an impressive six metres 48 centi-metres in the long jump before breaking her javelin personal best with 47.49 in what was supposed to be her weakest event. That gave her a comfortable lead of 188 points going into the 800 metres and she finished the job in style by winning the last event in 2.06.85 to win with a tally of 6,955 points; a British and Commonwealth record. An emotional Ennis lifted her arms in celebration when she crossed the line, appearing unsure whether to laugh or cry. Lilli Schwarzkopf of Germany was left 306 points behind in silver while Chernova took bronze.

Twenty minutes later and another British athletics gold was sealed and this time it was on the field thanks to a domineering performance by Greg Rutherford. The 25-year-old jumped the longest two efforts of any athlete in the final, winning by 15 centi-metres with a fourth round jump of 8 metres 31. This was just four centi-metres short of his British record of 8.35 which he shares with Chris Tomlinson who finished sixth. After his final leap he pointed to the sky and appeared in shock after sealing his first ever major championship medal. His gold-medal-winning moment sealed a fifth victory of the day for the home nation, the most for a British team in an Olympic Games since 1908 in London. Rutherford's win also ensured that Team GB had beaten their gold medal tally for athletics from Beijing when Ohuruogu was the only British champion and was the first win for Britain in the men's long jump since Lynn Davies back in 1964. He said that 'he would never be bored of hearing' that he is Olympic champion and said: "I thought that I would jump further than that but who cares, I'm Olympic champion. I don't it has sunk in properly to be honest."

The best was still to come on one of the greatest ever Olympic nights as Somalian born Brit Mo Farah made his move on the penultimate lap and stormed away from the field on the final lap to win the men's 10,000 metres; the first Brit to win an Olympic long-distance title. He held off the challenge from his fast-finishing American training partner Galen Rupp to win and deny Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele a third consecutive Olympic gold. Bekele's brother Tariku ended with bronze as Farah rounded off a record-breaking day for British sport in wonderful style. There could be more golds to come in the Olympic Stadium for Team GB with Dai Greene and Christine Ohuruogu both qualifying for their finals in the 400 metre hurdles and 400 metres respectively. Farah will also run in the 5,000 metres as reigning world champion and aims to win the long-distance track double.

Earlier on in the day the men's four had successfully defended their Olympic title at Eton Dorney, just beating Australia to the line in a thrilling finish. It was the fourth time in a row that GB have won the Olympic title in this event and was GB's third rowing gold of these Games, the first time they have managed that since 1908. Copeland and Hosking, who only teamed up this season, then made it four golds for the British rowers as they led from the front to beat China by two seconds. Gold was next struck in the velodrome as the British women's pursuit team thrashed the USA to win the home team's cyclists' fifth gold of the games.

Brilliant Brits Continue Success As Hosts Move Up To Fourth In Medal Table

The home nation continued to take the London Olympics by storm as they secured another three gold medals on day seven. Golds on the track in the men's team pursuit and women's keirin followed gold at Eton Dorney for Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins in the women's double sculls. The men's pursuit quartet of  Geraint Thomas, Ed Clancy, Steven Burke and Peter Kennaugh smashed the world record that they had set in qualifying by nearly a second leaving Australia languishing over two and a half seconds behind. Victoria Pendleton made up for her disqualification in the team sprint to beat Chinese cyclist Guo Shuang to the line and seal keirin gold.

Grainger and Watkins got the ball rolling with a dominant victory over Kim Crowe and Brooke Pratley of Australia as the former took her first Olympic title at the fourth time of asking after silvers in Sydney, Athens and Beijing. The 36-year-old said that the winning moment was well worth the wait: "Steve Redgrave promised me there would be tears of joy this time and there are. For both of us we knew we had the goods to perform and it was about delivering." For Watkins the gold was her second Olympic medal after a bronze in the same event four years ago.

However there was more to come from Team GB and the next successes would come in the Velodrome as the Brits dominated the team pursuit competitions. The men's team took the gold medal in a new world record while the women broke the world record in their qualifying competition. After the record-breaking effort of the men's pursuit it was down to Pendleton to try and take GB's gold medal count on the track to three in the keirin. She duly delivered after breezing past Australian world champion Anna Mears with two laps to go. Mears faded as Shuang came roaring back but home girl Pendleton held off her challenge as Hong Kong's Lee Wai Sze took bronze. The great win takes Britain's cycling total to four golds for the games.

As well as the three gold medals the hosts also took four bronze medals on a thrilling day of Olympic action. Defending champion Rebecca Adlington went into her 800 metre freestyle final as the favourite but was stunned by 15-year-old American Katie Ledecky who came up narrowly short of breaking Adlington's world record. The crowd roared her on but she seemed to struggle under the pressure and finished with a bronze medal to go with her 400 metre bronze from earlier on in the week. She said that she was happy with her finish and said that she hoped that the 'nation would be proud of her bronze medal'.

After Gemma Gibbons’ silver yesterday in the judo Karina Bryant took bronze by winning a thrilling fight against Ukraine's Iryna Kindzerska. That continued a great performance from the British judo team that includes two medals which is a great achievement considering that their last medal was in Sydney twelve years ago. Bryant's medal followed two bronze's at Eton Dorney thanks to George Nash and Will Satch in the men's pair and Alan Campbell in the single sculls. Overall seven medals for GB on day seven represented a good result but there were other encouraging performances.

Jessica Ennis started her heptathlon gold attempt in style with a British 100 metre hurdles record while Dai Greene in the 400 metre hurdles and Christine Ohuruogu in the 400 metres comfortably qualified from their heats in the Olympic Stadium. Andy Murray sealed an impressive straight sets 7-5, 7-5 victory over Novak Djokovic to set up a final meeting with Roger Federer in a repeat of the Wimbledon final. With plenty more medal chances coming up on day eight the Brits will be confident of holding onto their third spot in the medal table.

Brits Hoping To Beat High Medal Target As Focus Turns To The Olympic Stadium

After a GB gold rush on day six of the London 2012 Olympics which featured three gold and three silver medals in sports including cycling, shooting, canoeing and judo, heads now turn to the start of the athletics competition. Hopes for the British athletics team are higher than ever after taking seven medals at the 2011 World championships, including golds for Dai Greene and Mo Farah. With the home support the Brits will be hoping for even more success in the coming ten days. 

In Beijing four years ago Team GB took four medals which included gold for Christine Ohuruogu in the women's 400 metres. Athletics coach Charles van Commenee hopes to comfortably exceed that and has set his team a target of eight medals and at least one gold. This is one more medal than the seven he targeted in Daegu last year. He is confident in his athletes as their big moment starts tomorrow in the Olympic Stadium: “We have been off the radar for a long time and now we’re back at a home Games. If these athletes do not make the nation proud, then I think it will not great for the future because it does not look much better than this.”

As well as Farah and Greene the home nation have other gold medal hopes competing in the Olympic's show-piece sport. Jessica Ennis has become the golden girl of British sport over the last few years after an impressive run of performances including heptathlon victory in the 2009 World Championships. She went on to win the European title the following year and is also the British record holder and the best in the world this year. The pressure of expectation will weigh heavily on her shoulders but she has improved significantly recently in her weaker events; the javelin and long jump. She set a personal best of 6,906 points in May which included personal bests in 200m, long jump and javelin. Russia's Tatyana Chernova, the woman who beat Ennis in Daegu, will most likely be Ennis's main competitor but has failed to improve on the personal best of 6,880 that she set in those championships. 

Welshman Dai Greene will be hoping to add Olympic gold to his world title over 400 metre hurdles but will face tough competition from Puerta Rico's Javier Culson. Culson has a personal best of 47.72 but came close to that in July with 47.78. Greene has a best time of 47.84 which he also set in July and will be hoping to defeat his rival in front of his home crowd. Fellow 2011 victor Farah will be going for a golden double on the track as he competes in the 5,000 and 10,000 metres. The 5,000 metre world champion could possibly take an unprecedented two golds over the longest distances on the track as he also took 10,000 metre silver in Daegu. On that occasion he was narrowly beaten in his favoured event by Ethiopian Ibrahim Jeilan.

Team GB will have plenty of other medal chances in the Olympic Stadium including defending 400 metre champion Ohuruogu and 2009 triple jump world champion Phillips Idowu. Idowu also won silver in Bejing and Daegu. Controversy has over-shadowed his preparation after a fall-out with van Commenee and his personal coach Aston Moore. After refusing to join Team GB and Moore on their training camp in Portugal the BOA requested his medical records to make sure that he was fit as he is struggling with a trapped nerve. Van Commenee has no idea what the tripe jumper is doing but is sure that he will be fit and ready for the Games: "All information we have about Phillips is now coming from the BOA. That information is that he's fit and ready to go. He had to hand in medical information. Therefore Phillips Idowu is fit to compete and probably in great shape, because that's the sort of athlete he is. I'm sure he'll be a medal contender."

Add World Indoor 400 metre hurdles champion Perri Shakes-Drayton, World 1500 metres silver medallist Lisa Dobriskey and the ever solid relay teams and Team GB have an excellent chance of emulating the 'golden generation' of the early 1980s. The drama will start to unfold tomorrow with heats in the morning and evening as the Britons set about beating their eight medal target.

Team GB Finally Start Their Gold Medal Tally In London

Team GB finally started their gold medal count on day five of London 2012 as Helen Glover and Heather Stanning stormed to an impressive win in the rowing women's pair. Unbeaten in the World Cup series this year they went into the final as huge favourites and they duly delivered as they ended up cruising to victory over Australia and world champions New Zealand. Bradley Wiggins jumped on the golden bandwagon as he won the men's cycling time trial, beating German world champion Tony Martin into silver while GB team-mate Chris Froome took bronze. 

Stanning and Glover became the first ever British women to take a rowing gold medal at the Olympic Games while Wiggins also made history as he broke the all-time medal record for a British athlete with his seventh Olympic medal, surpassing the great Sir Steve Redgrave in the process. 

The Belgian-born cyclist now has four golds in his glittering career as well as one silver and two bronzes. His transition from track to road has been nothing short of extraordinary and he is the only man to have won a Grand Tour and Olympic track and road golds. Wiggins went into the 2012 Games as a red-hot favourite after winning both time-trials in the Tour de France on his way to becoming the first Briton to win the 109-year-old event. He was then given the honour of ringing the opening bell of the opening ceremony and despite being part of the disappointing Team GB effort in the men's road race he came back excellently today to win by 42 seconds. Gold medal never looked in doubt as he led at every time split to finish comfortably ahead of world champion Martin. Team Sky team-mate and Tour de France runner-up Chris Froome completed a great team effort for Great Britain with a bronze medal as GB continued to climb the medal table. 

Earlier on in the day it was Stanning and Glover who finished an unbelievable fairytale story in some style as they cruised to GB's first gold medal at these Olympics. Royal Artillery officer Stanning was being cheered on by fellow soldiers in Afghanistan while Glover only took up rowing four years and two months ago. As two bit-part players in the British rowing team they were thrown together really just to see what they could do. What they then managed was nothing short of sensational as they took silver in both the 2010 and 2011 World Championships before going into these Games unbeaten in 2012. Under the pressure of huge expectation the two women won in fine style by two lengths. Glover said that they tried to tell each other that there was no pressure: "We kidded ourselves that there was no pressure. The last thing we said to each other was 'it's just for us, it's just for us', but it was for the whole of the team and the whole of the country." 

The host nation added a further medal at Eton Dorney courtesy of a thrilling men's eight final in which red-hot favourites Germany took gold. Roared on by the crowd the British team launched a magnificent challenge in which they actually overhauled their rivals and trailed by just 0.2 seconds with 500 metres to go. In the end the world champions were just too good and Canada came through for silver ahead of the home team in bronze. 40 year-old Greg Searle claimed his first Olympic medal since Atlanta 1996 after returning to rowing in 2010 after eight years out of the sport. 

GB were not finished there though as Scot Michael Jamieson took the team's second swimming medal with an outstanding silver in the 200m breaststroke, beaten only by a world record from Hungary's Daniel Gyurta.  He is the first medallist in the men's competition for the home nation and was clearly delighted with his new British record: "I cannot believe I have got 2:07, but I forgot about the time tonight - it was more tactical. I tried to stay on Gyurta's shoulder for the first hundred. I wanted to have everything on the line."

There were further successes for the Brits on day five as Andy Murray moved into the quarter-finals of the men's singles tennis tournament after beating Marcos Baghdatis in three sets. The men's football team finished top of their group after beating Uruguay 1-0 to also book a quarter-final spot. The hosts will go into day six in confident mood with more gold medal chances in cycling and rowing as Team GB's best sports start to move into full swing.