The morning after the two weeks before…
I don’t know if you have watched much of the Olympics. Being teachers our days have pretty much been full of watching incredible human beings achieving many truly astonishing things. Whether it be the big stars or the lesser known – one begins to understand the huge potential that all humans have. With the Paralympics not far away we’ll see even more incredible things before too long.
Being British my highlights do revolve around the many wonderful moments our Olympians achieved. You know I love cycling – the heroes of the velodrome and the stunning Bradley Wiggins rate amongst the best. But it wasn’t just guys and girls on two wheels that astounded me. Seeing all of our athletes give everything is something I won’t soon forget (at least not until Rio in 4 years!). I’m also immensely proud that our country appears to have put on a rather successful games. This comes from someone who hasn’t got a nationalistic bone in his body…so I guess must be high praise indeed!
Another feature of this games was the ability through twitter and FB to see how those competing were responding to their own experience of the games. We saw the nerves, the sheer exuberance of success, and the fear and reality of failure. FB also gave us the ability to enjoy the events as a community – my friends comments all the way through the games often become the place to find out the latest news. I was almost tempted to join the twitteratti myself…still pondering whether to do so or not…
So…to choose a defining moment that screams out to me of what this games tells us about modern Britain? A Somali refugee achieving his Olympic goal cheered on by his adoptive country. Those of you who read this from outside the UK saw something of who we are today in our opening ceremony. We are a complex, weird bunch of people. We often get things wrong, we often pull ourselves apart. We tend towards delight in the failure of others. But we’re also a country with a fine tradition of welcoming in those from other lands who have nowhere to go. We stand up for what we think is right…even if that means standing alone. This is a country where anyone deserves the chance to achieve their potential.
Here it is, then. The sheer bewilderment of success, the realisation that it has actually happened, potential fulfilled. We were all with you Mohamed Farah.
Well done Mo. Well done.
Well done everyone…whether you won a medal or not. Thank you for giving me more faith in my fellow human beings. And giving us all two weeks of bliss.
Inspired by a quote on the TR14 dance group’s t-shirts from yesterday’s TEDxExeter event that I helped out with (assistant clicker to the Tobit master):
