12 August 2012

Olympics mania

Well, London 2012 is wrapping up today, and I have to say that I've been caught up in Olympic mania more than I ever have before. The teams I've been rooting for made it easy: USA has won more than 100 medals (44 gold, at least one more almost certainly coming via the Men's Basketball), Team GB sits comfortably in 3rd place in the gold count (28), headlined by amazing stories like Mo Farrah's 5K/10K double, and even Ireland's Katie Taylor won a lightweight boxing gold.

But even more fun than that has been seeing how awesome London has been as a host city, and how much fun Brits have had at the games. Jonathan Freedman summarizes it beautifully in an op-ed in the Guardian: Britain in 2012 is a multi-cultural place to be proud of, full of people who can achieve great things, and dancing, smiling, shouting volunteers helping to make it happen.

Before the games started the overwhelming sentiment was about how LOCOG, or the government, or British ambivalence, or the weather would ruin the games. The feeling now that it's over is succinctly summed up by a facebook post from a friend of mine: "Back in London after 10 days away and complete strangers are talking to each other on the train. What's happened????!!"