Britons abandon stiff upper lip
Royal hugs in public, quivering lips on the podium and the deafening roar of the home crowd urging on their athletes at the London Olympics shows 21st century Britain has finally shed its reserved imperial-era persona.
Regarded as a nation of restraint portrayed in TV dramas such as Britons — who often sniff at public emotion as a foreign lapse of control — have wept, screamed for their heroes and been overcome with Olympian emotion at the triumphs and tragedies of sport.
Ever since the death of Princess Diana in a 1997 Paris car crash, when Britons grieved en masse for the woman populist former Prime Minister Tony Blair dubbed the “people’s princess”, the stiff upper lip has been giving way to grins and trembles.
Now the nation which invented football, rugby, cricket and modern field hockey has thrown its arms wide open to the Olympics in the most public display of emotion in a decade and a half.
A thrilling weekend, during which Britain leaped to third on the medals table with 16 golds behind China and the United States, has fuelled a national wave of excitement at heroics on the tennis court, around the cycling velodrome, on the water, at the track and in the pool.
Scottish tennis player Andy Murray never really captured the public imagination until his loss in the Wimbledon final to Roger Federer last month. His post-match tears on court won the hearts of the nation and his gold medal-winning grudge match against Federer on Sunday turned sorrow to joy.
“The British public, I think their reaction to his defeat, it surrounded him with so much love and admiration,” Murray’s mother Judy told Reuters as her son waved to fans.
The Union Jack flag is emblazoned on every form of clothing from plastic bowler hats to fingernail polish.