YOU’RE STREETS AHEAD
Fans throng capital to salute heroes
SIR CHRIS HOY got a ‘little bit emotional’ once more yesterday as nearly a million people filled the streets of central London to salute Great Britain’s Olympic and Paralympic teams.
Mind you, the heady concoction of sport and success we have witnessed this summer has a habit of doing that to all of us.
Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford was ‘teary’ and David Weir — the apparent hard man who won four Paralympic gold medals — admitted he, too, had a ‘good cry’ after winning the T54 marathon on Sunday.
Yesterday’s parade of athletes was our first chance to see Britain’s Olympians and Paralympians side by side, given the billing their performances have merited over the last six weeks.
It was about celebrating the achievement of ‘the best athletes that have ever put on a British vest’, saying ‘ thank you’ for the 185 medals Britain won since July 29.
It was also an opportunity for the team to see ‘the joy on people’s faces’, as Hoy put it. But it was more like a mutual appreciation society as they thanked the flagwaving British public; the Games Makers, the ever-smiling volunteers who lined The Mall yesterday and the servicemen and women, police and security staff who had kept them safe.
Hoy, who won two gold medals in London to become the most successful British Olympian of all time, said: ‘You looked at the sheer volume of people who turned out here and it was our chance, as athletes, to thank the public. There’s an amazing response that these little lumps of metal, the medals, have with them.
‘It is a surreal thing to experience when you see hundreds of thousands of people smiling, taking part in a common celebration.
‘I honestly thought four years ago it couldn’t get any bigger than the reception we had after Beijing and this was on a different scale altogether. When you looked down a side street you could see a mass of people just disappearing into the distance. This is another day that will go down in my memory.’ Hoy seemed a little overawed as he carefully put the latest medals into a little black felt bag. But it wasn’t enough to inspire the 36-year- old to continue his 35-hour-a-week training sessions until the Rio de Janeiro Games.
The Scot did say, however, he will wait 12 months before making a decision about whether to compete at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. The cycling will take place in the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, after all.
But that is for later. This was a day of celebration; a chance for one last collective cheer for the faces who had made an unforgettable summer. As Lord Coe said, those who filled Trafalgar Square yesterday ‘get it’. They understood the scale of what we had seen — and shared — over the past six weeks and they wanted to shout about it. Andy Murray, who had more pressing concerns at the US Open last night, and the men’s road cycling team, including Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish, who were otherwise engaged on the Tour of Britain, were the only notable absentees.
Diver Tom Daley saw a few marriage proposals on signs along the two-and-a-half-mile route from London’s Guildhall to Buckingham Palace and Zara Phillips can never have had such an exciting journey to her grandmother’s house. ‘I think there were a lot of people skiving work today,’ she joked.
Katherine Grainger, who won gold in London in the double sculls with Anna Watkins after three silver medals, said: ‘It was slow enough that you could make eye contact with people who were genuinely touched and passionate and excited about reliving the Olympics all over again.
‘You just think “Wow. How lucky are we to be athletes at this time, in this country, at a home Games and performing at this level?”’ Life will never be the same for many of these sportsmen and women.
Heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis said she has to do a lot of internet shopping these days because her popularity has gone ‘to a whole new level’. Weir said he felt like a ‘rock star’.
Alistair Brownlee, who won triathlon gold as his brother Jonny took bronze, said: ‘It feels like life has changed for ever. We came down to London on a train (for the Olympics) but we went home in a helicopter.’
Yet, alongside the overriding joy and pride, there was a tinge of sadness that something great was over. There was much talk of legacy, about this being only the first chapter in inspiring a generation — or creating a new one, if you believe Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s prediction of a post- Games baby boom.
Ennis, Weir and Rutherford spoke passionately about the need to keep the Olympic Stadium as an athletics facility, to contain the ‘incredible memories created there’.
But these important discussions felt like they were for another day. Our sporting landscape has, we hope, changed forever for the better. But there will be no more ‘Super Saturdays’ and ‘ Thriller Thursdays’. It’s enough to make anyone ‘a little bit emotional’.