The Fantastic Spectacle of Sport

It’s been 7 years in the making, cost millions of pounds to put on and in just over 3 weeks it’s all wrapped up! That’s right folks this is an Olympic focused blog!

Now it has been hard to miss all this Olympic hype and I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have. Not an evening or weekend went by during the games when I had the coverage tuned in to a sport that normally I wouldn’t find interesting, but there I was – hooked! Who knew running would be so interesting!

I was sceptical in the years leading up to the games that typical of British construction the park wouldn’t be finished on time or there would be a builder borrowing some of the long jump sand to finish the West Stand, but no, I believe it has been a superb success and made me feel very proud to be British. But it’s not only the pride I’m feeling of such a successful games: ‘Inspire a generation’ the potentially cheesy justification of our hard paid taxes has also infected me with the need to try new sports, maybe you might see me on a Basketball court near you soon! And maybe you have also been infected by the bug to try a new sport, why not get in contact with val@nras.org.uk or call her on 01628 501547 to see what events and challenges we are running and that you can be involved with.

I was lucky enough to get tickets to see 5th-6th classification of the Women’s Hockey – a fine match between Australia and China. Naturally I was supporting our Australian cousins and am pleased to report a 2-0 victory, hooray. The experience of the Games in real life is superb, so I urge you to consider trying to get tickets for the Paralympics. NRAS has been supporting Paralympic Archer Leigh Walmsley, who lives with rheumatoid arthritis, and her quest for Gold in the Women’s Recurve category. For those of you on twitter she is @auberginearcher, please wish her luck.

I’ll close with a skirt around the G4S security blunders and just say that the men and women of our armed forces, who stepped up and filled the void, were just fantastic. They could not have been more welcoming, helpful and cheerful, and that goes for all of the volunteers who made the Games, as Lord Coe said ‘When our time came, Britain we did it right’ and when the time comes for the Paralympic Games, you know we will be 2 for 2.

Thanks

Oliver Hoare
NRAS Trust and Grants Fundraiser.