In the second of
the two posts looking back at the London Olympics, this post will look at the 5
great performances of these games.
Before I go on
there are a couple of things to mention.
Firstly there should be an honourable mention to the BBC’s coverage,
which has been exemplary. I am somewhat
bemused at all the sudden attention to Clare Balding. She (alongside fellow Radio 5 Live “graduate”
John Inverdale) have been excellent for years without acclaim. In sharp contrast, the American broadcaster
NBC has been receiving nothing but brickbats for it’s decision not to show the
Olympics live, spawning the Twitter hashtag #nbcfail.
The other thing I
was going to mention is that the one blight on the British team’s effort was
the Swimming team. One silver, and two
bronzes was quite clearly the one low point of Britain’s performance –
considering we had several “medal prospects” too. There is the suggestion that maybe some of
the swimmers were not mentally prepared, which shows that charged with coaching
our swimmers had not perhaps covered all bases.
However, that
debate is for another time. This post is
about the best performances of the games.
Those performances that might not have been as memorable but deserve to
be recognised.
1) Ye Shiwen (Womens 400m Medely – Swimming)
In the opening days
of the games, Shiwen was the most controversial figure of the games. Her record breaking performance (winning in
4:28.43, a second inside the previous record) started a debate about where the
startling improvement in her performance came from. One of the American coaches went so far as to
hint that there were performance enhancing drug’s involved. As it is, the “debate” somewhat took the
gloss of a very fine performance.
2) Ruta Meilutyte (Women’s 100m Breaststroke
- Swimming)
In sharp contrast
to Shiwen, Meilutyte’s performance came from a similar left field position yet
garnered none of the loud whispering campaign that accompanied Shiwen’s
victory. Meilutyte was also a similar
age to Shiwen so gave her defenders positive arguments to counter the spin.
Meilutyte’s
performance didn’t quite come from leftfield.
For starters, she showed similar form during the heats. It was however as noteworthy as Shiwen’s
performance and also, considering she was coached in Plymouth, that there’s not really that much
wrong with British Swimming.
3) Andy Murray (Mens Single’s – Tennis)
Murray’s finest moment on the tennis court. Murray
completely outclassed not just the former No#1 Novak Djokavic in the semi
final, but also the man who beat him in the Wimbledon
final four weeks previously. In the
style of “Fever Pitch”, you could have billed the final as Murray V Federer IV – The Catharsis.
After dispatching
Wawrinka and Niemenen, Murray then faced
Baghdadis in the first repeat of his Wimbledon
campaign from weeks earlier. In the
quarters Murray
beat Almagro to set up a semi with Djokavic, which he won 7-5 7-5.
In the final, Murray produced his best
performance in a “Slam” final – and arguably his best performance ever - to
beat Federer 6-2, 6-1, 6-4. All of which
bode’s well gong into the US hard court season leading up to the US Open at the
end of the month.
4) David Rudisha (Men’s 800m – Athletics)
The man who nabbed
the headlines from Usian Bolt’s 200m win (which took place after the 800m
final). The World champion at this
distance went after a world record and got it winning in 1:40.91. While Rudisha won by a large margin, none of
the other finalists were slouches – all the other seven finalists posted either
personal bests or season bests in this race.
However, Rudisha’s
performance arguably was the performance of the Olympic track meeting alongside
Usain Bolt and…
5) Mo Farrah (Men’s 5000m – Athletics)
Farrah had won the men’s
10,000m title the previous Saturday and was now going for the double, aiming to
join Kolehmainen (1912), Zatopek (1952), Kuts (1956), Viren (1972 & ’76),
Yifter (1980) & Bekele (2008) in that list of “double” winners.
Farrah managed to
win by his clever positioning and his ability to begin his wind up at the
optimum moment, remember that the 1,500m, the 5,000m and the 10,000m races can
be tactical races. Despite his 10,000m
win being a close race, I have gone with the 5,000m win because of the occasion
and because of the quality of athletes that Farrah outwitted to win. That and the 5,000m was the race I saw live
(as opposed to glancing at in the pub).
The highest profile
events of the Olympics is the Athletics meet, the London Olympics was blessed
with such a great meet. On top of
Rudisha and Farrah, you could also add the Bolt and Blake duel’s and the
performances of Allyson Felix, Felix Sanchez and Kirani James. While the organisation was superbe, London
2012 will go down as a vintage games because of the moments and the
performances.
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