A bitter defeat for a nation but a triumph for Team GB

If you read my recent blog or if you follow me on Twitter you will know that I've been bitten by the Olympics bug. Hard.

At the time of writing Great Britain are third in the medal table with 25 Gold, 15 Silver and 16 Bronze totaling 56 medals. There is every chance that by the time I finish this blog, the haul will have increased.

Over the past two weeks I have cheered for athletes in sports I didn't even know existed. I have screamed "COME ON TEAM GB" so many times I'm convinced my dog now thinks his name is Team GB. I've cried so many times I'm beginning to fear for my tear ducts.

The support for Team GB from the vast majority of the country has been brilliant. Everyone has been blown away by how spectacular our athletes are. Apart from a sour faced few.

I've been so disappointed by some of the spiteful, negative and downright nasty things I have read or heard. At the end of the first couple days Twitter was awash with people asking where all the medals from our supposed "Greatest Ever Team" were. I don't suppose the idea of giving them a chance to get going ever occurred to them. I'm pleased these people have been forced to eat their words after we've held a top three position for so long.

The fact somebody felt the need to spray graffiti on the post box painted gold in honour of Jessica Ennis is pathetic.

Someone I follow on Twitter has been commenting on our lack of runners in the track events asking why we aren't able to provide winners rather than just making up the numbers. I guess a gold medal from Mo Farah and a silver from Christine Ohuruogu aren't good enough. Dai Green and Lawrence Clarke were the only European men to reach the 400m and 110m hurdles finals respectively. They faced off against athletes from USA, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Barbados and Cuba. Both came 4th in their events which I class as a tremendous achievement.

You don't see Kenya or Jamaica competing in the cycling events. China didn't compete in football, handball or equestrianism. It's important to recognise your strengths and weaknesses. The fact we have athletes who can "make up the numbers" should be celebrated.

We made history yesterday. Nicola Adams became the first female boxer EVER to win a gold medal at the Olympics. Our cyclists broke world records one after another. Our male gymnasts won a team medal for the first time in 100 years, the last time Great Britain won, the rope climb was still an event! Jade Jones is the first woman to win a gold medal for Great Britain in taekwondo. Doesn't that count for anything? Can't we focus on the positives rather than obsessing on the negatives?

We can't win everything nor can we be good at everything.

It's worth noting that the only two nations ahead of us, China and USA, have sports that they falter in. China could only manage 46th and 50th place in the men's and women's Triathlon. Their only Tennis success was the women's doubles reaching the quarter finals. Their men failed to get out of the heats in every single track event apart from the Race Walk. USA couldn't get out of the group stage in Badminton, their Canoeists didn't make a single final and they finished in 11th place for the Synchronised Swimming. Only one male boxer got to the quarter finals, the other 8 competitors were out before then.

Both of those countries have populations and funding budgets that dwarf our own. If they can't deliver in every sport, why should we expect ourselves to? Obviously yes, it would be nice if we could be seen as medal contenders in every sport but it's not going to happen.

I've seen people insult Phillips Idowu for not qualifying for the triple jump final. We all have bad days. Michael Phelps didn't win all the golds he was expected to and Victoria Pendleton was disqualified from a cycling event. It happens. I can't imagine training for FOUR YEARS only to go out without even getting a chance to shine.

I was appalled to hear people I respect actually defend the teenager who sent Tom Daley vile messages on Twitter. "Oh he should have just ignored it" "He didn't have to retweet it" "It's his own fault it escalated" "I can't believe he got arrested, whatever happened to free speech?". Why should he have ignored it? At school we're told to alert parents and teachers to bullies, why should he ignore it because it's online. People defending his right to free speech obviously didn't read the rest of his messages. He used racist language, has threatened to kill several other users including Tom, promised violence to others, pretended his mum was dead and told one girl he hoped she got raped. Yes, free speech is important but anyone with an ounce of sense can see that his messages go beyond that. Cyber bullying is a huge topic at the moment and there are a heartbreaking number of stories about kids committing suicide because of it.

We live in a country where people would rather stand up for an attention seeking teen than one of our athletes and that saddens me. Tom Daley had to drop out of school and find a new one after competing in the Beijing Olympics because of bullies. He should have been able to get on with preparing for his next round of diving, not having to deal with death threats and idle abuse.

I hate sport. I would rather miss the train than even briskly walk let alone run to catch it but I have been enthralled by the wonderful men and women who have competed for us. A bit of constructive criticism is a good thing but slagging off our athletes isn't necessary. We should be behind them, cheering them on - not sat on our computers thinking of all the faults we can point out and dishing out insults.

We got one gold medal in the 1996 Olympics. One. A solitary, lonesome gold. Thanks to an increase in funding look at where we are today. It's still early days though, we're developing training camps, new regimes and ways of identifying potential athletes. Who is to say that in Rio or in 2020 we won't be better than we are today. Even if we don't beat our 2012 total, I know I will still be proud to say that I support Team GB.

**EDIT**

This tweet has pissed me off and it's a good example of the negative attitude some people are tragically bestowed with.

"62 million people in the UK and we have nobody who can throw a javelin over 80 metres! A sad fact actually."

NOT A SAD FACT. There are 1.3 BILLION people in China and they couldn't do it either. They threw almost 2 metres less than we did. This whinging is being done on the night Mo Farah won his second gold medal. I suppose some people are never satisfied.

First Place in the Olympic U-Turn

Raise your hands to the sky and scream "hallelujah". Praise the lord for I have seen the light and I BELIEVE.

I. Love. The. Olympics.

There, I've said it. I have gone from hatred through to ambivalence and all the way into wide-eyed adoring love.

I used to despise the Olympics. When I was living in London I worked at a law firm and the Olympics was one headache after another. We weren't the only law firm in the city working on things, far from it, I think almost every office in the capital must have had some kind of case.

My dad is a plant manager at one of the construction companies that built the stadium in Stratford. He lives in Bournemouth with my mum but back then in the early days of building, the plan was for the company to put him up in a hotel during the week and he'd return home at the weekends. This NEVER happened. I think at one point there was a period of almost 6 weeks that my parents didn't see each other. He'd have to go to another office or plant because a lorry hadn't shown up or supplies weren't sent out on time. Since I was living in London and my dad was staying there too, my mum was completely on her own. She'd always say how worried she was that she'd trip in the shower or fall down the stairs and nobody would know. Her colleagues were under strict instructions that if she didn't show up on a Monday morning they were to go round to the house to check she was ok. I'm not kidding.

I laughed at everyone scrambling to buy tickets in the bizarre ballot system. It was the most pathetic system ever created in the history of the universe. How some people could end up completely empty handed while others were faced with bills of hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds was ridiculous. There was a flurry of people handing back their tickets and then the madness started all over again.

I saw the mascots, Wenlock and Mandeville, and their story of creation as a cynical ploy to involve the north of the country in the games. Despite my change of heart, I'm still not convinced about these guys and I think they'll haunt us forevermore.

My initial scorn turned into a 'couldn't care less' attitude. I didn't go and see the torch relay because my car was at the garage having an MOT and getting on a mobile asylum (my name for buses) was not an option. I do not mix well with the lunatics who frequent public transport. I am rather unfortunate in that I must have what others see as a 'kind face'. Old people talk to me, local nutjobs think I want to listen to their conspiracy theories and children think I want to play. This also translates to being asked for directions, venue information and advice on local services whenever I'm out and about.

I had no reason to like the Olympics. I'm not sporty, I had no intention of going to watch any of the games and if still lived in London I would certainly have made arrangements to flee the city for the entirety of the 16 days.

Somehow by the middle of last week I'd started to get a little bit interested about the Olympics. It came from nowhere really. Then I watched the opening ceremony and everything changed. The only Danny Boyle film I've ever seen is Trainspotting so I had no expectations about the event. I'm yet to meet someone able to put into words quite what he achieved. For me, he erased years of ill-feeling and replaced it with a fire of excitement. I didn't realise I could feel such pride about something I wasn't involved in. I knew that a billion people around the world had their eyes on Great Britain and I was thrilled at what they were shown. I laughed. I cried. I cheered.

Since then I have been glued to the tv. I've watched gymnastics, sailing, weightlifting, judo, swimming, cycling and I'm getting ready to watch some diving in a minute. I've also caught snippets of badminton, water polo, volleyball and football. I have seen more sport in the last 48 hours than I have in the whole of my 27 years on the planet. When I heard Team GB won their first medal yesterday I cried. I actually cried. I had been watching our girls put in an outstanding gymnastics performance and all the pride and emotion got the better of me. Later on that evening I hurt myself cheering for Rebecca Adlington. The diving today starts at 3pm. I should be heading over to the hospital for blood tests but I'm putting them off until tomorrow because I want to watch Tom Daley.

I know the games have cost us a fortune and I know there is a scandal over the empty seats. But I don't actually care. The fact that I have been inspired to cheer for our athletes means that to me, the Olympics are a triumph.