Is it just me that has Spandau Ballet ringing through my head?
What a night it has been for British athletics and what a day it has been for British sport. Two golds on the track, one in the field and three earlier in the day shared between the river at Eton and the Velodrome at the Olympic Park. Has British sport ever seen anything like it?
I can’t quite believe we won 6 of these in a day!
Well, I certainly can’t remember a night like it and I’m pretty sure that I will never see a more superior day of British sporting excellence for the rest of my existence, nor would I really hope to as I don’t think I could bear it!
So, where to start?
Well, first of all, huge congratulations to Jess Ennis, Greg Rutherford, Mo Farah, Laura Trott, Joanna Roswell, Dani King, Sophie Hosking, Katherine Copeland, Pete Reed, Andy Triggs Hodge, Tom James and Alex Gregory. You are all brilliant and we as mere spectators of your brilliance are all indebted to you for eternity for the magnificent day of entertainment with with you have provided us!
Now, breaking it down, here is the run through of my experience of Team GB’s ‘Golden Saturday’ at the Games….
10:00 A.M: Position on the sofa assumed for a long day ahead…
10:30 A.M: Jess Ennis nails the long jump and thrusts herself well and truly into the driving seat in the heptathlon…
11:30 A.M: GB WIN GOLD IN THE MEN’S FOUR! GOLD MEDAL NUMBER ONE ON ‘GOLDEN SATURDAY’ FOR TEAM GB!!!
Gold number one…
12:00 P.M: GB WIN ANOTHER GOLD AT ETON! KATH COPELAND AND SOPHIE HOSKINGS TRIUMPH IN THE LIGHTWEIGHT WOMEN’S DOUBLE TAKING TEAM GB’s GOLD MEDAL TALLY TO TWO ON ‘GOLDEN SATURDAY’!!!
Gold number two…
12:30 P.M: Team GB get a silver medal in the men’s double lightweight sculls courtesy of reigning Olympic champions Zak Purchase and Mark Hunter. The pair were desolate in the wake of their ‘failure’ to get the gold but they performed manfully and shouldn’t feel ashamed at all…
1:00 P.M: Usain Bolt begins his Olympic campaign and though this would usually have thrilled the nation, his sluggish heat win paled in comparison to the level of excitement developing for Team GB on ‘Golden Saturday’. Adam Gemili also began his 100m campaign and he looked very good in his run to a second placed heat finish to winner Asafa Powell. Gemili won’t medal but he could make the final if he can find a PB on Sunday…
1:20 P.M: Dwain Chambers also qualifies for the next round of the 100m by winning his heat in an impressive time of 10.02 seconds. It was always going to be interesting to see how well he would be received by the crowd and though I have no affection for him whatsoever I am still pleased to report that he got a very warm reception as it would have been pretty awkward had he not…
1:30 P.M: My girlfriend left my house. Usually I wouldn’t report this as a significant event but the fact that she was then on her way to the Olympic Stadium as she had tickets for the phenomenal night ahead makes it rather more relavant… Lucky git…
2:00 P.M: Jess Ennis nails the javelin also which is often her achilles heel, throwing a lifetime best distance of 47.59 metres! This was the moment where I and the whole nation finally accepted that our ‘face of the Games’ would indeed win the gold medal she so deserved…
2:30 P.M-5 P.M: Many hours spent sulking because I wish I had a ticket for the Olympic Stadium…
5:00 P.M: I went for a jog and was of course pretending that I was Mo Farah. I convinced myself for a few seconds that I was actually a little too fast to be Mo before then realising that in reality I am actually horribly unfit…
5:30 P.M: Andy Murray and Laura Robson triumphed in the semi-finals of the mixed doubles in the tennis competition guaranteeing themselves a medal winning finish. Olympic tennis usually fails to capture my imagination but today changed everything for me. The nerve and resilience shown by our pair in their back-to-back Saturday afternoon wins over Australia and Germany was captivating and they fully deserve at very least a silver medal, which is now the minimum possible reward for their efforts. Andy Murray now has a shot at two gold medals on Sunday…
6:15 P.M: GOLD FOR GB IN THE WOMEN’S TEAM PURSUIT AT THE VELODROME! TEAM GB’S THIRD MEDAL OF GOLDEN SATURDAY! TAKE A BOW LAURA TROTT, DANI KING AND JOANNA ROSWELL!!!
Gold number three…
7:00 P.M: GB’s athletic’s team captain Dai Greene took to the track for his 400m hurdles semi-final and the world champion had a shocker! A 4th placed finish saw him scrape into the final by the skin of his teeth and in hindsight maybe this was the price all us Brits had to pay for the success lying in wait on ‘Golden Saturday’…
8:20 P.M: Greg Rutherford landed a major blow in the long jump final with a leading jump of 8.21 metres and the vaguest possibility of three Olympic golds in one night for Team GB’s athletics team dared to creep it’s way into the nation’s minds…
8:40 P.M: Michael Phelps won gold as part of the USA’s relay team in the 4x100m medley final in what was his last ever competitive race but I didn’t care because GB were on course to win 3 golds in a night! OK, I did care really… What a man. What an Olympian. 22 Olympic medals and 18 of them Gold. Is he the greatest sportsman of all time?
8:55 P.M: Time for Jess to finish off a job bloody well done… The nation awaits…
9:00 P.M: Jess only went and bloody well won her 800 didn’t she! It would have been so easy for her to just pace her way to a comfortable finish high up the field but the determination she showed to win her race was phenomenal. GOLD MEDAL NUMBER FOUR FOR TEAM GB ON GOLDEN SATURDAY!!!
Gold number four…
9:05 P.M : Rutherford extended his lead in the long jump with a terrific leap of 8.31 metres, a second gold in a matter of minutes became an even greater possibility for Team GB
9:20 P.M: Mo Farah begins the 10,000m and the Olympic Stadium erupted as the realisation of three potential athletics golds in one night started to really dawn on the nation…
9:25 P.M: Greg Rutherford stuffed up his ‘jump of honour’ but who gives a toss?! GOLD FOR TEAM GB IN THE LONG JUMP, 2 ATHLETICS GOLDS AND FIVE TEAM GB GOLDS ON GOLDEN SATURDAY!!!!
Gold number five…
9:45 P.M: MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! FARAH WINS GOLD IN THE 10,000 m AND TEAM GB GET THEIR SIXTH GOLD MEDAL OF GOLDEN SATURDAY!!!!!!!
…and Mo makes it six!
9:50 P.M: Jamaica get their gold in the women’s showpiece athletics event with Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce defending her Olympic title in 10.75 seconds. Usually the 100m finals are the more memorable moments of the Olympics but Fraser-Pryce’s terrific defence of her title was a little lost amidst the British Euphoria at the Olympic Stadium…
10:15 P.M: Team GB’s male footballers crashed out to South Korea in the quarter finals in a penalty shootout. Usually I would have cared but not tonight. Very little could have happened to dampen my mood and I’m sure that was the case for the vast majority of British sports fans!
Saturday the 4th of August will undoubtedly go down in history as one of it not THE greatest day of all time for British sport. 6 Olympic golds and a few more medals to boot. If you didn’t shed a tear at some point today then you might as well leave Britain and never come back…
The Musings Of An Aspiring Journalist 