Reflections On Super Saturday

There are days of Great Sport and there are Great Sportsdays but very rarely do the 2 come together,Saturday August 4th 2012 was one such day and one that those of us privileged to witness it will ever forget.I have been watching Olympic games World cups etc etc since 1964 but never have I known a day of sport that made me so proud to be British,but it's not just the winning it was the manner of the winning the people who won that made it extra special.

The manner of winning in a way was greater than the winning itself,it was pure sport with all the hype and commercialism stripped away be it the rowers surpassing even the exploits of Bejing the cyclists continuing to astonish us with their brilliance or the athletes living up to or in the case of Greg Rutherford exceeding expectations.
And the people themselves,well a few days ago Colin Moyhihan complained about the majority of medals coming from public school kids,look at yesterday though Colin  and to quote Billy Brag  on Twitter

"Tonight, our society was wonderfully represented by a ginger bloke, an immigrant named Mohammed and a mixed race woman"

In addition we had  rowers from a Comprehensive school a posh public school and a Grammar School and cyclists from mixed backgrounds,but all of them however many silver spoons or lack of them they had in their mouths had one thing in common  a burning desire to be the best at what they did and to win Olympic gold for their country.

A complete representation of our country from all classes and backgrounds gave us that wonderful day yesterday and for that we should be eternally grateful.

But of course where there are winners there have to be losers and there we had possibly the most inspirational moment of the day with Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase in tears in the post match interview apologising for letting everybody down by ONLY winning Olympic Silver,compare and contrast with the attitude of some footballers in South Africa after abject failure in the last World Cup

So to all those who gave us Super Saturday thank you for the joy of all those medals and thatnk you for all the hours of training away from the limelight that you did so that the rest of us could have that truly SUPER DAY.