n Etoria-King
And despite the great memories, I am left with a slightly hollow feeling inside. An odd feeling, like I’ve lost a part of myself. The only way to describe it is to compare it to how I felt after I broke up with my girlfriend a few months ago. That same feeling of loss, when you’re so used to having that person next to you. That feeling of wondering what to do with yourself now you don’t have them to fill your time anymore.
The legacy committee has been struggling over the white elephant of what to do with the stadium, while the rest of the venues are not expected to open to the public until at least 2014. While this is not acceptable, (I suppose it gives those moaners something else to complain about on the news) we must make sure it does not dilute the ‘Inspire a Generation’ mantra that drove these Olympics.
It’s not just me. The BBC now has an empty 15-minute slot in its news program which used to be filled with people bitching about the Olympics. After 10 years, what will those people moan about now? And how are the BBC going to fill that airtime?
As for the feeling of loss, I doubt it will ever truly go away. Hosting the Olympics is an opportunity that comes once in several lifetimes. The buildup has been a huge part of my childhood, and that of my friends and hundreds of thousands of other young Londoners, so I feel a similar strange blend of satisfaction and sadness now as I did when I left school, or at the end of the last Harry Potter film.
It’s a problem. For the last 10 years, London has been building up to this. From the beginning of the bid, we’ve watched the venues – particularly the now iconic stadium – spring up from the east end dirt, regenerating that whole area of the city. We’ve complained about the price tag, we’ve worried about our transport system, we’ve sat through every scandal. It’s become a part of our identity. I feel as though London has forgotten how to not be a host city. We have been preparing for this for so long – we bought some new clothes, put on our nicest aftershave, got a haircut, only to have a two week fling with the Olympics and then watch it run off with our more attractive dick friend Rio. What do we do now? We just go back to everyday life?
Perhaps when I am older and I have children of my own, this great city will have another opportunity like this. Perhaps we will launch another World Cup bid, (which won’t be bought out by oil billionaires this time!!!) and my children will get to grow up watching that come together, and it will mean as much to them as 2012 has to me. In the meantime, I will just have to make do with curling up in the corner with a Team GB poster, to listen to the opening ceremony soundtrack and cry.
There is only one thing we can do, which will make any of this worth it. We ensure that the legacy of these games lives on. We preserve the venues, we nurture young talent, we keep the success going, and in 2016 we go to Rio and smash it.
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