It is sad now that it is over…looked forward to for so long, enjoyed so much and experience lost. I guess it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. It is time for me to reflect as I would always do on things like this and what I have taken from it and what I have learned.
I feel truly privileged to have experienced the Games in my home country but more so to have been able to share it with my family and particularly with my children. To watch the Paralympic athletes in particular overcome adversity in what I think is the purest form of sport for people who will return to anonymous training and lack of stardom to prepare for another Olympics if they are given the opportunity to do so.
For myself, I have realised that everybody has their moments in the sun, that these are rare and only as a result of hard work. My life itself almost exists on a 4-year cycle. This year I was hugely privileged to participate in the outlaw triathlon as part of The Karen Green Foundation group, again following that there was a sense of loss that the experience was finished and it will be a long while before we experience anything like that again on a personal level but the work has already begun. I will revel and relish in the preparation for further events and further work and training associated with these in order to achieve a small window of opportunity to get that feeling back again.
Charles Handy, the social philosopher, writes about the postponement of gratification and it is something that I think, perhaps, we don’t understand clearly enough. Living in a society where everybody must have everything now it feels much better to have worked so hard for something, to have trained or saved to them achieve or obtain something which is long wished for. I think that’s what the Olympics and the Olympic movement epitomizes the most.
Criticize as much as you like regarding the commercial aspects and elements of this and any of the political aspects around the outsides but in its truest sense, people work for 4 years to achieve the best they possibly can.
Later this year in October and November, Olympians, Paralympians and prospective competitors will sit and plan the next 4 years with the actual date of their competition in mind. There is a lot to be learned from that. I watched Chris Hoy lecture on this subject sometime ago when he told us that the plan for the London 2012 Games was already written and nailed down. They were working on it already and they knew exactly what to do. It turns out that they did and Chris did and he did.
I have loved every minute of my Olympic and Paralympic odyssey. It is something I will take with me for the rest of my life and that is absolutely priceless and something that my children will never forget.
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