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I've been watching a lot of it over the last couple of days, and I never fail to be hugely impressed by the performances of the athletes, and there are so many youngsters now taking part, as a direct result of the London 2012 Olympics, one sprint was all teenagers except for one girl who was 20, the British lass who got bronze despite injury said it's opened up the whole world to her.
Loving it.
Been watching every night. Amazing stories and examples.
We were in the stadium at London 2012 the day Richard Whitehead won his 200m gold. I'll blub at anything, but it's the first time I've ever seen MrsMC shed a tear at a sporting event. She was born with cerebral palsy, and is tough as nails.
In that same session there was a 1500m race and one guy got lapped - twice. The crowd roared him round with a standing ovation till he finished. I cried again.
The second weekend Jnr and I went down again for the wheelchair tennis. The whole Olympic/Paralympic thing had gone into overdrive and there was an estimated 250,000 in the Olympic park. The atmosphere was amazing, and the athletes were just in shock I think. I remember a group of German wheelchair athletes were having photos taken with a young lad in a wheelchair who was draped in their gold medals. The look on that lads face, and his parents faces, was what it was all about. Inspiring others. ****ing hell, it was an incredible day.
I'm ambivalent about it.
I was however very inspired by the myriad of very ordinary people I used to meet on the TT circuit in my region.
It's the same basis for inspiration - people with denuded levels of capability (and I include myself in that category) competing for the sake of competing; there is something noble in that.