Poll: Olympics - your opinion (Poll please!)

[Hastarius]

I thought it was going to be average but I thought it was good (better then good though)

Really enjoyed the Cycling in the Velodrome. Sprint event is really fun to watch

 

[DiCe!]

Thought it would be good - it was excellent, all the doom and gloom was gone within a day or two, people loved it, the media got behind it (shocking), showed up the old heros (footballers) hopefully people got the inspire a generation thing.

Better than sliced bread.

 

[DiCe!]

Thought it would be average, was average.

It hasn't really created any great excitement amongst most people I know and work with, all the supposed tourism benefits seem to have been a complete flop with a great many businesses having their worst two weeks of trading in years, with even things like the dedicated Olympic festival in Weymouth shutting down early due to a complete lack of interest from the public.

It was a reasonably entertaining two weeks of TV but didn't really 'inspire' me or anyone I know beyond 'Yeah did you see the 100m last night? Pretty good wasn't it?' "Yeah, not bad". There's usually more excitement when there is a big Premier League game on midweek.

As for 'Inspire a generation' maybe it will, maybe it won't but from the sheer amount of money we piled into these people to win medals, I think a better motto would be 'Throw enough money at something and you'll probably win'.

Give it a year and I think overall opinion will be a lot lower, once people come off the high and realise we have to pay for all this and the 'legacy' is nothing more than some increasingly disused sports facilities.

Amen!

 

[Twirlywoos]

Even worse are the people who left the country saying, "haha, I'm off while you lot all suffer, it's going to be a nightmare".

Best two weeks I can remember in the capital. A lot of people missed out through nothing but old-fashioned cynicism.

I'm sure the "buzz" was only in London, it was business as usual over here. I voted average as I was only interested in the track events. Also, poor show by the stewards for not letting the Jamacian team keep their World Record batton.

 

[Freefaller]

Average... but it turned out to be better than I expected (so average -> good voted). Other than the opening and closing ceremony that is.

The vibe in London has been great. Especially around the venues.

Though we're going to make a loss at work owing to all the extra staff and overtime being paid. So from that point of view it's been rubbish - and also the number of hours I and others have worked over the period.

However, I haven't been excited by it at all - but I was a cynic through and through - and well, it was better than I thought it would have been. Happy to have been to the park, and seen a few events too. So all in all, I'm slightly converted - but not "this is the best thing ever".

However, at least it took football off the news/sports for a while! And much more interesting than that rubbish sport.

Though the fact they're going to close the park for a year and build flats around there and also the uncertain future of all the investment made leaves me a bit ambivalent.

 

[DJMK4]

In celebration of these games, I have just taken a peek at the thread over in the sports forum "The Olympic Fit Tottie Thread"

Some fine athletes if I do say so myself.

 

[Twirlywoos]

Thought it would be average, was average.

It hasn't really created any great excitement amongst most people I know and work with, all the supposed tourism benefits seem to have been a complete flop with a great many businesses having their worst two weeks of trading in years, with even things like the dedicated Olympic festival in Weymouth shutting down early due to a complete lack of interest from the public.

It was a reasonably entertaining two weeks of TV but didn't really 'inspire' me or anyone I know beyond 'Yeah did you see the 100m last night? Pretty good wasn't it?' "Yeah, not bad". There's usually more excitement when there is a big Premier League game on midweek.

As for 'Inspire a generation' maybe it will, maybe it won't but from the sheer amount of money we piled into these people to win medals, I think a better motto would be 'Throw enough money at something and you'll probably win'.

Give it a year and I think overall opinion will be a lot lower, once people come off the high and realise we have to pay for all this and the 'legacy' is nothing more than some increasingly disused sports facilities.

If facilities were affordable and accessible then I'd certainly use them. In particular rowing stuff.

 

[Morbius]

Politics were meh, sport was excellent.

 

[Fire_fly]

It was better than expected. But I don't think we will be able to see the true outcome of the games with respect to inspiring a generation for several years.

 

[rexehuk]

Thought it would be average, was average.

It hasn't really created any great excitement amongst most people I know and work with, all the supposed tourism benefits seem to have been a complete flop with a great many businesses having their worst two weeks of trading in years, with even things like the dedicated Olympic festival in Weymouth shutting down early due to a complete lack of interest from the public.

It was a reasonably entertaining two weeks of TV but didn't really 'inspire' me or anyone I know beyond 'Yeah did you see the 100m last night? Pretty good wasn't it?' "Yeah, not bad". There's usually more excitement when there is a big Premier League game on midweek.

As for 'Inspire a generation' maybe it will, maybe it won't but from the sheer amount of money we piled into these people to win medals, I think a better motto would be 'Throw enough money at something and you'll probably win'.

Give it a year and I think overall opinion will be a lot lower, once people come off the high and realise we have to pay for all this and the 'legacy' is nothing more than some increasingly disused sports facilities.

I'm on the absolute flipside to that.

Not being much into sport, I was somewhat sceptical... but the last few weeks have been pretty good for me to see a number of things.

- The organisation overall was fantastic, behind the scenes ran extremely well on the verge of being over organised to a point where nothing could go wrong
- The travel was impeccable, given the worries around London's transport systems the warnings were well received
- The opening ceremony was one of the most engaging I've ever seen, and felt human and British
- The events themselves were housed in such a great atmosphere, it let everyone get into the games to some level
- The atmosphere in London was infectious, the increase in the number of nationalities than normal was great - And all seemed to be in good spirits/well behaved
- The closing ceremony was again, very british, but inclusive for everyone - Athletes coming through the crowds etc and a giant party was miles from other ceremonies I've seen.

Sure, some cities and even London itself saw decreased trade... West London get's its fair share of revenue during normal operations, the shift to a less affluent East for the duration of the games is surely not a bad thing.

As for the smaller cities, they had participation and the community spirit from seeing the torch go through them will stay around for some time.

 

[Spuj]

I thought it would be average but turned out to be good. Really enjoyed the whole thing.

 

[King Damager]

I thought it was going to be average - was particularly expecting the opening ceremony to be rubbish...

Was pleasantly surprised by both....

Opening Ceremony I actually thought was a good socio-economic history of the UK...

I'm hoping that we keep everything up, and organisation was absolutely incredible!

I was working in London for one of the weeks, and to be honest, the organisation was top notch, and the atmosphere was absolutely incredible. Even better in the athletics village itself.

kd

 

[stockhausen]

I thought it would be rubbish, it was absolutely FANTASTIC!

The closing ceremony was a bit of a disappointment after the opening ceremony but who really cares - where were the Stones & Clapton and why did The Who only come on after it was all over?

I still can't stand the smug, eternally unapologetic Seb Coe.

I hope most sincerely that the "Olympic Legacy" isn't completely wasted.

Notwithstanding all the above, so very many great memories - Katherine Grainger, Anna Watkins, Helen Glover, Heather Stanning and all the rowers; Laura Trott, Victoria Pendleton, Sir Chris Hoy, Bradley Wiggins, Mark Cavendish, Jason Kenny, Lizzie Armitstead, Dani King, Joanna Rowsell and all the cyclists; Ben Ainslie, Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah, Jade Jones, Tom Daley and all the rest of the fantastic British athletes - even the usually miserable Andy Murray. Also David Rudisha, Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake, Warren Weir, Michael Phelps, Robert Harting and basically almost everyone

ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!

 

[rfc-billy]

I thought it would be rubbish, it was good.

I usually avoid the Olympics when they are on but I found myself caught up in it this time. Our British athletes did us proud.

 

[DAIR]

The media and opposing political leaders/groups lead me to believe it would be a complete and utter mess.

How wrong were they. It was much better than expected. I thought my daily commutes would be a nightmare. In fact it was just fine.

No terror attacks or riots. Good stuff

 

[Glaucus]

I said I wouldn't watch any and I didn't for the first week. Then I stayed away with work and it was on in the pub, got quite into it, but only when we had a chance of medals.
Taekwondo was surprisingly good and easy to follow with their scoring system.

 

[Cosimo]

Sums it up prefectly.

 

[godinman]

Holy crap, stockhausen liked something, it must be good!

 

[rexehuk]

Holy crap, stockhausen liked something, it must be good!

Germany praised us... France called us cheaters.

Such as life!

 

[antijoke]

I really did think it would be average, but it turned out to be quite amazing.

I didn't watch half as much as I wanted but I enjoyed the headline athletic events and also the swimming.

I even enjoyed the horse riding events whilst watching it at work.