Gold Rush

I had the greatest day of my sporting life on Friday. In the Olympic stadium to watch Jess run the fastest ever 100m hurdles in heptathlon history was inspiring and very damaging to the vocal chords. The atmosphere was unlike anything I have ever experienced, yes the aquatic centre was probably more ear shattering, but for an outdoor arena it beats anything I have ever heard. Unsurprisingly it being us Brits we cheered on Jess' opponents in the High Jump as well (well some did, anyway - there are limits). When she cleared 1.93 the stadium shook.

During the afternoon we found one of the very rare spaces in front of one of the mega screens in the East Park and watched the cyclists do what they do best - win. And boy did they win! Gold medals? Pah! We've got a few world records to set as well and some Aussies to crush. Around us thousands, probably tens of thousands, of fellow Brits roared their approval. Earlier some Swiss spectators had got a little tetchy when the screen swapped from Big Roger at 12 all against Del Potro to the Velodrome, but hey we're not in Zurich are we?

We then scooted round to the aforementioned aquatic centre to be deafened by roars for Michael Phelps and, above all, Becky Adlington, sadly no gold for GB here but the impressive US team notched up victory after victory. Heading home feeling utterly emotionally drained we were again bowled over by the volunteers and military personnel's friendly, cheerful, helpful and in many cases highly amusing demeanour. Every one smiles the whole time and says in a non McDonalds way "how are you?" and "have great day!" and they mean it. Interestingly the only very few people we have found to be anything other than charming are those being paid to usher people about, people from the crowd control and security companies like G4S.

Up early yesterday morning to head to Paris for a wedding. We arrived at St Pancras to find a queue for security that would have meant we would be lucky to get to Paris by 3.30 let alone Poitiers where the wedding was being held, so we turned around and headed to the sofa. Now as sorry as I was to miss the wedding every cloud has etc...

Well I am not sure anything I say can add to what we experienced yesterday, it rained golds down on us and I had shouted myself hoarse by the time Kat and Sophie crossed the line at Eton Dorney. We watched as a certain female athlete I have a bit of a soft spot for moved herself into a position that made a gold all but certain before her final event. Then the girls tore the Yanks apart in the Cycling Team Pursuit. Finally the miracle hour was upon us, Jess decided that she was buggered if anyone was going to cross the line before her and the "poster girl" of the games delivered what for me was the gold I wanted more than any other. Blow me down if Greg Rutherford went and did the same thing, OK he went into the final ranked as world no 1 this year, but every other competitor in the final had a better personal best than him. Huge cheer when the American Will Clay did the honourable thing and strolled into the pit rather than leap.

Mo Farah has experienced more disappointments than most other British athletes, mainly down to nasty Ethiopians and Kenyans ganging up on him and snatching the medals like thieves in the night after dear old Mo had done all the hard work. This time thanks to a Cuban coach and the "special relationship" with his coaching partner Galen Rupp (surely a name that deserves to be a character in a Looney Tunes cartoon?), he refused to be bullied and Mo delivered. SIX GOLDS IN ONE DAY!

On Tuesday there was gloom - when were we going to win gold? Today Team Britain stands on a precipice, teetering on the edge of obliterating all our expectations and getting so much gold that we could replace the lot that Gordon effing Brown sold off for coppers in the late Nineties!

We are seeing the best of Britain and Britain at its best, long may it continue.

Oh, and one final note. On Wednesday last week some of my Australian friends were crowing on Facebook that we were trailing behind "sporting powerhouses Slovenia, Lithuania, Georgia, Ukraine, Hungary and Romania" in the medal table. Well my dear Aussie friends, where are you? Come on, lets be having you!