The Olympics and the Paralympics were incredible!  Although the events are all finished now it will be a long time before anyone in London forgets about them.  Everything about the the games, in my opinion, was fantastic.  I could not get over how smoothly it all ran. I think there were a lot of people in Britain that thought that the whole thing would fall apart and we would be shamed in front of the whole world.  This was not the case. I have never seen the whole city pull together like that for any event in my life and it is safe to say that the Geiger counter of Olympo-mania did go ‘zoink’ of the scale. I was lucky enough to go to 3 different events.  I saw the Olympic athletics in the Olympic Stadium, the Paralympic cycling at Brands Hatch and I had a day pass for the Paralympics at the Excel Centre. At every step of the way there were Gamesmakers, the Olympic volunteers, recruited to help people get from A to B and keep the spirits of all the people attending up.  They were brilliant. Every single one of them had a smile on their face, nothing was too much trouble and they couldn’t wait to help you.  They were all over London.  For a month, you could barely turn a corner in the city without bumping into somebody in a distinctive purple jacket just waiting to help you out. For me, the highlight of the whole month was seeing the Paralympic Cycling.  As usual all the people at the event were incredibly friendly but the organisation of it all was such that despite there were thousands of people there, it was very relaxed and intimate.  I managed to get right down to the finish line to see many of the riders come by but there were a few different points in the venue where you could see them pass. There were also lots of open spaces on the grass to six down and relax.  We were fortunate enough to have some lovely weather and so sat down and had our lunch whilst watching the action. And what action.  Some of these guys had 1 leg or no hands but still were cycling fast than I could ever expect to go.  The whole experience was exciting and extremely humbling.

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