Day 5 - It's our party and we'll cry if we want to.

July 31st

I'm not against the Olympics per se, never have been. I have questioned whether we should be hosting them though. I've asked more than once whether the expense and disruption was worth it when, you know, it's us. The UK. The world already knows who we are.

In most arguments discussions of this type I've had over the last few years the comeback has always seemed to  be based on the intangible privilege that lies in welcoming the world to our doorstep to take part and compete. To invite all of the world's best athletes and be able to watch them -at their best- in our backyard.

It's a lovely thought and I was finally swayed by it. Forget ongoing economic benefits, they rarely emerge. Lets accept that we were offered the honour of having the greatest competitors in the world playing in our parks for a fortnight and be happy with that.

I'll tell you a secret, I'm happy with that right now.

Sadly others seem to be having issues with this.

Listening to 5Live this morning painted a picture of former cheerleaders for this 'honour' starting to find issues with it because we weren't winning pass the parcel at our own 7th birthday party.

People asking why we are 'paying for losers.' Questioning why Cavendish*  not Wiggins was our focus in the road race (which betrays such an ignorance of cycling that I can barely believe it). The idea that we were "too fair" in allowing equal access to 'our' venues to other teams for training. That the Japan Men's Gymnastics team were wrong to appeal last night.

A seemingly endless litany of pissing and moaning from the former cheerleaders now that we aren't meeting the hopes we may have had in terms of the medal table.

I thought this was about the gift we'd been given to welcome the world. To bring all nations together under cover of sport to celebrate human endeavour and achievement. I kind of hope that it still is. I would rather we won Gold in every event but I'll still celebrate the other colours that we get and commiserate rather than condemn those of our athletes who don't "podium" (uurrrgghh).

You can't have it both ways. If all this time your hope was that 2012 was our chance to exploit home advantage then you've missed the point of the Olympics. If you were so concerned about the medal count then we'd have been better off spending all that money on athlete funding and cheering them on in Paris this year.

I was told whenever I raised concern that I should grow up and cheer on the best wherever they came from. Turns out though it's only really a celebration of endurance or speed or strength if it's British endurance or speed or strength. If I want tribalism I only have to wait a few weeks and the football season starts again, (This year is our year for the record).

Seven years I moaned for until right before this party began I turned. Danny Boyle and the parade of nations slapped my petulance out of me and revealed that here is a celebration of humanity.  Of how collectively, in friendly competition we can drive each other onto bigger and better things. It's depressing to find out that a lot of others have made the reverse decision based upon the fact we have no gold yet.

Anyway, on to today's...

Numbers

Women: 13,000m

Men:  29,600m

Total: 42,600m

If we add that to what we have so far then we get 205,200m

I'd hoped for a more exact comparison but we'll have to live with the idea that this is more than enough to swim the entire length of the Suez Canal. That should do for now.

Only two more days of swimming then we'll have some other stuff to count. See you tomorrow.

R

You can follow me on Twitter at @Le_Paien_Roux

*Did you know Cavendish is in the spellchecker? Me neither.