Day 17 - The Number's (are) up.

August 12th

And just like that we're done. All the figures are in and we can answer the question.

How far exactly?

Before we get there though I'd like to take a moment to make...


An Apology.

In the original posting of Day 15 I mixed up Rachael Hodges of the BBC and Rachel Burden of the BBC. I could offer a reason for this (I'm guessing an auto-complete issue) but not an excuse. It was my responsibility to check my work before clicking publish and I didn't do this thoroughly enough.

This then is a heartfelt and genuine apology to Rachael and Rachel, both of whom I think are great at their jobs.

I'm sorry for any distress or upset and I regret my error.

I'd also like to thank Nicky Campbell and George Riley both also of the BBC for pointing out my mistake to me so that I could correct it.

He's right you know, it WAS Rachel Burden.

He's right too, Rachael Hodges is someone else entirely.

I'd also like to apologise to Mr. Campbell.

During my comments on his coverage of these games I failed to mention that he had basically the exact same gig at Euro 2012 as well.

He performed just as "admirably" there and I did not reflect this. I hope this concludes the issue.

Numbers

These are the last ones mind; this is all the counting done. I'm not looking at another spreadsheet for at least a week.

Quick rule recap: swimming, running, jumping and throwing only. If you don't finish you don't count (sorry).

First up are today's figures:

Swimming: 7,200m
Running: 3,691,575m
Jumping: 0m
Throwing: 0m

Today's Total: 3,698,775m

Which added to what we had gives us...


What we did this Summer


Most productive day

The busiest single day of the games was August 5th when thanks mainly to the 107 Women finishing the Marathon 4,628,099.92m was covered.


First to last, smallest to biggest.

The very first metres we counted were given us by Bradley Ally, winner of the first heat in the Men's 400m Swimming Individual Medley.

The very last came from Narumi Kurosu in the Women's Modern Pentathlon Combined Event.

The Smallest measure counted was 1.56m jointly recorded by Chantae McMillan, Sofia Ifadidou  and Louise Hazel in the Women's Heptathlon High Jump.

The greatest distance comes from any of the finishers in the Men's 50km Race Walk but I'm going to pick out Jared Tallent as it was his finish that got our cumulative total through 10 million metres.


Jumping up and jumping along.

In the vertical jumping events 2,290.06m was cleared in total which is enough to clear 464 new London Route-master buses placed on top of each other.

Or

We could take The Burj Khalifa

828m

Bolt Taipei 101 to the top of it

509m

Plonk the Eiffel Tower on there

324m

Glue The Shard to all of this

310m

Add The Gherkin to keep it company

180m

Weld  Rodina-Mat' zovyot!  atop that

85m

And give her Nelson's Column on the tip of her sword

51.6m

And our total would still be enough to comfortably clear the top of Nelson's head.

The horizontal distance jumped by the athletes comes in at 5,431.56m.

That is over 483 of our faithful friend the Route-master buses bumper to bumper. (And also spookily near to the number cleared vertically).

Oh Hai!

Throwing it about.

Combining all of the successful throws throughout the games gives us 63,256.68m.

Now I know it's a bit of a cop out but I'm just going to go back to my very first comaprison.

Bonjour!

The distance covered is just about enough to throw something over the English Channel and leave enough for our oldest friends to return the gift


Going for a quick dip.

The total distance swam by the Women and Men at the 2012 games is 1,059,900m

That works out to 21,198 lengths of an Olympic pool.

You may have seen one recently.

In the Men's 50m Freestyle final Florent Manaudou took gold in a time of 21.34 seconds.

If he was able to maintain that pace for the full distance it would still take him 5 days, 10 hours, 23 minutes and 57.32 seconds.

He'd probably need a bit of a rest afterwards too.


Just run it off.

The total distance ran at these games is 16,351,990m

That works out to 40,880 Laps of a 400m track. (Technically 40,879.975 but come on, I'll be lax this once).

This may also seem familiar

Last night the Jamaica Men's 4x100m squad covered that in 36.84 seconds.

This deja vu is driving me crazy

If we gave them the job of covering our running distance, even at that World Record speed it would take them 2 weeks, 3 days, 10 hours, 20 minutes and 19.2 seconds.



So finally then. How far exactly?

17,482,868.30m

Which is:

10,863.35 miles -ish

Which is:

1,556,800.383 of 

Hello again!

bumper to bumper.

Goodbye

Well there we go. Question asked and question answered. Before I go I'd like to thank everyone who has read and enjoyed this; especially those of you have shared this through Facebook and Twitter. I genuinely appreciate it, really, thanks. Please continue to do so (I make no money from this, would just like as many as possible to see it).

If you read it and didn't like it well thanks anyway for trying it out I guess.

If anyone wants to use any of the numbers on here then feel free but I would appreciate a link back for it.

If anyone is especially interested in the spreadsheet then e mail me on howfarexactly@gmail.com and I'll happily send you a copy.

And that's it. We now know something we didn't 2 weeks ago. Be good. I need a pint.

Richard

You can follow me on Twitter at @Le_Paien_Roux

Day 16 - Some questions answered.

August 11th

Today's first hero

Looks like #GoMo will be trending worldwide tonight and it deserves to. That's all I have to say on that score.

Today's other hero

Today also had the Men's 50km race walk. It was won by Sergey Kirdyapkin which is cool and all that but the real kudos must go to the Silver medal winner Jared Tallent. His completion of 50,000m pushed us through the 10 million metre mark for these games.

Bravo Jared

Some questions

I've been asked a few questions since I started this so I thought tonight was a good chance to answer some of them before tomorrow's number-fest.

Why are you doing this?

Because as I mentioned in my first post I had a bit too much to drink with a friend. It's been established since then that I asked the fateful question "How far do you think they cover at the Olympics?" and he answered "You should totally work that out and blog about it."

(Yes I'm paraphrasing, we we're drunk).

Beyond that no reason really, just curiosity. It's an answer I wanted to know to a question I had asked. I thought others may also hence I may as well share it with them.

Are you OCD?

No, not as far as I know. I am Ginger though.

Will you be doing the Paralympics?

Maybe. I need to look at the events schedule and see if it's manageable. If it is then sure, why not?

Seriously though, why are you doing this?

Seriously, just curious about it and from there comes well, why not?

You mention not counting projectiles but surely Javelins and Shot-puts and Discusssessss (sp?) and Hammers are projectiles?

Yes they are. What happened there was I made a bad choice of word to try and differentiate between stuff propelled purely by human effort and the other missiles that have a machine to help out in moving them like arrows and bullets. Good point; too late to change it now though.

So you're Ginger and doing some idiot blog on distances covered in the Olympics; are you also single?

Yes. Yes I am. So obviously single that there is no reason to rub it in with your question. Eligible ladies can find my Twitter at the bottom of this post. *raises one eyebrow while smiling*

Numbers

Swimming: 7,200m
Running: 3,853,400m
Jumping: 88.18m
Throwing: 3,387.52m

Today's Total: 3,864,075.70m

Which gives us overall figures of...

Swimming: 1,052,700m
Running: 12,660,415m
Jumping: 7,721.62m
Throwing: 63,256.68

Overall Total Total: 13,784,093.30m

So tomorrow it's all over. Join me then for the final breakdown.

R

You can follow me on Twitter at @Le_Paien_Roux

Day 15 - No clever title.

August 10th

This just won't cut it any longer.

Today's real hero

Today was the Men's 10k swimming marathon, Oussama Mellouli won the thing and our very own Daniel Fogg came in fifth.

I'm not here to talk about those two though. I'm here to talk about Ecuadorean Ivan Enderica Ochoa who came back in 21st position (out of 25).

Why are we discussing him you ask? Because when he touched home, his metres took the swimmers at this Olympics through the 1 million metre barrier. He was the one to cross that line, go follow him on Twitter at @ivanend why don't you.

That's 1,000km he got them to (and a bit beyond to be fair) and meant that I could finally start checking Wikipedia's list of Rivers over 1,00km in length.

Bravo Ivan. Thank you. Let's get a pint together while you're still in London.

The best Summer job ever

I'm a big fan of the BBC. I'm going to state right now that their coverage of these games has been brilliant. The fulfillment of their promise that everything would be available live somewhere has been incredible.

There is one fly in this ointment however.

He's the fly, not the ointment.

Since it launched I've listened to Radio 5 Live every single day that I've been in the UK. I've fallen asleep with it more times than I have other people. I have the call-in number saved in my phone so that I can call and pester @StephenNolan anytime he's unfortunate enough to have some fucking homophobe bigot on his show when I get back from the pub. I reckon I listen to more of it than any other person in the country.*

It's a really, really big part of my life and it's wonderful but somehow this summer it's basically become the Nicky Campbell' 'Make A Wish Foundation.'

Now Mr. Campbell is an important part of 5Live. Five mornings a week he hosts a show wherein Daily Mail readers call in to argue with communists and he does a great job at it. It's his thing. I can't think of anyone who could goad extremists into calling up to prove their idiocy on national radio so well. What he is not is a sports broadcaster.

Radio 5 has access to dozens of really good, insightful, provocative and articulate sports journalists. Sometimes though, due to scheduling issues the day after a big event Nicky has to helm a discussion hour on the England football team or John Terry or some such thing. It's no fault of his own but he is clearly uncomfortable in this costume. It is not his mileu; you may as well ask the pope to run a drag club as expect Campbell to discuss sport.

The problem is that they've put him in charge of the early morning coverage of the games, generally before there is anything going on. This means he basically wanders around the Olympic site and cheer-leads the crowds; then interviews an athlete's parents and turns to shout off-mike to get some roars going. That's the easiest gig in the world (imagine being the MC at a comeback concert for Elvis and Sinatra) and he still manages to do it badly.

They've paired him up with George Riley who knows his stuff and the always excellent Rachael Burden but it still doesn't cut it. Please BBC; let him get back to talking about benefit reform or equal marriage rights as soon as Monday rolls around. Get him back were he's useful rather than where he's having fun.

Numbers

Swimming: 250,000m
Running: 140,200m
Jumping: 158.74m
Throwing: 3,297.35m

Today's Total: 393,656.09m

which gives us

Swimming: 1,045,500m
Running: 8,807,015m
Jumping: 7,633.44m
Throwing: 59,869.16m

Overall Total: 9,920,017.60m

Which frankly is just getting stupid. Tomorrow we will blast through 10 million metres and I'll probably get a bit teary and witter on about human endeavor.

Which isn't always used for good.

I'll ask in advance that you excuse me.

See you then.

R

*Seriously; after Sunday's done I could probably find the time to make a spreadsheet to prove it.

You can follow me on Twitter at @Le_Paien_Roux

Day 14 - Bolt the door. (Am I doing this right?)

August 9th

And cue a thousand headlines making a play on words based on lightning.

I'm not claiming to be above it though.

I'm not really here to talk about the sport aspect of the Olympics, there are many others out there more qualified then me to do this but HOLY SHIT is he ever incredible. I remember becoming aware of him just before Beijing and starting to care about sprinting for the first time since Ben Johnson broke my 9 year old heart. I definitely remember 2008 and how he essentially re-wrote how fast a person could go. I also remember Berlin 2009 where he decided to edit the narrative by himself and just make everything ridiculous.

I could check but I'm a bit pushed for time so I'll go right ahead and assume that this is unprecedented and thank Usain  for shocking me to my core with how fast a man can go. Let's see you take a crack at the Long Jump in Rio eh?

Harder now that's it's over.

I mean it's not really over but it is pretty much finished and we're all starting to wind down and hope we still respect ourselves in the morning. Some are hoping that there aren't too many photos of them with a Union Flag face-painted on them while they cry appearing on Facebook over the next few days.

Me I'm anxious to get over the 10 million metre mark but trust me, we have no worries on that score. The last few days include some really big numbers that will get us over that mark. Exactly how far past is anyone's guess as we talk but we'll find out together.

Numbers

Swimming: 220,000m
Running: 94,370m
Jumping: 1,126.98m
Throwing: 8620.02m

Todays Total: 324,117m

Which leaves us at

Swimming: 795,500m
Running: 8,666,815m
Jumping: 7,474.70m
Throwing: 56,571.81m

Total Total: 9,526,361.51m

We're so close I can smell it, See you tomorrow when hopefully we get to taste it.

R

You can follow me on Twitter at @Le_Paien_Roux

Day 13 - Come with me if you want to live.

August 8th

Don't worry, it'll buff out.

Godspeed you magnificent bastard (Redux).

I mentioned yesterday that I'd gotten a new laptop and asked that we mourn the passing of the old. I clearly spoke too soon as the new HP machine  basically crapped it's hard drive out of itself this morning (I reckon it lasted about 18 hours total), and I'm writing this on the old, faithful, beautiful, glorious and apparently indestructible Toshiba machine. This bit of kit has had more bad things happen to it than the Top Gear Toyota Hilux and yet it still just keeps coming -unbelievably- to life just when I need it. There are 2 conclusions I've drawn from this:

1) My Toshiba is essentially Wolverine.

2) I clearly emit some sort of radiation field that shafts hard-drives without me even noticing it. It is a bit of a pain in the ass to be honest but come the inevitable robot apocalypse then I'll basically be John Connor. You're welcome.

Extra Free Bonus Weightlifting numbers

As a person dedicated to giving everyone what they didn't know they wanted even after they received it I added up all of the weightlifting numbers today. Any successful lift in any weight class counted. Trust me here, there were a lot of lifts.

If we add up every single cleanly lifted weight we get 118,354kg. I know it's hard to picture that but once again the new Routemaster comes to our rescue. Each of those things comes in at 12.65 tons and between them the men and women at this Olympics lifted just over 9.3 of the damn things.

That is without passengers mind.

Numbers

We're still short of breaking 10 million metres and getting to the (to me at least) important benchmark of 10 significant digits but we plod on nonetheless.

Today we added...

Swimming: 0m
Running: 304,030m
Jumping: 1,225.26m
Throwing: 14,045.91m

Daily total: 319,301.17m

Which gives us an overall of...

Swimming: 575,500m
Running: 8,572,445m
Jumping: 6,347.72m
Throwing: 47,951.79m

Total total: 9,202,244.51m

We're entering the final straight now but we won't stop 'til we've counted everything. See you tomorrow.

R

You can follow me on Twitter at @Le_Paien_Roux

Day 12 - After the Lord Mayor's show.

August 7th

This is only my 2nd stupidest hat.

There's almost an air of melancholy today now that we've all recovered from Bolt showing the word he's still the boss over 100m. Sure we still get to see if he can make us shake our heads in disbelief once again in the 200m but there's no point in pretending the high water mark wasn't passed on Sunday night.

The 100m final has so much hype and importance attached to it that the first week is all build up to it and it seems that   in the days following we realise that the signature moment of our games has passed and everything else seems just to be book-keeping.

Not here though, we still have plenty of stuff to count, today's triathlon added some great numbers and we still have the men's marathon to look forward to. It looks fairly clear that at some point this week we'll clear 10 million metres which I still have difficulty believing even though the evidence is right there on the screen in front of me.

Godspeed you magnificent bastard

Perhaps the air of deflation is added to by the passing of my old laptop which today finally went into the darkness for the last time. I'd like to take this moment to salute the infuriating piece of crap and all the years of service it gave me. I'll miss you, this new machine might actually be stable and co-operative but it just doesn't feel the same; sort of like using someone else's towel. RIP.

Numbers

Swimming: 82,500m
Running: 770,550m
Jumping: 1,260.87m
Throwing: 7,219.51m
Daily Total: 861,530.38m

Giving cumulative numbers of...

Swimming: 575,500m
Running: 8,268,415m
Jumping: 5,122.46m
Throwing: 33,905.88m
Total total: 8,882,943.34m

R

You can follow e on twitter at @Le_Paien_Roux

Day 11 - The summer we fell in love...

August 6th

...with ourselves.

Go here, click play, minimize it and come back.

I'll come to the numbers in a minute. I'm at the point where they don't really matter anymore. Right now the whole country seems to be in love with the whole country and I can't pretend to be anything but one of them.

We might well be in a huge financial mess, our banks may be messed up and our youngest generation completely fucked but right now it doesn't matter. Our second sexiest city (sorry but Newcastle will always come first) is right now the hottest place in the universe and more importantly we all get it. Right now all the eyes in the world are on us and we are showing our good side to the camera. We'll be paying this little shindig off for years to come but right now we have the best looking, best dressed, coolest and most intelligent  city on the planet. We always did to be fair but for this fortnight, just for once we recognise it and the whole world agrees.

I would hope that this can lead us to forgetting our past and getting on with our future. Accepting that we are now a nation of the world and that our past, amazing though it is, really doesn't matter anymore. We don't have to look back for greatness; forward is an option for us now.

I remember love, it's happened once or twice and it was always real when you stop differentiating flaws and strengths. That's where we are right now. We aren't top of the medal table, there have been certain mistakes with the organisation of this whole thing but none of that matters anymore. We love ourselves again, we see our value once more and it raises us up; makes us better than we were and allows us to believe we'll be better in future because we recognise why the world loves us right now. (Hello Lora, hello Lyndsey. For the record, this is my thank you).

Numbers

Swimming: 0m
Running: 487,000m
Jumping: 99.56m
Throwing: 7364.3m
Today's Total: 494,463.95m

Which gives us

Swimming: 493,000m
Running: 7,497,865m
Jumping: 3,861.59m
Throwing: 26686.37m
Total total: 8,021,412.96m

Route-master buses: 714,284 ish

R

You can follow me on Twitter at @Le_Paien_Roux

Day 10 - Blink and you'll miss it

August 5th

What are you all doing here? Don't you know there's a test match going on? Honestly, there's some proper sport going on right now and everyone is ignoring it for some running. Go here to get all the facts.

The noise you hear is me sighing

Apparently there was a high profile race today whereby 8 men ran really fast for 100m. I've counted them; they register, but to be honest the 800m they contributed is sod all in the great scheme of things because today we had the Women's marathon. It pretty much destroyed the numbers we were adding together. More than 4 and a half million metres in one event almost makes this whole thing irrelevant.

Only almost though. So having recorded the biggest numbers so far I'd like to honour the people who've made the smallest contribution to our total. Here every metre counts so please join me, charge your glasses and give some love to Chantae, Sofia and Louise. All these women managed to jump 1.56m in the Women's Heptathlete High Jump. 1.56m is likely the smallest number I'll ever have to enter into the spreadsheet that counts all of this but I did have to enter it.

Still, think about it. 1.56m. Upwards. Could you jump it? I couldn't and so I'd like us all to take a moment to cheer those women right now because every metre counts and they've all contributed to the number at the top right of this page.

Elsewhere, both of our football teams went out and I'll have more on that tomorrow, Andy (come on Tim) Murray won the hearts of the nation along with his Gold while John McEnroe just won our hearts and Ben Ainslie became pretty much the most successful sailor ever. (He night want to update his website though).

Numbers

Swimming: 0m. Not a damn thing, I'm sad to be honest, I thought we had a thing going.
Running: 4,623,665m
Jumping: 838.31m
Throwing: 3,596.61m
Total: 4,628,099.92m

which gives us overall numbers of

Swimming: 493,000m
Running: 7,010,865m
Jumping: 3,761.94
Throwing: 19,322.07m
Total: 7,526,949.01m

In terms of vertical jumping we're at 805.08m. Burj Khalifa we are coming for you.

R

You can follow me on Twitter at @Le_Paien_Roux

Day 9 - How far? Really? No way.

August 4th

So according to the radio today is Super Saturday, the busiest single day in the entire games. I can't vouch for that as to be honest the numbers were pretty easy to add up today. What I am certain is that I've never heard the phrase "super saturday" in this context before. I suspect the BBC might be getting a little carried away with itself. I've more to say on the topic of it's coverage (which has been to be fair uniformly excellent) but that can wait for another day.

Before we go any further everyone should go and watch this trailer. I have nothing more to add to that other than pretty childish squeals of excitement that would make you worry that I'm about to either pass out or puke.

The numbers continue to be astounding, no two ways about it; you'll see them in full below but to give an idea if we take yesterdays Heptathlete High Jump and add that to today's Pole Vault then they end up about 40cm short of clearing the Petronas Towers.

These towers. Not the Harry Potter charms.

I would have more to say but sadly I've been wrestling my computer into working again so we'll have to live with just the...

Numbers

Swimming: 101,300m
Running: 1,945,500m
Jumping: 1,117.51m
Throwing: 6,646.66m
Total Today: 2,054,564.14m

Which all add up to

Swimming: 493,000m
Running: 2,387,200m
Jumping: 2,923.63m
Throwing: 15,725.46m
Total: 2,898,849.09m

Which is a lot frankly. That there is 258,134 Routemaster buses (if measured bumper to bumper).

See you tomorrow

R

You can follow me on Twitter at @Le_Paien_Roux

Day 8 - Be careful what you wish for.

August 3rd

So having spent the best part of a week complaining about only having swimming to measure I finally got a full program of events today.

I'm not going to lie. It was a bit more than I anticipated. Running is easy to count, you just need to know how far the race is and how many people finish it. Nice and simple. Jumping and throwing however are a different kettle of fish, and it's no longer a kettle; and they're no longer fish.

Never mind, we still have some proper numbers to work with from this point on so there's a good chance you'll be spared any more dull anecdotes.

Except for this one:

Turns out that noticing a girl has coordinated her make up to her clothes is a good thing. Noticing again that specifically her eye-shadow matches her top is also acceptable. Noticing that her eye-shadow matches her bra strap though (which it TOTALLY did btw), bit of a mis-step.

[/anecdote]

Anyway, today was the first day where we had everything happening and again I've had to re-think my comparative measures.

I'd thought that famous buildings would do for the high jump and pole-vault but the Women Heptathletes today managed a massive 284.79m in the high jump. That is enough to clear the Trump Building.

Go on, you try jumping it.

That's just the heptathletes, we haven't had the actual high-jumpers let alone the pole-vaulters yet so buildings might be off the table for this. Mountains maybe? Possibly we can just add a couple of the smaller ones together, lets just see how we go from here. Any ideas then let me know.

Numbers

Swimming: 72,700m
Running: 441,700m
Jumping: 1806.12m
Throwing: 9078.80m
Total: 525,284.92m

Which gives us an overall of:

Swimming: 391,700m
Running: 441,700m
Jumping: 1806.12m
Throwing: 9078.80m
Total total: 844,284.92m

That's enough to do an awful lot of stuff on land and in the water. I accept my guilt for not working this stuff out sooner but really, that is an amazing distance, it's like 525 miles. I'd been saving the idea of swimming from Cuba to Florida but that is apparently only 90 miles and so no longer any use to us. I guess the best I can offer right now is the old faithful Route-master London Bus.

The overall total so far is equivalent to 751,811.301 Route-master buses.

I'll work out some better comparability terms for tomorrow. I hope to see you then

R

You can follow me on Twitter at @Le_Paein_Roux

Day 7 - Technical Difficulties, please stand by

This used to scare the life out of me.

August 2nd

Or at least it should have been.

Having character tends to be seen as a good thing. You would take it as a compliment if it was said about you. In this case not so much.

My laptop 'has character' and 'knows it's own mind.' Yesterday it's mind was fixed upon not working at all from about 3pm onward hence this is coming out late.

Following a sensible rational discourse (threats and swearing on my part, mute indifference on the part of the computer) we've come to an arrangement where it works and I don't throw it out of the window. So apologies for the delay and lack of detail.

Numbers

Day 7 gave us 53,800m in the pool.

This brings our total so far to a barely credible 319,000m.

This is roughly enough to swim the entire length of the Deleware River Water Trail, winner of the prestigious Pennsylvania River of the Year 2011. Looks beautiful.

Right, I'll be back tomorrow later today and we'll have something other than swimming results to count. See you then.

R

You can follow me on Twitter at @Le_Paien_Roux

Day 6 - Spandau Ballet rake it in.

The boys toast Helen Glover and Hannah Stanning.

August 1st

And just like that everything was right with the world again. 


All it took was one (two really) bits of (92.5% silver really) gold on some ribbon and these games were once again worth every penny.

That's not to take away from what Glover and Stanning achieved, they are the best in the world at rowing their particular distance in their particular configuration. Hats off to them. More than that though it's a great story; one of them is a serving artillery officer, the other was nowhere near a row boat until 4 years ago.

Theirs is exactly the type of tale that the Olympics should be about, the type that should be celebrated no matter which anthem they have played for them on the podium.

I hope that will all come out in the end but all that the radio had to offer after their triumph was a huge exhale of relief. A massive "Finally we've got a gold."

Well not to be churlish but no, we don't; Helen and Hannah have a gold. It's theirs, we don't get a share nor should we. They could be from any one of the other represented nations and it would still be a great story.

This idea of narratives being more important if they're our narratives is what leads to the press gleefully questioning Ye Shiwen's performance yet claiming Ruta Meilutyte as one of our own because she goes to school in Plymouth. It's not a competition people...I mean well yes it obviously is but it's meant to be between individuals and not nations. We aren't meant to claim surrogates throughout this.

As I said yesterday, treating this as a festival only when us and ours are winning demeans the whole thing. We might as well replace the medal tables with GDP tables or rankings of literacy rates if we are going to make this about statecraft.

Be patriotic, cheer on our women and men, celebrate their victories and think 'what if' of their shortfalls but don't turn it into mindless patriotism. We all now know what that looks like:

"Nanny! Someone fetch Nanny!"

Faking it

(Stay with me on this one)

A long time ago I was a bit of a piano prodigy. Hard to believe I know but I was right up there among the best 13-14 year olds in the country. My school had an exchange with members of the Voronezh youth orchestra. On the second or third day I was mooching around the music room when I heard their pianist (a girl whose name I forget but whom I had a HUGE crush on) messing around by playing badly on purpose a piece I knew she had absolute control over.

The thing was, to a trained ear such as mine she sounded just like someone trying something for the first time, making beginner's mistakes but seemingly trying her best. She explained that she did this as an exercise to test her mastery of the music; to be certain that she was a good as possible she had to be able to be bad at it also.

Obviously, hoping to impress the lady I gave this a try with Piano Sonata No. 17 which at the time I'd just gotten on top of. Now I did manage to play it badly, but only by making clear and obvious mistakes that anyone could have spotted were intentional. At that point I realised that I would never be at quite the level where I could intend to be bad at the piano while appearing to try my best. That was a level of skill above and beyond me.

All of which is a long way of saying that you really need to be among the very best ever to try and get away with being bad on purpose without people noticing. (Oddly I was quite good at Badminton as well).

Numbers

As an aside, I've decided to stop splitting male and female results as I don't see what this adds to this experiment. It also makes things a bit simpler for me.

Also tomorrow is the last day which only has swimming; come Friday we'll have other things to count. I for one can't wait.

Today's total: 60,000m

So clearly, as I mentioned on Day 4, swimming and I must be comfortable with each other now; no longer trying to impress. It might be time to let her meet my friends (Hello Sophie, hello Joseph, looks like we can finally have a double-date).

If we add this to what we've gotten so far then we get 265,200m

Which is about enough to swim the entire length of Dogger Bank.

R

You can follow me on Twitter at @Le_Paien_Roux

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.

Day 4 - The wrong type of cross country

July 30th

So back to the pool for us where last night Rebecca Adlington managed an amazing Bronze medal in the 400m freestyle. If you're reading Becky, that is my favourite 400m in this count so far. Please get in touch.


There was much excitement today when Radio 5Live said they were going over to the cross country. Finally, some running to measure but alas, not to be. It was the cross country that involves horses which -while massively dangerous and exciting- is as I mentioned before, no use to us here. 


Due to this the most exciting thing to happen today was a discussion of Victorian nightwear (don't ask) and the British Men's Gymnastics team knocking it out of the park. Brilliantly done gentlemen, if you bump into Rebecca tell her I say hi.


So onto today's...


Numbers


Women total: 21,800m


Men total: 13,000m


Total total: 34,800m


Which if I'm honest, I feel a little let down by. I've clearly been spoiled by the distances swam daily so far. Not long ago this would have astounded me. It's still more than enough to cross the channel but There'd been such spectacular numbers being put up it feels just a little like they're not trying so hard anymore.


Then again it could like the first time -when you're both really comfortable with each other- that you and a new paramour don't dress up to the nines. Don't put on your best underwear and perfume or shave and put on your lucky pants.


Perhaps it's just that me and swimming finally have a real thing together.


Anyway...


If we add these to the total so far we get 162,600m.


If you jump into the River Thames at Maidenhead, right by the railway bridge, and swim east (yes, following all the bends), that distance would take you to the NORTH SEA!!!


R


You can follow me on Twitter Here: @Le_Paien_Roux

Day 3 - London buses are useless.

July 29th

Well we're still here at the Aquatic Centre where we will be staying until Friday when the first track and field events take place.


There's no need  to worry that this is going to be dull however as just as I was writing this it turns out that there is going to be a swim off! For the record this will be added to today's total.


Also as I mentioned in my post for Day 2 I was amazed at just how far had been swam in just one day. Looking back a bit of matchbook maths could have given me a rough idea of what to expect but I'm nothing if not continually surprised by the obvious.


I'd been thinking to use the standard British unit of comparative measurement (London Route-master buses) throughout this but this isn't going to be very meaningful it seems. For instance Day 2's 70,200m is roughly equal to 6,251 bumper to bumper, hard to picture unless the traffic gets really bad.


So after a rethink I've got some different things lined up for the other events but for the Swimming it's going to be point to point across open water.


Which is all a long way of getting to the...

Numbers

So today the athletes contributed


Women total: 30,500m


Men total: 27,100m 


Total total: 57,600m


If we add yesterdays figures to this we get 127,800m


Which is enough to get you from Holy Island in N. Wales all the way across the Irish Sea and straight into Dublin. Mine's a Guinness.


R

You can follow me on Twitter Here: @Le_Paien_Roux

Day 2 - Late nights and early finishes.

July 28th

So today's the day that we finally have some metres to measure, six events in the aquatic centre will be giving us our first data.

You'll find that at the bottom, a couple of thoughts first:

Opening Ceremony

£27 million for THAT? 

REALLY?

Have a long list of everything wrong with Frankie Danny Boyle's opening ceremony:

1. J.K. Rowling isn't the world's greatest public orator.

2. Where exactly was The Doctor?

3. Erm...

4. ....that's it. That's all I've got.

Bear in mind that I've not been swept up with love for this event (The torch relay passed right outside my bedroom window and I didn't bother getting up to see it). 

Bear further that I was listening to the opening rather than watching (I've been hitting YouTube fairly hard since last night to get the full picture).

At the risk of Goldilocks turning up to steal our porridge bear also that I despise pageantry in general and choreographed attempts to twist emotion especially and it doesn't change a damn thing.

Danny and his cast of dancing Nurses, adorable moppets, farmyard animals and all the rest got right to me and wrought out just the kind of feelings I think he was aiming for. That was a brilliant display of (some of) what we as a country can be proud of. 

Sure some are complaining about certain aspects being missed out but remember just how much history we have. Boyle had one evening not to sell Britain to the world but to tell the world about Britain and he did it wonderfully.

This wasn't a display of flexing and posing a la Beijing to impress all the world's smaller nations with how virile we are. They know. Many of them have had dealings with us in the past one way or another. This instead was a showing of how we can have a good time not by laughing at ourselves but by getting others to laugh along with us.

Bravo Sir Danny Boyle.

Bravo.

Early Finishes

Do you know how many Gold medals have been won today?

Come on, off the top of your head, no Wiki for you.

It's ten. The very first day after the opening ceremony and ten events are already done and dusted.

Every one of these medals will be the culmination of years of training and a cause of great joy for the new champions so congratulations are in order and utterly merited.

For some of these athletes though such as the new Women's -48kg Olympic Gold Medalist Sarah Menezes it's also the end of her games.

I find it hard to imagine what that must feel like. When most of us are just getting over our hangovers from last night you haven't only started to perform you've also finished. Your 4 years of effort have either been rewarded or left unfulfilled, either way you're now basically on holiday.

I can well imagine Sarah or her male counterpart Arsen Galstyan strapping on their medal tonight and bowling into the Olympic village to strut around and take the adulation, (go for it, you've earned it) but after that?

Do you stay around and make an early start on the mountain of condoms we've provided? Try and sneak in to as many other events as possible to cheer on your countrywomen or perhaps try and get as much London sightseeing done as possible over the next fortnight?

I find it impossible to imagine the mindsets of elite athletes; their determination and drive is so alien to a person like myself that I can't even guess at a common ground that would allow me an inkling of how they must feel in such a situation. I just think it's interesting. All that build up, all that hype and sweat and blood and tears and you're done and dusted before most have even began.

Well I hope they're all satisfied is all. If they were reading this I would hope that even if they didn't get onto a podium today they did manage to be proud of how they performed and satisfied with what they give. Even if their two weeks work is done on the first day without a bit of metal to show for it I hope they ALL know that they are amazing.

Except you know, the cheats. Fuck those guys.

The Numbers

All that aside though, we here are just interested in (a very arbitrary selection of) numbers.

A nice easy start today with only the swimming pool providing us with results.

Six events today producing 4 podiums evenly split between the women and the men and it has given us.....Drumroll please!

Women total: 32,600m

Men total: 37,600m

Total total: 70,200m

HOLY SHIT that's a lot! I'm not sure what I was expecting but that is a huge amount. That's enough to swim the English Channel twice with 6km to spare.

That's from one days worth of short course swimming in the pool. May have to rethink how big the numbers on this get.

Anyway, day 2 is done and dusted. Join us tomorrow when we'll have more action from the pool.

R

You can follow me on Twitter Here: @Le_Paien_Roux

Day 1 - OOOOOHHHH Fireworks!

Dateline July 27th, 20.03 

Or not too long until the opening ceremony kicks off and we all get to find out who will be lighting the flame.


It's been a fun old time off the field since I posted, we've had world class diplomacy from a prospective US president and astonishing fuck ups on the flags front during the opening football matches. If only there was a clever joke that could be made about someone needing to look for a new vocation. 


Hmmm.


There's been endless messes regarding ticketing, transport security and the use of trademarks. A field day for a cynic like me; too easy in fact to go into here.


Now is instead the time to enjoy Frankie Danny Boyle's extravaganza and get ready for tomorrow when we finally have something to measure for this experiment with the start of the swimming.


In about 24 hours we'll have our first numbers up and be on our way.

A quick reminder of the ground rules:

Human power only.

No bikes, horses or boats, no projectiles or ball games. If you run or swim or jump or throw something then we count it and add it all up.

If you don't finish you don't count. 

If you pull up 20 miles into the marathon then you'll have to live with me knowing you're a far finer specimen of human endurance than I will ever be. I won't be counting you though. This is more to do with my wish for discrete measurements than any disrespect for your achievement.


I'll be updating here at about this time every evening as we go on, please feel free to follow me @Le_Paien_Roux and enjoy tonight's show. I'm off to the pub.