Sunday 5th August

The papers are full of our gold medalists, and while there is no denying their fine achievements, spare a thought for those who come second or third, or who do not even medal at all (to medal becoming the most recently added verb in the interview dictionary, along with IM, and PB) .  Rebecca won two gold medals in Beijing, and all the sports commentators had her as a shoo-in for two more at this Olympics.  What they fail to think about are all the other competitors who are just as hungry for gold.  Sometimes it all comes together perfectly, and for almost inexplicable reasons you are the best in the world.  And four years is a long time; it must be incredibly difficult to achieve that same degree of perfection.  And so many young swimmers are coming along all the time, it seems the optimum age for swimmers to improve is 15 – 16, so along comes a relative unknown and knocks seconds off their best time and beats you.  Apart from the phenomenon known as Michael Phelps very few swimmers are able to defend their Olympic titles.  So well done Rebecca for going out there and swimming your heart out, and even if in the final it didn’t quite work, and your time was a bit slow, it doesn’t matter – we still love you.  No-one can ever take away those two gold medals from last time, no matter who the Olympic champion is this year.  As Rebecca herself said, she is incredibly proud of getting two bronze medals at this Olympics, and those that say that getting silver or bronze is losing are so wrong.  All our athletes are winners; even those that fall at the first heat, just to be good enough to go to an Olympic games must be wonderful.