The story from the other side
Updated on 11 August 2008
Alex Thomson sees the emotional side of the games by watching the athlete's entrance.
For all the intensity of competition in the Olympic arenas there remains something alluringly democratic about that simple old thing - getting them all there and back.
I mean, take all the years of self denial and utter dedication and, let's be frank, living an unbelievably boring life of monomanic sacrifice to the God of the Personal Best, well after all that it would be a bit of a set back if you got lost on your way to the pool or missed the bus or something, would it not?
Well if you hang around the athlete's entrance at, say, the swimming centre, then you can watch how it all unfolds.
Sure enough, relays of buses bringing in garishly clad athletes, coaches and hangers-on-with-paunches, to and from the Olympic Village to the arena of competition.
One or two nervous mums and dads mill around here too. All in all it's a bit like some kind of inter-schools competition with somewhat overgrown school children all excited about their big day out.
But then again, that is pretty much what the Olympics is - for schools read countries.
And they all pile in and out. There don't appear to be any limos for medallists, so far as I can tell. I imagine that kind of thing rather goes against the Olympic ideal and would appear divisive. A bit like some of the tennis and US basketball stars who would not lower themselves by residing in the village and eating in the group canteen.
Now their self image will have slightly shifted forever. As will everyone else's.
It's a curious little gate area where all Olympic life and much of the raw emotion passes before you. Out they come, hair still wet from the pool, coming to terms perhaps with the agony of near miss like one British swimmer this morning. Meeting the relatives and being hit full-force with the shock of what might have been.
And after all that effort.
Or for the medallists - the effort, the dedication, all forgotten in the moment of leaving that building and emerging into the start of the rest of their lives. Now their self image will have slightly shifted forever. As will everyone else's.
For they are Olympic medallists. And the cost of it, well, that will not be questioned.
So if you want to see the Olympics close up, yes, get into the venues and watch the events of course. But come down to this gate to watch, listen and soak up the raw emotion of top-level competition.
In its own way it tells you just as much as the competitions themselves.
