THE official website of the Beijing Olympics records that they came to a close on Sunday, 24 August. For many Britons, however, they only reached a definitive conclusion two days ago, when members of Team GB, and their colleagues from our even more s
uccessful Paralympics team, paraded through London.
The autumnal sunshine brought the crowds out, but proportionately there were fewer than the 50,000 who lined the centre of Edinburgh to greet Scotland's four Olympic medallists just days after the end of the Games. Times and priorities have moved on, and, while the real weather was clement, the economic climate has taken on a severe chill, and the nation that celebrated together back then has lost its feelgood mood.
Still, with Chris Hoy and Rebecca Adlington and their team-mates being wheeled out one more time, the BBC turned to trusty Sue Barker and some of her supporting cast from China. Two and a half hours was too long for all but the most obsessive enthusiasts, but once you've got all the cameras in place for a major outside broadcast there must be a feeling that you should make maximum use of them.
The difficulty in this case, of course, was the minimal content on the streets compared to other London occasions such as Trooping The Colour or The Lord Mayor's Show. Those events have hosts of soldiers and dignitaries parading past, whereas Thursday's was a smaller succession of lorries.
So, predictably yet also thankfully, the BBC resorted to footage from Beijing to spin the show out to its preordained length. And once the whole procession had come to a halt and the athletes were all assembled on a makeshift stand of sorts, Boris Johnson, the Mayor (but not the Lord Mayor) of London, came on to deliver his standard speech – a mixture of self-deprecating jocularity, erudition and improvisation.
Thanks to his day job, Johnson knows better than almost anyone the pressure the budget for the London Games of 2012 is under, now that the economic circumstances have worsened. As well as that potential reduction, there is also a threat to the funding which was one of the major reasons behind success in Beijing. Johnson's fellow-Conservative Sebastian Coe, the chairman of the organising committee for the next Olympics, should have a sure grasp of such matters as well, and may find himself regretting comments he made at Thursday's event. "The success of the team and the reaction of the British public . . . will be multiplied many times over in 2012," Coe said. Which was quite a boast.
Many times over? More than the 19 gold medals won by Team GB? Higher than the second place in the final medal table achieved by Britain's Paralympians? Seems unlikely.
The athletes themselves, of course, can hardly afford to indulge in pessimistic thoughts, and they were understandably delighted by their reception. "People were excited by the results and with the 2012 Olympics being in London, it is obviously something that means something to them," burbled Ben Ainslie, the yachtsman who will skipper the British entry in next year's America's Cup but plans to return to solo sailing in good time for London.
Hoy, as ever, was one of the principal athletes the TV crews turned to for comment. Throughout the months of jubilation, in the face of all the praise that has come his way, the Scot has remained modest and unassuming. But the cyclist, along with others, has already spoken of a desire to get back to normality, and to the hard training which brought them success in the first place.
And in any case, by this time we could all do with a break from the Olympics. For a start, there are only a few short weeks before the reviews of the year begin and we have to relive everything all over again.
