We got athletics yesterday morning

That only happened in the first couple of days all the stands have been packed out since, the games have been a major triumph even away from the medal table.

I won't disagree....



I'm glad to have been proven wrong.

Fair play admitting that.

Got to say we are loving it and seeing so many great Athletes from every sport give their all is a brilliant spectacle.
Also great to see the other countries competitors get the respect they deserve.
Team GB have done us very proud imo and we also get the bonus of seeing legends like Bolt ,Phelps ,Hoy etc etc and the new generation like the young Chinese swimmers and the young American that beat Addlington.

I really hope the paralympics are well supported too, I'm looking forward to going down.

They should be there's some absolute quality all across the board in those games too mate

....not forgetting that similarly 15 year old Lithuanian swimmer.

You've just got to feel for the athletes: such high emotions good and bad. As I previously stated, I was so damn impressed with the women competing that triatholon. After all that effort it was scintillating to see a race resulting in a photo finish. I still think both should have been given gold.

My wife and I are going to do our damndest to combine a good holiday in four years time with a successful application for Rio tickets

....Brazil has always been on our to do visit list anyway.

Brazil is great as long as you don't go a couple of streets off the tourist areas!!

In fairness I guess that applies to a lot of places.....but thanks for the advice. I take it you have actually been to Rio ? I'll be coming to you for recommendations on places to stay, visit, dine etc

Just re-read my post and I think I kinda coma across negative about the Olympics - Nothing could be farther from the truth. We've literally had nothing else on the box since the opening ceremony.

I've found myself watching some real odd-ball sports, not really understanding them but enjoying them never the less.

Men's foil fencing - absolutely no idea what was going on but sat and watched an hour of it anyway.

Can reflect your position exactly. Bizarre isn't it ? Sports that I wouldn't normally give the time of day to are proving captivating (even the confusing sailing events).....the cycling is fast becoming my second fav sport to RL.

Just watched the women's 400 metres final

I have a new found enthusiasm for the women's beach volleyball and the women's heptathlon. Not sure why...

Bolt in 9.63 - wow

I have and been to the Estádio João Havelange which will host the Athletics and the Maracanã where the opening ceremony will take place.

Get in touch, I can tell you loads if you need it.

I've been enjoying the Handball. From the size and skills of them, looks like the men from Eastern Europe and Scandanavia who would in other circumstances play Rugby instead play handball. In contrast, the GB team are clearly those who can't play anything else, and are terrible.

Struck me that if we had a Handball team, given half-an-hour's coaching, of Hall, Tomkins, Watkins, Atkins, BJB, Lauititi (naturalized), Westwood (gk) then we'd have more of a chance.

I was there in 94 mate with the RN so Hotel wise not a clue.
The usual tourist haunts are well worth it and most usually eat anywhere along the coppacabana but the usual rules dont go anywhere empty and if possible where the locals are eating.
In terms of names mate we'd been at sea about a week when we got alongside so the 5 day visit is still quite blurry but i do remember the local "chav" element carrying machine guns when we took a wrong turn on our way to play footballl against a local amateur team!!
The locals are very friendly some TOO friendly keep yer hand on yer wallet im sure RTN can give the names of places.
A great place but stacks you dont see on "Wish you were here"!

They never tell you about the pickpockets in Barcelona either



Thanks for tips. You were in the RN ? Respect

....All I ever wanted to do at secondary school was to become a pilot and fly RAF Harriers. I failed the medical

and had no contingency plan.

Should have stuck to my original primary school dream to be a zookeeper: Johhny Morris being my young impressionable inspiration

Sort of. My cynicism about the rampant profiteering, corporate whoring and the attempts LOCOG have made to destroy the Olympic ideal remain intact.

However, luckily the athletes arrived after much waiting around. And they've been amazing. Not just the British ones. It turns out that when you get literally thousands of men and women turning up to pursue dreams of glory and sportsmanship in return for no money, not even the attempts to sell that spirit to McDonalds, Coca Cola, Samsung and Procter and Gamble can stop it being remarkable.

I would still prefer it if more than half of the 80000 who witnessed first hand those unbelievable events in the stadium on Saturday and Sunday had been members of the public who acquired those tickets by applying for them like everyone else.

The socio-economic debate will rage on. In sporting terms the Games have been sensational. May it continue.

The jury is still out for me.

Its not about the sport, the sport is superb and I am loving it, it was always about the cost and the tangible and the huge untangible legacies.

Of course I'm not naive enough to believe that sports funding in GB would ever have benefitted from a £10bn tidal wave of money, and I'm cynical enough to think that if Paris had won these Olympics then sports funding in GB would have continued to have been cut as I believe Seth has pointed out in the past so to suggest that his organisation would have been better served by just having the money instead of the Olympics is fanciful.

The real tangible benefit will come next year when (from memory) 1800 apartments get released to a housing association with an instruction to rent them out at "affordable rents" and the same number are released to the market to be sold at full valuation, the association are currently inviting applicants to apply for interviews with a view to start occupying in the summer of 2013 - whether the definition of "affordable rents" match the max capped housing benefits for London remains to be seen, if they don't then we know where the housing association are coming from.

From what I read of the scheme they have some quite radical ideas for what will basically become council house tower blocks (to put it crudely), with a resident caretakers living on site to handle day to day problems, if they can achieve a good balance of private/social housing and maintain the estate as it looks now then that will be a huge tangible benefit and a blueprint for every local authority to follow...

...and be incredibly ironic that the government in charge of re-introducing the concept of social housing was a Tory government.

I love your ideals but you need to be a little bit more pragmatic about who this big wonderful event you're so enjoying is paid for.

Yes. But, it has been pretty flashy hasn't it? It's a bit socialist of me, but I do have to wonder whether you could have staged a less showy (but still sportingly excellent) Games with considerably less corporate wonga, for the same public/lottery wonga. I appreciate that this is not the way the Olympics roll nowadays.

You could, let's face it, still make an awful lot of money in sponsorship without making over half the seats for the men's 100m final unavailable to the general public.

I'm a playa. I like bling.

Braap braap.

Not really. It's Livingstone's scheme, no matter how many times Boris pops up on television.