Olympic Fever!

So, the British Olympic Association has announced their six triathletes for Rio. No great surprises with the Brownlee brothers, Non Stanford and Helen Jenkins among the six chosen.

Pic courtesy of britishtriathlon.org

I for one would love to see Jonny finally overtake his big brother on the biggest stage, and it would be equally great to see Helen Jenkins overcome her injury problems which dogged her up to 2012.

Either way, I haven’t figured out the time difference but I’ll definitely try and watch it all unfold and probably shout at my tv.

All this talk of Olympics got me thinking about London 2012 and I got a little nostalgic.

2012 was the year I decided to get into triathlon. I’d been a runner, but like probably 50% of triathletes out there, I got sick of getting injured (chronic shin splints). I’d been a half-decent swimmer when I was a kid, and always loved riding a bike, so I figured this was the sport for me! I’d been reading Triathlon 220 with a fever, bought myself a road bike and started trying to remember how to swim, so I was loving it.

Being in London’s finest police force meant that I mostly worked the Olympics, but as luck would have it, I found myself with a day off on the 7th August when the men’s triathlon final was on, so I grabbed a couple of mates and my Dad (obviously!) and we headed up to Hyde Park to watch. We didn’t get there super early since I’d been working a late shift the day before and by the time we did the bike course was already four or five deep all the way around, and we couldn’t get near the swim. Fortunately the swim for those pros doesn’t take very long, and the crowd atmosphere was just something else, cheering everything from the course organisers taking a final check, to the motorbike policemen and well, anything else that came around the corner before the athletes did.

Arrive they finally did, a clump of whirring carbon fibre that just hurtled past, defying my photographic abilities.

Author’s own photo. Look at the crowds!

We watched them shoot past a few more times, with roars ringing out every time a Brownlee was spotted and then, not having tickets for the finishing area, we legged it to a nearby pub to get lunch and watch the closing stages of the run – you know the rest, but even in the pub the atmosphere was pretty special as we bellowed Alistair Brownlee in for the win.

Amazing memories, and some nine months later I was lining up for my first ever triathlon at Eton Dorney.

What are your Olympic memories?