Fiona and I threw ourselves into the spirit of the Olympics, determined to take advantage of such a “once in a lifetime event”. We went just about every day to something, somewhere, and loved it all. And the opportunity to see the world’s best cyclists up close was too much to resist. Cycling framed our games.
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| London became the centre of the cycling world. Inside the Velodrome on the Olympic park; the streets of Twickenham await the arrival of the men's road race; the Brownlee brothers break away in Hyde Park on their way to making histroy |
While the hangovers from the Opening Ceremony were still raging, we were out on the streets of Richmond and Twickenham cheering on the Men’s Road Race. While that didn’t work out quite as hoped, the same couldn’t be said four days later when we stood by the finish line at Hampton Court Palace to watch Wiggo and Froomy power to Gold and Bronze. The atmosphere by the Thames that day will live very long in the memory, it was truly one of the highlights of the whole games.
A few days later we spent a late afternoon in the Olympic Velodrome, cheering on British starts including Vicky Pendelton, Jason Kenny and Ed Clancy. And a few days after we watched the Brownlee brothers cycling round Hyde Park on their way to Olympic history in the triathlon.
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| Global stars of cycling. Current road World Champion fast Phil Gilbert during the men's time trial; Queen Victoria Pendleton; Jason Kenny warming up on his way to spring gold: paying homage to Wiggo; women's road race silver medalist Lizzie Armitstead |
The Olympics created such a high it took a while to come back down again. Others have talked about POD, post-Olympic depression, and I know what they mean. So Fiona and I asked ourselves: what should we do in 2013? What should our legacy be? Which is when we decided that as a whole family we should do more sport this year, more cycling, and use it as a route to raise some money for charity. Hence this challenge and my sponsorship page for Cancer Research UK.
Raising money for charity as an Olympic legacy was demonstrated during the games themselves by an amazing group of people, the #2012Tweeps. Their selfless work helped many people, myself included, to get many tickets for the Olympics, and in the process raise thousands of pounds for Médecins Sans Frontières. I’m hoping to keep some of the #2012Tweep spirit alive during my cycling this year.
Which leads us to one final connection. On the early evening of Friday 3rd August 2012, as Vicky Pendleton was winning her Kirin Gold medal, #2012Tweep Conrad Readman (@conr62) suffered a fatal heart attack inside the Olympic Velodrome. I’d shared a pint with Conrad after collecting some Olympic tickets just two days before the opening ceremony the week before. Almost exactly a year to the day later, the northern part of the Olympic Park will be re-opening, focused on the new Velo Park for the RideLondon Olympic legacy cycling festival . It’s from here that the route of RideLondon 100 starts on August 4th 2013, losly following the route of the Olympic cycling road races. On the day before I plan to ride into the park to pay my respects to Conrad, pleased that we’re also supporting the British Heart Foundation this year.
