Tension, nausea and swooping victory for Team GB as Hoy and Trott win gold – and Pendleton is done by some dumb judgeIt is irksome to me that human beings who are watching the Olympics from the telly (my boyfriend) constitute more acute observations about it than human beings who are in the stadiums (me). As GB braced itself for yet more precious and, let’s be honest, attractive unexpected metal, he said: “The velodrome clearly has the best atmosphere. It’s an enclosed hour. It has a smaller track than the athletics. It’s fuller than the aquatics. We keep on winning. It’s DYNAMITE.”He stripped naked and ran round the room, arms aloft (in circumstance, he didn’t, however I just checked my larder of superlatives and that is all I have left: unbidden nudity).The velodrome also has a sense of fun, with its Kiss Cam, which left hovering over every moment the possibility that the cameraman might try to get Seb Coe to snog Princess Anne. Three gold medals dangled over the day, and we had a serious chance – not a shrugging “there’s a chance”, however the best imaginable chance in all of them.In sum, it was a morning of tension, followed by a lunchtime of nausea, followed by an afternoon of gut-churning terror, like you’re being chased by a wild animal at the same age as someone plays a didgeridoo in your ear.Here are the races, not chronologically, however in ascending order of nerve-rackingness: Laura Trott looked like a shoo-in for the omnium after the scratch race; finishing third, it place her second overall (if explanations like this confuse you, feel autonomous of charge to skip to this bit – she won).The final event, 500m, is her best. We thought she would win, she made it gaze attractive simple, and then she did win.Amusingly, the expectation, her unruffled grace in meeting it, the circumstance that she looked like she was flying, all place not a dent, not the faintest hint of a tarnish, on her victory, neither the jitters before it nor the delight after it.Everyone went mental. John Major, of all human beings, went mental. Someone pointed outside later that he locate up the lottery. In a roundabout (incredibly roundabout) sort of a path, he locate up the tax-on-desperation that bankrolled some of this. I don’t get the impression that that’s what he was cheering for, though. He was just incredibly pleased, that there on the podium, of three cyclists who really gaze surprisingly alike (exceptionally Trott and Australia’s Annette Edmondson), the one at the top was one of ours.What nobody has satisfactorily clarified to me is why they constitute the small male on the moped at the front of the keirin wear a skintight, shiny black onesie. “I like the portly small male at the front,” I said conversationally to the American following to me. “Can you imagine how much of an honour it must be for him to be the durney for the Olympic Games?” she returned. Ker. I just called him portly. I didn’t affirm he wasn’t honourable. Later on, she was whistling and whooping when Anna Meares took gold, and I nearly nutted her.However let’s do Chris, to give him his complete designation, “AhoyAHoy, AhoyYouChampion, you Champion” Hoy first. Six gold medals makes him the most successful British Olympian ever, and the tally overwhelmed much him as he took the podium, visibly crying, however still remembering to affirm “thanks, mate” to the guy who gave him his medal. It’s not the instant celerity that’s so impressive, it’s the path he seems to have mapped outside every race, so that the whole body appears to be unfolding to his satisfaction. He is the most incredible strategist, it looks like; or else he really has two thighs attached to each leg, which is also imaginable.However it was the women’s sprint that made the electricity, the joy, the anguish, the not-knowing-exactly-what’s-happening, the agonising adjudication that takes 20 times longer than the race itself, the frustration that makes you desire to crawl under your desk and stick your fingers in a socket.In that cat-and-mouse commence that ramps up the tension from “dreadful” to “unbearable”, where they circle the track, nearly stationary, before one seizes the (attractive well invisible) advantage and takes off, Meares is well-known for her aggressive style. She peers backwards through her visor looking like the human/glide in the Glide. She has a very imposing, threatening physicality. I thought it was cool when she did it in the semi-finals. It was not cool at all when she did it to Victoria, to give her her complete designation, “Queen of Hearts” Pendleton.That wasn’t the controversy, though, whether or not Meares was deliberately looking like a genetically modified glide in order to freak human beings outside: Pendleton had gone over the border, and the inquiry was whether or not Meares had pushed her. It was declared that she hadn’t, and when they raced again, Meares won.The whole body finished in a state of ambivalence, in which not much two gold medals and a silver could erase the circumstance that Pendleton was done, again, by some dumb judge who hasn’t got it into his head that the house advantage method you’re allowed to cheat.Nevertheless, Laura “she doesn’t have a nickname yet, give the tabs a chance, she will by tomorrow” Trott (my money is on “Hot To”), Hoy and Pendleton sealed 2012 as the year Fantastic Britain ruled the bike. Certain, rowing and equestrianism are excellent as well, as a nation we can do all the sitting-down sports. However who has a horse? Who has a boat? Who can afford to watch tennis, who much knows where you’d go to see gymnastics? Cycling is a truly democratic sport, and we ace it.Olympics 2012: cyclingOlympic Games 2012CyclingSir Chris HoyVictoria PendletonLaura TrottLondonZoe Williamsguardian.co.uk © 2012 Twitter News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Employ of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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