Why I feel a bit let down by the closing ceremony.

I should preface this by saying that I know the ceremony last night was not all bad, and I also acknowledge that the closing ceremony is not there to do the same job as the opening ceremony. But anyway, here goes.

As a newly minted commuter into London I will happily admit that, three weeks ago, I was looking forward to the Olympics with a sense of trepidation. Horror story predictions about the transport system abounded, security was a massive issue, and whenever it was discussed the conversations usually ended with a slight sigh and the phrase “I’m sure it won’t be that bad”.

And then it started. The opening ceremony was, in my opinion, fantastic: an imaginative, sweeping vista showing the world what Britain is all about. Or, maybe, should be all about.

The following two weeks of athletics was the only Olympics I remember being interested in. I found myself, helped along by the BBC’s excellent coverage, becoming interested in sports that I’d only vaguely been aware of previously – fencing, diving, gymnastics. I became an overnight expert in all fields, sagely informing my better half that, in fencing, if both lights go up at the same time, it means that they’ve hit each other at exactly the same moment and so the point will go to whoever started their “attack” first. Of course.

But it was with Super Saturday that I found myself fully under the spell of the Olympics. Watching this group of people, both British and those representing other countries, striving with everything they had to achieve their dream of winning an Olympic medal of whatever colour was both inspiring and humbling. I found myself teary eyed on numerous occasions, thinking about all the hard work that all of the athletes had put in to reach this point. The sheer effort of making it to the Olympics at all is an achievement in and of itself, but then World and Olympic records started falling with impunity. Athletes were achieving double triples, long distance doubles and cutting whole seconds off their personal bests, all cheered on by an excited public. And me. Shouting at my TV screen, hoping that the runners making up ground on Mo Farah in the final stretch of his epic 5000m final would trip each other up, or fall over themselves, or anything – just let him win.

I also found the participation and performance of so many of the female athletes cheering. For the first time there were female athletes from each nation competing, and there was female boxing. I am not a fan of boxing (male or female) but I found Nicola Adams to be a great ambassador for her sport. Engaging, eloquent and very obviously excited and pleased with what she’d achieved. Rightly so.

This was something that typified the vast majority of the competitors, whether winning a medal or not. The young athletes were gracious and humble and fantastic examples to everyone. They had tried to be the best at something and, in some cases, achieved it. In other cases, not quite. But they were happy with their lot nonetheless.

So I was looking forward to the closing ceremony, looking forward to seeing how the organisers could bring to an end such a fantastic fortnight of global celebration and togetherness.

I hate to say it, but I was disappointed. I did not go into it with the cynicism with which I approached the opening ceremony and yet I still found myself getting more and more disappointed with what I saw. I am finding it hard to put my finger on exactly why, but I think it’s because I had spent the previous two weeks watching people working their absolute hardest, after several years of working their absolute hardest, and achieving greatness, being the best that they could be, being sportsmanlike, recognising the achievements of their opponents and generally being nice. It was lovely to see.

And how did we celebrate this coming together of nations in achievement, effort and real hard work? We had One Direction being driven on the back of a flat bed truck around the running track miming one of their “hits”. We had Jessie J being driven in the back of a huge and ostentatious Rolls Royce singing about it not being about the money. Yeah, we know that, Jessie. We’ve just watched two weeks’ worth of people whose prime motivation is NOT to make huge wadges of cash – we don’t need you, prancing around in a strange be-spangled body suit to tell us that.

The nadir for me, the point at which even the snarky Twitterati could not help me to enjoy myself, was the “fashion” segment. I don’t know if it was partly because I was secretly hoping that Bowie would appear and was annoyed when he didn’t, but this part left me hollow. I appreciate that they were modelling Alexander McQueen dresses and so were celebrating a British designer who had achieved greatness in his own field, something which was missing from the opening ceremony. I don’t remember anything about British designers but it is undoubtedly right that they’re celebrated. But seeing some preening prima donnas best known for their love lives and temper tantrums stalking about the stage was to my mind a bit, well, misjudged. We had just seen a plethora of female athletes at the peak of physical health and fitness, moving away from women valued only for their ability to look good – valued and appreciated for their contribution to the sport and what they had to say. I felt sad to be moving back in the other direction. I am reliably informed that Russell Brand singing “I am the Walrus” was worse, but I seem to have blocked that from my memory.

It was not simply the female side of things which left me feeling deflated, it was the whole thing. The celebrity culture where people are deified for nothing more than simply being on TV had been cast aside for two weeks, and true talent shone through – these athletes were famous for actually doing something! Although not true of the entire closing ceremony, I felt that certain elements of it (giving prime airtime to allow George Michael to plug his new single, for example) slammed the door shut so that the chink of light cast by the athletes’ talent was no longer visible.

It boils down to this. I think my problem with the closing ceremony is that the Olympics had been a celebration of people’s real achievements – a departure from the celebrity culture that has pervaded much of our lives over the past few years. It celebrated humility, hard work and grafting (as a greater man than me said). The female role models on display during the Olympics were real women – they looked like real women and they acted like real women. All of the athletes were true sportspeople and it saddened me to realise that this display was over.

Basically I think I’m in mourning for the end of the Olympics. I don’t know what I would have done instead and I don’t have any constructive criticism, just an emotionally knee-jerk reaction. The athletes kettled into the Union Flag in the middle seemed to be enjoying themselves, which is the main thing. All I know is that I bloody loved the Olympics and this didn’t seem to be enough of a send off.

But, joy of joys, the Premier League starts again next week. Talk about preening prima donnas best known for their love lives and temper tantrums……