A few more hours and the eternal olympic flame will symbolically be relayed from London to Rio and 20 000 high level sportspeople a third of which retired into trainers and olympic committee rep's, along with a few million visitors, not too mention impressive numbers of volunteers, will return to their homes, leaving 3 500 low budget homes for the people of London to occupy along newly constructed sports venues and infrastructure.
What an event.
Not as many broken world records but many personal ones, generally athletes are faster, higher, stronger and at younger and older ages.
The United Kingdom will have disbursed a very debated UK£ 3.5 billion to make it all happen and soon discussions will rise again whether it was all worth it. If back in the initial stages of the industrial revolution - so wonderfully portrayed in the opening ceremony - politicians and investors would have made a real cost-benefit analysis of railroad construction, no one would have made the advancement then. The benefits will show for decades and far beyond the construction site, many of which difficult to express in a monetary return on the financial investment.
Unfortunately olympic athletes do not trigger an as widespread national pride (or shame) as professional footballplayers do for many countries, but I sense positive evolutions and I think Darwin would agree.
Between 2014 and 2018 we will see olympic (summer and winter) games and world football championships in Russia and Brasil. No (financial) worries there.
Already before that, in 2013, the world will come to know the winning candidate which will have the privilige to invest in hosting the 2020 summer olympics.
Rome cancelled their bid and several other cities in the US, Canada did not advance in formalising candidacies, all due to current financial restraints. Apparently Madrid is and has been the strongest candidate, coming from several prior bids, over Istanbul and Tokyo.
Hm ... let the games continue, please. More volunteers wanted.
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