11 years on from that famed summer when London became the first city to host the Summer Olympic Games three times, the memories of the weekend I spent there are as vivid as ever. As a nine-year-old full of Olympic fever – having already seen the torch run through her local park a month beforehand – to actually be present at the heart of the games was a dream come true. 

Sitting inside the stadium on the morning of the 4th of August – now more famously known as ‘Super Saturday’ – meant I had a bird’s eye view of the athletics taking place. I saw the fastest man alive, Usain Bolt, run his 100m heat which was a moment of great excitement for everyone in the stadium, even if for most of us he was nothing but a very fast little dot running across the track. Another vivid memory is seeing Jessica Ennis-Hill competing in the Long Jump as part of her Heptathlon gold. Watching her in action that morning began a desperate, albeit extremely short-lived, dream to grow up and be just like her one day.

That evening, still high on the excitement of having been in the stadium and at the park that day – and of course having had a picture taken with the games’ mascots Wenlock and Mandeville – I like millions of others across the country and around the world tuned into the evening athletics. It was then that Team GB won the incredible three golds in less than an hour with Mo Farah clinching the 10,000m, Greg Rutherford winning the Long Jump, and, the one that had me jumping up and down in front of the hotel TV, Jessica Ennis-Hill storming the 800m race to claim her well-deserved Heptathlon gold medal. That incredible night was rightly voted the greatest Team GB moment ever at a summer games in a 2020 BBC poll and will likely remain so for a long time to come. 

While nothing the next day could quite top the euphoria of the one before, returning to the Olympic Park and visiting the Orbit Tower was quite the way to round off my weekend. Especially when Team GB struck Gold once again and Ben Ainslie’s sailing win meant everyone present in the Orbit Tower went home with a very special souvenir – a limited edition Team GB gold Coca-Cola bottle. I still own that bottle now and am reminded of how lucky I was to have that experience at a home games.  

While my dream to follow in the footsteps of the great Jess Ennis-Hill quickly crashed and burned, the lasting memories of that weekend in August 2012 have held a special place in my heart ever since.

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