Remember when the London Olympic Games Countdown Clock stopped? No, you don’t because the glorious summer of 2012 washed the negative comments clean away.
But there was a Countdown Clock and I was there to see it start as it tick tocked its way towards the opening ceremony of London 2012 with 500 days to go.
And yes, it was as boring as it sounds.
As much as I’m loathe to bring any kind of negativity to London 2012 you’ve got to call a spade a spade…
The ‘event’ in Trafalgar Square was jazzed up a bit with the arrival of British heptathlete Jess Ennis, London Mayor Boris Johnson and London 2012 chair Seb Coe and when I say ‘jazzed up’ I mean they were all talking about time… and clocks, so ‘jazzed up’ is meant in the loosest of terms.
In the interest of fully-sharing, feel free to watch the full two minutes and 34 seconds of people you might recognise talking about time.
The real excitement occurred the following day, when all that discussion about the importance of time and clocks came to naught.
You didn’t watch the video did you?
Okay, here’s the ‘top’ quotes from THE VIDEO I PUT THERE FOR YOU BUT YOU DIDN’T EVEN WATCH.
“In athletics particularly, the first thing you do when you finish a race is go and see your time. So to have Omega as the official Olympic timekeeper is brilliant,” enthused Jess.
“Omega have a history of involvement with the Olympic Games and we’re delighted to be able to kick off London’s Omega relationship here tonight with 500 days to go,” said Boris Johnson, amazingly managing to do his PR speak without any buffoonery.
Aside from the fireworks going off within feet of where I was standing, it was all a bit blah. But then, the next day…
… the clock stopped!
The press had a field day. And yes, lucky for you, there’s a video of that too. Oh, and an official statement about the stopping of said clock.
Glorifying in the failure with premonitions of doom for the whole event, the hacks were in their element with even the Portugal Resident getting a dig in…
Clocks, smocks – off it went again and all was well… presumably, we never heard about it again but the Games managed to carry on regardless. Although there was that whole ticketing thing…
Next post: Olympic Odyssey: Ah, the ticket issue…
