Cactus Language Blog

Cactus Celebrates Olympic Success

Posted by Lucy under Cactus Languages Abroad

So after weeks of being glued to the telly, cheering on the UK’s finest athletes in dozens of random sports (who knew you could get so addicted to fencing??), the Olympic Games have finally ended. As a nation we now turn with barely disguised panic to the prospect of London 2012, when it will be our turn to host what is undoubtedly the world’s greatest sporting event.

But what were the highlights of the last few weeks and who were our heroes? The Cactus team has come up with a quick roundup of its favourite moments and the sports they just couldn’t stop watching:

Golden Moments

Sarah Gooding: Watching the GB men’s four rowers come through at the end and take gold after a nail-biting race…the TV presenter shouting, “if you’re at home watching this, please SHOUT at your television and cheer them on!!”…so I really did…

Germaine Broadbent: All of it but especially the cycling – they do about 70 miles per hour when they are really going for it and the best velodrome in the UK is in Manchester! And the swimming, because Addlington’s medals were so out of the blue! I think it was great to see our country perform so well at these games and I truly hope this spurs on more young people to take up sport.

Alex Wolfson: Usain Bolt destroying the field in the 100m and Fernando Gonzalez being denied gold by Nadal in the tennis. At carnival last weekend the Jamaica floats were so proud of him.

Sarah Wilson: Watching the Jamaica & Trinidad and Tobago dominate the Men’s 100m. I love it when the smaller nations win. Check out the real Olympics table (http://mediabbq.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/the-real-real-olympic-medals-table/).

Jenny Johnson: All the gold medals for Team GB as they pulled ahead and made it, the opening ceremony best bits (the drumming, the globe), the closing ceremony best bit (the tower)

August Nicol: The opening ceremony was great- very elaborate and very ‘Chinese’ too with the drumming and amazing costumes.

Favourite Athletes

Sarah Wilson: Rebecca Addlington. In the spirit of sports her home town has named a pub after her. T&T: ‘Torpedo’ Thompson for his silver in the Men’s 100m. 4 days of celebrations have taken place to congratulate him and the other athletes.

Laura Harrison: Christine Ohuruogu - mainly because it seemed so unexpected that she won, and everyone commentating who knew her seemed to think that she was a really humble person and very deserving of the medal. She graduated with a linguistics degree from UCL by the way! Another language related ‘did you know’ is that Roger Black speaks fluent French.

Jenny Johnson: Rebecca Addlington, so English, so unassuming, yet clever and confident. Lovely. Also adored the underwater shots of all the swimmers especially dolphin man Michael Phelps.

Augusta Nicol: Louis Smith (bronze medal in Gymnastics for the pommel) as it was so totally unexpected- over here there wasn’t even a whiff of British athletes in the gymnastics, so to see this, and to be the first Brit to get a medal in this event for 100 years, was awesome.

Amazing Olympic Facts

Michael Phelps eats 12,000 calories a day and most of that is fried eggs and mayo!

Citizens had rules about how to dress up during the Olympics: They were not allowed to walk on the streets with their pyjamas, spit on the floor, business men could not wear white socks, and ladies of certain age had to wear skirts over their knees.

Tags:Olympics, sporting heroes