2004 - The Olympics Go Home

The 2004 olympics were the first ones where I had a job and so couldn't vegetate in front of a TV watching them, which sucked. The good thing was that as they were in a sensible country the good bits were on after I had got home.

Brit wise the main memories are Kelly Holmes being quite good, as were our cyclists. Paula imploded on a nice chilly Athens afternoon in the marathon (would the morning not have been a better time to run the marathon?). We beat the Americans in the 4x100m relay without them dropping the baton or anything which I can't see ever happening again. I also have memories of watching a lot of mixed doubles badminton and someone called Amir Khan did quite well in the boxing, unfortunately he has disappeared up his own bottom a bit in recent times it would seem.

In other events the two big Greek spinting hopes kept the Olympic spirit alive by faking a motorbike crash to avoid drug tests (allegedly), Justin Gatlin won the 100m (later found to have kept the Olympic spirit alive by failing a drugs test), a marathon runner was attacked by a crazy bishop before getting a bronze and Michael Phelps won everything else. Here are the highlights (I was going to put a clip of Paula but that would have been a bit mean).