KYQ4: Thoughts of a couch potato

Sisters are doing it for themselves

David Rudisha - athlete of the games

Well, that's that then. Seventeen glorious days to enjoy the best of the Olympics, well served up with generous crowds and the bonus of more Team GB medals than I had anticipated. If Danny Boyle's opening pageant was creative and studded with humour, good stories and better values; then the closing ceremony was an over-elaborate pastiche of pop celebrity, patriotic pomp with a playlist that failed to reflect either the best of British music or the Olympic ideals. It was delivered by a cast that must have emptied the Priory. The duped athletes, arriving in a fabulous phalanx of flags and oozing energy, were assigned to mosh pits that must have made them wish that they had gone real clubbing; and where was Usain?

An extra £41million had been sanctioned by the PM and the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, in addition to the £40million set aside by LOCOG to stage the ceremonies. According to the Daily Telegraph, the Prime Minister after being presented with a range of possible options had personally insisted on including the elaborate elements of the closing ceremony in order to maximise and promote London for the global television audience. Kim Gavin, the artistic director, used his windfall on extravagant set designs that sampled the very worst of the culture we are supposedly trying to escape from - all flash and no substance. Jessie J in a white Rolls Royce is the opposite of the 'Price Tag' sentiment; there were many over the hill performers including catwalk models and the playlist sadly missed the moment.

After truly spectacular games, where were the Stones with 'It's All Over Now', Dire Straits with 'Love over Gold', Pink Floyd with 'Time' and why did Annie Lennox not celebrate the success of women at the London Olympics with 'Sisters are doing it for themselves' instead of an underwhelming version of 'Little Bird'? The only A-listers were John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and the Spice Girls, the first two dead and the Spice Girls miming badly. John Lennon's 'Imagine ... there's no countries' was an interesting message for the assembled nations. Kate Bush's 'Running up that Hill' has long been a favourite on my running playlist but she at least wisely refused to perform. Oasis are no more and neither is Wonderwall when left to Liam - 'by now you should've somehow realized what you're not to do'; I bet Noel has a beady eye on that take. It might as well have been done by the Kaiser Chiefs who seemed to be the standby band for most other absent groups on the night. Elbow kept it going for a while and Eric Idle proved that humour is timeless. The press had by this time lost their critical faculties and were in total gushing overload, although it was notable that Hugh Edwards, the lead presenter, hardly said a word, what was he thinking?

The games themselves were a triumph for the selection or building of venues that worked. If only the ticketing had been as good, the locals in Newham seem to have no more luck than the rest of us in getting tickets. Meanwhile, David Cameron, the PM and fat cats played musical chairs around the venues with the army and volunteers keeping their seats warm whilst they sped round London in the fast lanes. The spec for the games seemed as much for elite chauffeured spectators as elite athletes.

The most inspiring shots came from the velodrome, athletics, gymnastics and then events such as handball and the triathlon. Football, at last, got its comeuppance - people couldn't be bothered with summer football, the stadiums were difficult to fill. There was something very unolympian about overpaid footballers competing on the same programme as athletes who have given up jobs and careers to be at the games with little or no financial reward. There are too many sports now at the games and men's football would be top of my list for eviction, although the women's game probably deserves its place. And archery, fencing, table tennis, BMX cycling and golf (an Olympic Sport in 2016) could also be evicted without any loss to the spectacle. I would prefer darts to any of these if only as a tribute to the late great sid waddell.

Another assertion that needs knocking on the head is the rant by Lord Monaghan, the BOA chairman, who claimed that the high proportion of privately-educated Team GB medallists was "unacceptable". He said that "just 7 per cent of the population go to independent schools – but more than half of Britain’s golds in the 2008 Beijing Games were won by former private school pupils." Well this proportion dropped sharply in these games to less than 30%. If you were to exclude the two sports of rowing, a sport hosted in the grounds of Eton, and equestrian events from which the vast majority of the privately educated medallists are found, then the state schools provided almost all UK's medals.

Yes, we need a curriculum that provides all youngsters with the opportunity to sample sports but the collapse of school sports came in the mid 1980s when the Thatcher government went head to head with the teaching unions, presumably with one objective being to increase the number of pupils at private schools. And then the present coalition government refused to fund the two hours of compulsory PE that the previous government had introduced. It is this sort of instinctive elitism that has been the cause of poor performances in previous games. What has happened over the past ten years is that state funding has provided the support for athletes from less wealthy backgrounds to train with top coaches and excellent facilities. This has made the difference and is in danger of being lost in the raft of austerity measures that the government are intent on delivering. We should also recognise that whilst cycling and running are universal activities that take place in almost all countries, rowing and equestrian events are minority sports even in the UK. Few other countries participate in these top-end activities which means that it is far easier to win medals in these sports.

The National Audit Office had identified that there was virtually no contingency fund set aside for the games. Fortunately, the volunteers played their part big time responding to any crisis with a flexibility that G4S had omitted from their business plan. So did the army and if things got tricky then Boris Johnson became an emergency clown: seats empty - rotate blundering Boris and the army around the venues; no medals after two days, stick Boris on the zip wire to divert the press; crap closing ceremony - get him to dance to the Spice Girls. Meanwhile, the PM continued to be accident-prone. After his first two years when he seemed to have the knack of coming out smelling of roses every time he fell in the shit, he has become a Frank Spencer figure - accident-prone and the guarantor of plucky British losers every time he turned up at an event. His tendency to make policy on the hoof shows no sign of abating and meanwhile the economy just gets shafted by George, no not the one performing at the closing ceremony, the two Georges are a double whammy of disasters.

My athlete of the games has to be David Rudisha of Kenya for the way he took the race on and with consummate ease destroyed a class field and broke the world record as well. Lord Coe was right to highlight this but then he has been on the ball on most things, as even Steve Ovett graciously acknowledged. The American female sprinters Alyson Felix and Sanya Richards Ross were all elegance and grace in winning the 200m and 400m respectively and then the 4x 400 metres relay. The Brownlie brothers were superb in the Triathlon, Alistair even having to install a hot tub in his front garden to keep his training going during a stress fracture.

Gabby Douglas, the flying squirrel, was sublime in gymnastics. The 15-year-old Latvian swimmer, Ruta Meilutyte, trained in Britain did what none of the British swimmers could manage and was a surprise gold medallist. She showed that the innocence of youth is no deterrent. I was pleased for Kath Grainger winning gold on the fourth attempt, I remember meeting her after the Sydney games and being impressed by her determination. And on the BBC website that allowed you to put in your height and weight to find your competitor nearest in size, she emerged as my match. And then the cycling, Laura Trott was the outstanding performer - all humility and bubbling fun and a role model for girls in sport. Bradley was the supreme professional and only Victoria Pendleton could lose her last race and still be a winner.

The BBC coverage was exceptional and, as well as the superbly professional Claire Balding, Michael Johnson, Hazel Irving, Chris Boardman and Gabby Logan we also had some new knowledgable and engaging presenters emerging as Mark Cavendish and Mark Foster took to the mike. Only the terminally smug Gary Lineker dropped the baton for the BBC proving once again that ... it's not about the money, money, money.