I spent yesterday morning remembering. Today the Olympics will be over. Four years ago, around about the same time, they came to an end in London. I spent the morning reading through columns from the 2012 Olympics as I thought of something witty to say on the Olympics for today. I wrote two columns a day at those Games after an editor asked me nicely. Oh, when I was young and foolish and listened to editors.
Those were the days.
Rio had their closing ceremony in the wee hours today, a party to bring to an end a Games that has given us reason to smile in those wee hours. In 2012, Independent Newspapers only had one media ticket to the closing ceremony and we decided the other guy should use it. I went to the Steve Parry bar in the Main Press Centre and sang along to ‘Wonderwall’ as the ceremony played on the telly. Beers were drunk, stories were told. I missed home, but I felt at home. London was the best of the three Games I have attended. The next Games has always felt a long way away, but has then arrived quicker than expected.
I have covered these Rio Games off the telly for our live update site, which is like live tweeting but with the comfort of more characters and space to move. Television can take you anywhere in the world, but it also reminds you how far away you are. In the cold, dark hours before dawn, Brazil can feel a long way away.
The shy smile of Caster Semenya reached across the Atlantic yesterday. It was seven years and a few days ago that she arrived home from Berlin, her life forever changed by the unfeeling clumsiness of the IAAF, the self-serving lies of the leadership of ASA and the grandstanding of politicians. In 2009, the police cleared us from a conference room at a hotel beside OR Tambo Airport to do a sweep for bombs ahead of a presser Semenya was due to attend after winning gold at the Berlin World Champs. We took our bags outside as they did so, and then walked back in with them, unsearched.
A police captain told us to check our bags so we couldn’t say the SAPS had stolen from us. ASA and the IAAF had already stolen a chunk of decency from Semenya. We listened as Leonard Chuene blamed the media and the IAAF. Soon, he would be gone, his tarnished reign over athletics over, and the sport left in turmoil.
In London, Semenya ran into a strong silver medal. It really should have been gold, her coach, Maria Mutola, the Mozambique 800m superstar, told me in the Olympic stadium. “I wasn’t happy at all. I was expecting gold,” said Mutola, and she opened her jacket to show a T-shirt that had gold writing emblazoned on it. “I wore my gold T-shirt today because I was expecting gold. But silver? We’ll take silver. It’s her first Olympics, and hopefully she will learn from this and take the experience to Rio. I know it’s a long way, and it’s not fun at all to wait that long, but, you know, she’s still young and I believe she will be strong in 2016.”
Could Mutola have been any more right?
Semenya is just 25. She was 21 in London, 18 in Berlin. That’s a lot of living for one person, a lot of finger-pointing and a lot of point-proving. She looks at peace with herself, having found love and marriage and her place in life. She was born with a talent, not a difference.
When the London Games began, I received a message telling me Lester Mills, the Pretoria News sports editor and my friend, had succumbed to cancer. It was a sunny morning in London when I was told, but I felt little warmth and spent the day going through memories of one of the most gentle and kindest men I had had the pleasure to work with.
I went for a beer and toasted Lester. In my column the next day, I dedicated my coverage of the Games to him. As the Rio Games end and I spend the next few days remembering, here’s to you Lester. Here’s to you Caster Semenya. Here’s to Rio. – The Star