I'm not much of a sportsman and an even worse spectator but my word, what a weekend that was for British Sport!
After proving our prowess in sitting down sports through the week, we showed what we could do in Track and Field with a fabulous hour of impressive victories from Jessica Ennis in heptathlon (watched by 16.3 million at 9pm), Greg Rutherford jumping to Gold at 9.25pm (watched by 15.6 million) peaking at 9.45pm as 17.1 million of us watched Mo Farah win 10,000 Gold, the highest audience for the games since the Opening Ceremony. Gold for Andy Murray in the mens tennis yesterday felt like an added bonus. It was impossible not to feel proud of 'our' athletes despite the Daily Mail's pathetic plastic efforts. Shame on them.
This might be the "social media" games, and there's no doubt that Twitter has been afire with Olympics news and often where I first hear of British medal success but I have to applaud the BBC for their TV coverage. 24 live HD feeds mean that, for the first time, you don't have to sit through the weightlifting final to see the fencing heats (or vice versa depending on your sporting preference). It's been a technological marvel.
Proud as I was of the British athletes and the BBC over the weekend, I woke up this morning to news that made me proud to be human. We've successfully landed a nuclear powered car on another planet with a sky crane and it's sending pictures back to us live. God knows how many geek hours went into making that happen but if I had to choose what our geeks were working on this would get my money every time.
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