After 16 days of adrenalin and delight, of contests fought and won, of teary triumphs and devastating defeat, the Games of London 2012 are abruptly at a close.
Ten thousand athletes have headed home, the crowds dispersed, the cauldron extinguished. In their place, along with the unforgettable memories, is a sadness too that something so fun is now consigned to the past.
Established icons like Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps dominated the headline sports. Olympian greats like Chinese diver Wu Minxia and Italian fencer Valentina Vezzali lit up the undercard.
Great names known previously only to aficionados stepped into the limelight to dominate and amaze – 800m machine David Rudisha, Dutch cycling queen Marianne Vos, Yorkshire’s triathlon titan Alistair Brownlee.
Young talents destined to dominate broke through and stood tall: Ruta Meilutyte, seizing 100m brastroke gold at 15, Gabby Douglas, aged 16, winning both individual and team all-round gymnastics gold, Kirani James, the future of 400m running, adding Olympic gold to his world title aged just 19.Â
For the host nation, there was success beyond belief – 29 golds, 65 medals in total, won from Weymouth to Waltham Abbey and drawn from 19 disparate sports.
