I feel a little sad the Paris Olympics are almost over because I’ve had a blast. These have been my first Games as a spectator and commentator, rather than as a competitor, and I have felt the power and joy of sport all over again. There have been so many amazing stories from athletes at contrasting stages of their careers and four British women have provided my personal highlights. Emma Finucane, Katarina Johnson-Thompson, Keely Hodgkinson and Bryony Page have all, for different reasons, captivated me in Paris.
Before the Games I picked Emma to win three gold medals in the velodrome. There was so much pressure on her but in the team sprint, her opening event, Emma, Katy Marchant and Sophie Capewell totally smashed it. They raced three times in a day and broke the world record each time. Great Britain had never won a medal before in the women’s team sprint but Emma led the way to an unforgettable victory.
The keirin is the most unpredictable event in sprint cycling but I thought Emma’s astonishing speed would secure her second gold on Thursday evening. But she is only 21 and, in a race where positioning matters almost as much as pace, her inexperience was obvious. She had scraped into the final, after a photo-finish third place in the semi, and I thought she would learn from her mistakes. But, when her opportunity to take the black line in the final came, Emma hesitated. That’s fatal against New Zealand’s Ellesse Andrews, the world champion, who slammed the door shut.
I discussed the race afterwards with Chris Hoy, a two-time Olympic keirin champion, and we were both a little disappointed. But Emma then did my favourite interview of the Games and showed such delight in her achievement. “That bronze medal means everything after the team-win with the girls,” she said. A smiling Emma added that she was “living her best life” and sleeping with her gold medal under her pillow “like a little tooth fairy”.
She sounded so young, and fresh, as she said: “I’ll sleep with the bronze under my pillow as well. That bronze feels like a gold.”
Experience and sheer knowhow on the track will come but, for now, I love Emma’s exhilaration. And I still think she has too much raw talent and speed for the rest and will win the individual sprint on Sunday. Two golds and a bronze would be a stunning result in her first Olympics.
I was transfixed on Thursday, and all through Friday, as I watched an athlete at the opposite end of her remarkable career. KJT, or Kat as we also call her, was competing in her fourth Olympics and a combination of cruel luck and injury meant she had never won a medal at the Games before in the heptathlon. And so for Kat to finally win silver on Friday evening was my emotional highpoint of these Olympics.
I really like Kat and I’ve messaged her a few times to show my support. She has been dealt some pretty awful cards over the years and the media scrutiny has been harsh. But she has had to pretend that everything is still OK while she must have been wanting to hide away. So for her to become world champion last year showed incredible mental toughness. But, typically, more bad luck came earlier this year with another injury. For a while it looked as if Kat was truly cursed and yet here she is: an Olympic silver medallist at last. What a moment.
Keely, meanwhile, needs to be ready to ride a rollercoaster for the next few months. Until she gets home she won’t really understand the impact she has had by winning the 800m. I hate that phrase “the British darling of the Olympics”, because I used to get that. But Keely deserves to be the face of this successful GB team in Paris. She was the overwhelming favourite to win gold and that brings immense pressure. But she ran a brilliantly controlled race to dominate and bring home the gold medal she craved after winning silver at the last Olympics and at successive world championships.
She now has sponsors and television shows chasing her, and life will become a whirl of photo shoots and interviews. It’s exciting but, also, can become a bit much. My husband, Jason, and I hated it when we were made to feel like prisoners in our own home, with the paparazzi camped outside, after we won five gold medals between us at the Rio Olympics. But Keely has the composure and strength to deal with everything coming her way. She is only 22 and she will get better and better.
Bryony Page is 33 and, after winning silver and bronze in Rio and Tokyo respectively, she landed gold in a gripping individual trampoline final. It meant the most to me, personally, in Paris because I was there to watch her live with my seven-year-old son, Albie. Bryony has even visited his trampoline club in Macclesfield so I messaged her afterwards to say congratulations and a massive thanks for giving Albie a gold-medal experience.
Albie and I have enough memories to last us a lifetime because it’s been such a thrill to watch some Olympic events through his eyes. On Thursday morning I got tickets for the climbing and, as he watched, his face was a picture. Albie absolutely loved it and he keeps saying: “What are we seeing next, Mummy?” I just say: “I can’t just click my fingers for tickets to everything.”
Earlier this week I had to leave very early to do some work and my dad messaged me at 6.45 in the morning to say that Albie was in front of the television waiting for the Olympics to start. My dad said: “I think he’s finally got Olympic fever.”
I messaged back: “That’s definitely our son.” We’ve all had the fever in Paris.
