It's taken a few days for me to get my head round the fact that it's all over. After seven years of waiting, all the training and finally kicking it all off with a stunning Opening Ceremony and the London 2012 Olympic Games went in a flash. I had intended to write another instalment of this blog after the first week but alas time ran away from me. Never before have I worked the amount of hours that were needed to get everything done and to make sure that I was available to help out when needed. The words "good practice for when you're a doctor" were said quite a number of times! Indeed, working as part of the Sports Medicine team I was beginning to feel a little like a junior doctor, chasing results, getting scans and accompanying athletes to their treatments and a whole load of paperwork!
The surreality of the Olympic village only really became apparent to me on returning home and having the "how was your day" chat with my parents. "So how was your day?" "Yea, was alright, did some scanning, chatted with some athletes...oh, saw Boris Johnson....and Dame Kelly Holmes...put some bed extensions in for some athletes...oh, met Sir Charles Allen (Olympic Village Mayor)...I'm quite tired now" "Sounds like a good day" "Oh, completely forgot, Dana Vollmer came round to say thanks after winning her Gold medal, that was nice". I've always been one to partake in the sport of celeb spotting, however with previous highlights being former Apprentice contestants, I was initially excited to keep track of the people I'd seen but in the Village it was like shooting goldfish in a bowl. Therefore it soon became untenable. As an NOC (National Olympic Committee) Assistant professionalism was a core part of our job, and part of this meant not asking for photographs no matter how tempting it was when I saw Usain Bolt walked past! For me it was enough to be there and see it with my own eyes that photos were an additional luxury I could sacrifice.
I have been asked many times "so what is it that you actually do?" and so far I have failed to answer it particularly concisely. The difficulty is that in my role I could be asked to do anything, within reason. I have driven people and packages to training venues, hospitals and other destinations when needed. I have worked closely with the Sports Medicine team, filled ice baths, done inventories, kept track of scan results, accompanied athletes for treatment and been a one woman admin team for them. However, what was most important was that I and the rest of the NOC assistant team were their port of call for local knowledge. This knowledge really was invaluable to them. One particular job that will always stick in my mind will be sourcing a wheelchair for the mother of an athlete who had injured herself in such a way that she wouldn't be able to watch her daughter compete for a gold medal unless one was found to get her to the venue. This is where the rather lovely people of the Red Cross came in to save the day but without the local knowledge of where to find it, the athlete's mother would have missed seeing her daughter win gold.
Back at my first training session we all wrote letters to ourselves about what was in store. In it I wrote that I hoped it would live up to the expectation that it would be a once in a lifetime experience despite not having a clue as to what I'd actually be doing! It's safe to say that it lived up to my expectations and exceeded them. I really hadn't realised the number of incredible people I'd meet nor the fantastic friendships that I'd form. I had hoped that I might be able to go and see the Sports Medicine department and maybe meet some of the people there; the fact that I was able to work so closely with them, as a medical student, was an added bonus that I really wasn't expecting. I also had no idea of the large number of gifts that we would receive as tokens of appreciation for the help we provided. I was stunned by the level of kindness we were shown by our American "employers" and they really seemed to be grateful for our help.
This has been so much more that an exercise in being able to say that "I was there". Quite the contrary. In many cases I wasn't "there", I was instead "a part of it".
Now I have to piece myself together so to get back to normal life after an Olympic sized hangover...
This is going to take a while...I still feel emotional each time I look at the Hungarian Olympic Committee statue I won in Sir Charles Allen's workforce raffle...
In the words of Morrissey:
"I know it's over - still I cling, I don't know where else I can go..."
I feel numb...