Last night I was driving through Leeds when I was cut up and made to pull over by a pack of Police Motoerbike outriders; this was to allow a coach to come flying by. I explained to someone what has happend and they said it was the Olympic torch going by! But “where were the runners?” I naively asked, to which they replied “Oh they don’t run around the country, they have a coach to get between population centres then get out and go for a bit of a jog!”. Is it me but does this not cheapen the entire exercise?

Anyway I took the kids to South Leeds Stadium this morning to see the torch, after a 90 minutes wait and a steady build up to tension the announcer goes “I can see the torch here it is!” at which point I am expecting a lithe fit athelete to come bounding into the stadium before running imperiously around the track; instead a rather portly middle aged woman in a grey tracksuit strolls in and ambles round. Now I appreciate that some people have performed very worthy tasks to be given the honour of carrying the torch, however I had to get the kids up a 5 this morning to drive across Leeds and I was hoping for a bit more than ‘a woman of a certain age’ going for a stroll.

Thankfully Ronnie the Rhino was on top form so the kids went home happy!

I do love those tracksuits though.

I reckon you’d look cool in one of those, with your barnet like that Bravisimo

so you’d like people to run for the duration of the 8000 mile journey. at 7 minutes a mile (a very ambitious estimate I’d say) that would take 133 days, 24 hours a day…

Care to rethink your view?

I was hoping for a bit more than ‘a woman of a certain age’ going for a stroll.

Care to do some homework?

Indeed – something like this would have been much better; I get to run my 13 mile section tonight starting just after 6pm

http://www.endurancelife.com/realrelay/

not sure what the total distance is going to be; but we need to average 6:30 per km / 10min mile pace and it’s being transported 24 hours a day.

If anyone sees me in a fluorescent yellow t-shirt on the coast road between Saltburn and Hinderwell give me a shout !

warton – some folk are doing the full 8000-odd miles:
The Real Relay

[edit] beaten to it!

Whenever I see those two I can’t help but think of the famous scene in Something About Mary. Particularly in that picture. It’s all just too gross.

Get involved with the REAL RELAY if you fancy running a leg, 24 hours each day.

I reckon you’d look cool in one of those, with your barnet like that Bravisimo

Thanks binbins 😀

frankly a good show was put on.. it came roling through the masses in rochdale on saturday afternoon it rained on the parade but it didnt keep numbers or noise down.. good reason to be cheerful

warton – some folk are doing the full 8000-odd miles:
The Real Relay

[edit] beaten to it!

Yes, they are, and good on them. However…

so, Mrs X, you’ve done a great job helping disabled kids, and to say thanks, you can carry the Olympic torch.

Really? wow incredible, what a great way of saying thanks to this woman ‘of a certain age’

Yes isn’t it. your leg is 02.00 to 04.00 along a country lane in the highlands, and you must run 13 miles in that time. better get training

hmm, can’t see that catching on somehow

I’m with the OP on this. I was completely underwhelmed when I found out what was proposed.

I cant stand the whole thing – overblown media hype. I wish someone would stick it in a bucket of water.

Olympic sport is for the top athletes, thats not inclusive, its for the best of the best. Role models in sport and dedication etc.

They should run with the damm thing from one event to another, unaided, relay style. No coaches, teams of media, body guards FFS !

There’s no easy answer – either get the torch out to every corner of the country but have to drive it around from location to location (as Warton says; not practical to have it being run at 2am – it is supposed to be a public spectacle to raise awareness of the games) – If it was to be carried solely on foot then the route would have to have been severely curtailed to get it round perhaps on a 12 hour a day basis – but you’d be limited to a simple circuit.

“I wish someone would stick it in a bucket of water.” some hero in Headingly tried to do this yesterday but the coppers on crowd control were quick off the mark and blocked him. Had he advertised that plan in advance i’d have gone to see it as it was the route went past the end of my street and i didn’t bother going to look . The wife and i plan to lie to our son and tell him we took him but he was too young to remember should he ever ask.

So who are the people in grey tracksuits running around with the torch holder? They all look fit, stern and formal.
I was discussing this with my lad. I *want* them all to be trained killers who would just snap the neck of anyone who even looks at the torch in the wrong way but my lad reckons they’re just coppers.

I mean, if dissing the torch isn’t the worst crime ever in the entire world then I fear for modern society and the transparently superficial ideals it holds dear.

15,000 people packed onto Skipton High Street yesterday would probably disagree.

Apart from the bizarre spectacle of 3 buses advertising nasty drinks, electronics and a failing bank, I thought it was ace and I can’t wait for the games to start.

And if it was genuinely a surprise that a ‘worthy’ community member was carrying the torch instead of Usain Bolt, I can only think that you’ve been living in a cave for the last few months!

She’s clearly run a long way, she was here in Glasgow:
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHge1JE1G3o&feature=g-upl[/video]

Saw it in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago when I was commuting to work and was quite underwhelmed, though others who had turned up especially for the ‘event’ seemed very excited.

Police presence (5 full riots vans at at subtle distance) plus the dozens of motorcycle outriders and officers on foot seemed ridiculous. Then again, reports of a track-suited arsonist youth chasing a lorry full of fizzy juice should never to be treated lightly.

I thought it was cool probably being the last car before the coach as I drove out of Brighouse yesterday. People 5+ deep for at least 2.5/3 miles.

Nothing else on the road.

Don’t really get it apart from being able to say ‘I was there’ but each to their own.

Wish I had the gopro in the car, must have passed a couple of thousand people. Then saw the coach on the way back from Bradford into Halifax on my way home later. Complete with those badass outrider cops trying to look all Terminator2.

Each to their own, now return the compliment and we’ll be fine.

When it came by here I had to nip into town anyway and there was lots of people hanging around watching so I thought I’d stay and see what it was like.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more underwhelmed in my life. It was quite bizarre really – several corporate sponsor floats with big screens and PA systems pumping out pop with people on them dancing, and cheesy comperes trying to rev the crowd up – then a few minutes later a bedraggled woman running with the torch with no compere, no music, no nothing. And that was it.

They could at least have given us a little blast of Chariots of Fire or something as she ran past!

I’m glad I didn’t take a day off work to see that.

Plus the flame has gone out and had to be relit…

Seen it leaving my town, an 81 year old chap was beaming like Cheshire cat. I’m not bothered by the Olympics but it was nice to see a variety of members of the public carrying the torch.

The escorts you see if for increased crow numbers too not for protecting the torch as such.

I don’t usually turn out for Nazi traditions TBH. 🙂

Someone I knows mother ran (waddled) with it, she was happy, it’ll give her something to talk about although the daughter won’t shut up about it.

It’s good that ordinary people are getting to do it, but bussing it around the country doesn’t seem right, hardly a relay if it’s in a bus.

But then again I’m just an olympic grumpy

After a wee bit of calculation, a few weeks ago, i was saddened to see that i couldn’t have been run round the route.

Why exactly did they have to clear the route for a van with the flame in it? Surely it would have got there just as well without the inconvenience to the public?

Why exactly did they have to clear the route for a van with the flame in it? Surely it would have got there just as well without the inconvenience to the public?

traffic cops, init. Not the smartest cookies in the jar…

I thought it was okay. I liked the BMW bikes. Exactly how whelmed did you expect to be by this spectacle of the municipal?

I was riding in the Purbecks on Saturday and there was a poster in Corfe for the Torch Relay, the poster was sponsored by MacDonalds – says it all really.

I think the magic of the thing might be age dependant – those of us with six year olds in their household who have spent the last couple of weeks designing and making their own torches at school will know what I mean.

Although as it turns out, six year olds are far more impressed with the cops trying their best to look like CHiPs than a jogger with a firey stick.

I thought it was okay. I liked the BMW bikes. Exactly how whelmed did you expect to be by this spectacle of the municipal?

For me it was pretty clear that the main event was the corporate sponsors’ floats – the torch itself seemed like an afterthought really. I bet the Nazis made a better job of it.

I was one of the 15,000 in Skipton yesterday. Fun day with free sports activities (my terrible performance on the exercise bike was thankfully not recorded) followed by the torch in lovely sunshine to round it all off.

I’m a bit cynical about it all, and it did stick in my craw to see the gigantic coke-mobile, lloyds TSB-mobile and samsung-mobile crawling along in front of the relay, but then I saw the face of the old boy (must have been well over 70) carrying the thing, and how much it obviously meant to him to be carrying the torch, the first time it’s been in his country in his lifetime, and my perception changed quite a bit.

The whole thing delighted the kids, who were getting high-fived by the police outriders in only a slightly dangerous way, and screaming their heads off. Good stuff.

So who are the people in grey tracksuits running around with the torch holder? They all look fit, stern and formal.
I was discussing this with my lad. I *want* them all to be trained killers who would just snap the neck of anyone who even looks at the torch in the wrong way but my lad reckons they’re just coppers.

Make your own mind up. More plod than Ninja I reckon…

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy1Q8xCLEMc[/video]

Good luck Steve on the Real Relay Leg!
I’m doing the Stevenage to Hatfield one in a couple of weeks.

Imho, the torch “procession” looks like a parody of itself, or perhaps what you might expect from some dystopian future. Yeah, this is all about the people, keeping it real…except for the bus-load of corporate junk food giants ploughing a path through the “people”, and the throng of bodyguards in tracksuits with their fingers in their comm-link ear pieces. I think I can just about make out someone holding a torch in there…somewhere.

The sport of the Olympics is a wonderful thing and I can’t wait for it to start, but all this pseudo-inclusive bullshit pedalled by the painted-happy faces of the world’s biggest sugar & burger sellers is all a bit much really.

Another vote here for a shorter torch route, carried at speed by lone torch-bearers who look like they’re chiselled out of marble & sent by the Gods themselves to inspire us mortals to mtfu and do some exercise.

The best bit for me was the number of people who turned out to see it here in Huddersfield. Kept bumping into friends and old work colleagues so had a good natter with quite a few folks including an old riding buddy who I’m now going to start riding with again. The torch itself was bit of an anticlimax, but I’m glad I saw it.

Another vote here for a shorter torch route, carried at speed by lone torch-bearers who look like they’re chiselled out of marble & sent by the Gods themselves to inspire us mortals to mtfu and do some exercise.

+100

Or even Eddie Izzard who could have run it round a large chunk of the route…

Give it to this inspiring British chap and send him on his way – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joss_Naylor

Or – http://www.lizzyhawker.com/

This morning I saw why the convoy needs a police escort. I got to the city centre as the convoy was leaving the hotel they’d stayed overnight in and heading towards the start of today’s route. They needed to turn right at some traffic lights.

Lights turn green and the lead police car goes, followed by the coke bus. Lights turn red and the samsung bus goes through anyway (not in a no time to stop way – in a “the light’s red but I’m in the convoy so can go through” sort of way). And nearly crashed into the traffic coming through the green light from another direction.

Having seen the torch a couple of times already (and cycled behind the convoy for a mile or so last night), I decided not to bother going to watch it again this morning.