London Olympics 2012 started 8years ago today

[Scarby9]

Good times!
And such different times.
I'm feeling a mix of anxiety (so many people all too close together!) and wistfulness watching the opening ceremony.

8 years?! No way. I refuse to believe that!

Excellent programme on BBC this afternoon, showing all the planning and preparation that went into the opening ceremony. Well worth watching.

I was approx 23 weeks pregnant with a child who is now 7.5 years old

I remember staying up to watch the ceremony, despite being shattered.

So much had passed since then??

I hated this time it had been shoved down our throats for two years I was so fed up with it, I hope we never host again.

I loved it. Our family gathered at a holiday cottage on this evening and I arrived with my TV just as the ceremony was starting (my brother had rung just as I was loading the car to say the TV in the cottage was really small!).
I remember being worried about a terrorist attack through the opening ceremony, and not expecting anything much as it had been so dissed by the media in the run-up. But it was great, and we relaxed into a week of holiday, with evenings watching sport.
We wnt to the cycle road race, then I was at the first day of the athletics, travelling in to London on a train about 4.30am with the commuters and arriving as the gates opened. We left at the end of the evening, about 1 hours later, having seen all the heats that led into Super Saturday.
I'm sorry you didn't like it, @Holothane. I really did.

I hours?!? 15 hours.

I feel really tearful watching it! Great times! I remember being quite stressed watching it in case it was awful as it had been run down in the press but it was actually amazing, Danny Boyle did us proud. Such a contrast to the misery of this year.

I had just moved to London when the olympics has started. Was an amazing atmosphere, I would go and sit in Hyde park on my days off and watch the games. Can't believe it was 8 years ago!!!

I remember watching it with my partner who declared that no one watches the ceremonies as it’s all about the sport.

He is no watching it again with me declaring his fantastic it was!

Little did we realise that this was the pinnacle and that things would go downhill rapidly from the decisive referendum here in Scotland, to Brexit, both of while pale into significance with Covid. Wish it was 2012 again.

It was actually 27th July! Also enjoying rewatching the opening ceremony, I was in hospital with a new baby at the time!

I grew up a few miles from the Olympic Stadium so I was immensely proud that my corner of London was in the spotlight.

I was heavily pregnant during the Games. I started my maternity leave the day of the opening ceremony as the government advice was to avoid London if possible due to congestion. Everyone told me that London was like a ghost town, so I could have worked for an extra week!

I didn't get to see any events as I was convinced that I would have given birth during the games, but as it was, DD decided to be born after the games.

Dd and I are watching it. She’s 18 now and says she wishes things were like they were back then.

Loved it. We're being all nostalgic and just wishing that DS (now 9) was old enough to have enjoyed it at the time. We went to a few of the stadium events, and took DS to the cycling as it went past the end of our road. Such an amazing atmosphere and I genuinely don't think it will ever be repeated it- which is such a shame as DS would have loved it if he'd been old enough to remember.

I'll get him to watch it tomorrow as he'll like the Rowan Atkinson bit etc. But I genuinely think it was one of those things that you had to be there in the moment, and we won't get anything like it in our lifetime.

The ceremony was amazing!

I didn’t see the opening ceremony first time round as I’d volunteered to help at a local dance school show.

Danny Boyle did such an amazing job and I am so glad he fought to keep the NHS section in.

Ah, in that case it's exactly 8 years since I found out I was pregnant!

Was it really 27 July? I thought they said it was today. Oh well.
Such a hopeful, optimistic, happy time.
So much has happened since. I would love to go back to that night and relive it.

Oh, the volunteers! I'd forgotten about the Gamesmakers too.

According to my Facebook it was 27th July.

Opening ceremony was 27th July 2012. The day after our wedding. I feel totally emotional about that summer

I was in the opening ceremony; seems like a whole other life time ago!

Gosh. I feel so, different, now than I did then. Then was brilliant, phenomenal, uplifting, positive. Now. Just no. Sad. I'm not sure I quite realised how much.

Oh @titchy are you ok? I know what you mean 100%.

@Adarajames - what part did you play? Can you please describe it all? Your feelings?

Was it really eight years ago? I am watching the lightning ceremony of the magnificent London Olympic cauldron with tears streaming down my face.

We were a proud, successful nation. We showed the world how to run a global event, and how to run an open, successful, tolerant, modern, inclusive society.

Now look at us. Diminished, disgraced, humiliated. The national catastrophe of Brexit and the Tory government’s disastrously botched handling of the covid pandemic have ruined our economy and divided our society. In 2012, the world looked up to us. Now, the world laughs at us and pities us.

How did it come to this?