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"The Olympics are over." We will have to wait four years more until once again the finest athletes on the planet congregate - this time in London - to test themselves in the superlative crucible of what has become known simply as: "The Games". 

In the past year we have seen in Beijing how the purest manifestation of competition can bring social change to an ancient culture struggling to find its way out of the last great totalitarian nightmare.

We have seen British Athletes punch far beyond their collective weight, and we have seen records broken: broken so profoundly and with such distinction that only a very few can doubt the nobility of the pursuit.

And as The Games yesterday came to an official close, as the Flame was extinguished - only in the expectation of its triumphant re-ignition - and as the Glorious Mantle was passed to London, I was, as so many must have been, reminded of the first time someone stuck a finger in my bum. 

"It happens. Nobody asks for it. Nobody quite knows why it happens, but it does". If it hasn’t happened to you then you’d best start writing to Agony Aunts and asking ‘em why. Boys do it to girls and yes, girls do it to boys. I don’t want to cast aspersions (though to be fair I’ve nothing else to do with them) but I assume that gays to it to one another, too; I hope, in the spirit of World Athletics, nobody is excluded. 

One finger or two says Rebecca

 

It is a strange thing for, as no doubt the ancients asked one another between naked wrestles, qui bono? It’s not this aspect of Olympic Endeavour, however, that is so redolent of finger-in-the-bum-ness: it’s clear who benefits: those brave patriots who go out in front of thousands and try to win a great big chunk of gold and fame and recognition and, oh, just everything. Including, it seems, financial remuneration for bringing glory to your Prime Minister for getting a gong. 

No. But following a couple of weeks of world-class running about and throwing things, the hyperbole of BBC commentators, the tears of victory mingling with the those of broken dreams, I was left watery-eyed, thinking, ‘What the fuck just happened?’ 

To complain seems churlish and ungrateful. It seems unenlightened and reactionary. Cynical, like.

Whether it’s a pinkie up the chuff or a triple-jumper, you can’t comment on the pointlessness of it without offending those glossy mag-readers who’ve been assured that it’s perfectly normal, perfectly healthy, and all part of being a zeitgeisty, go-getting, try-anything-once, Nike-wearing individual.

The kind of archetype they use in advertisements for shit cars in the hopes that the zeitgeisty, go-getting, try-anything, Nike-wearing individual will somehow distract the consumer from the far-from-inspiring 0% finance-over-three-years. 

Rebecca Romero wins gold

However, when your television and newspaper is overrun with unheard-of classes of sailing boats, or when your dearly beloved pops a thumb in your arse, it’s both difficult and unwise to appear too enthusiastic.

If you’re a man it seems a bit gay, and if you’re a girl it’s unlikely that you want your fella to think you’re that sort of girl. Not just yet, anyway. And if you’re gay, it’s unlikely that you want to be seen as quite that gay. Really? Mucking about in boats? Well, fill yer boots. Whatever gets you through the night. It’s a free country. 

And yet it seems as if some kind of reaction is necessary. After all, Something Definitely Just Happened which you didn’t expect would happen without your specifically asking for it.

But you don’t want to come across all cynical because it’s quite possible that it was for your benefit; and you probably don’t want to give that profoundly limp endorsement of synchronised swimming that’s going to get you binned.

And it’s hard to be both: I try to be cynically gay about the whole thing but it’s a real tightrope. 

No. I suppose there’s no suitable reaction to it. Perhaps it’s character-building. Perhaps it’s just One Of Those Things. Perhaps one must just grin and bear it, make the best of it, and simply have the courage to face the things you can’t change. It happened, and I’m very much afraid that it’s going to happen again.