the anticipation is killing me...!

I'm so excited! I'm so excited I'm going to get up at 6am so that I can get to work early and go down to the river to follow the flame as it starts its journey along from Hampton Court to Tower Bridge.

Then I'm going to ring my bike bell and mobile ringtone for 3 minutes at 0812, a rather stylish celebration, coming 12 hours before 2012 - see what they did there?

After a bacon buttie somewhere I shall go to work for the day and then leave around 1730 to go to our lovely friend Giules's beautiful house (she's got an amazing Ostrich side-table thing I'm looking forward to seeing), to watch the Opening Ceremony on telly.

The big question of course is who is going to light the flame. Seb Coe claims the decision is in the hands of Danny Boyle, not sure I entirely believe that. My favourite flame lighting was probably the archer in Barcelona, that was really cool.

My instant reaction when we won it was that it had to be Steve Redgrave - 5 Golds in 5 Games is epic, and he is one of our Greatest Olympians. The never shy Daley Thompson has been pushing himself forward. One of the dames would be worthy as well, Mary Peters or Kellie Holmes. Tanni? Or even Seb. How about Her Maj, in this year of her jubilee? Even Beckham has been mentioned but that would be a travesty.

One of the most interesting ideas I've heard would be to have a kid who was born on the day we won the bid. That would fit in with the theme of the bid which was one of legacy & youth, and you could have one of the above helping them with the flame. You'd have to have a pretty composed 7 year old kid to pull that off.

I still think it should be an Olympian though. I'd be inclined to get David Bond, the only Gold medallist still alive from the 48 games, involved in some way. Maybe Roger Bannister - his breaking of the 4 minute mile record stands out as one of the finest achievements in athletics.

I suppose we'll know soon enough, it's only 24 hours away, but I can barely contain my excitement!

MIDNIGHT UPDATE

It's today!!!

It's all over the front page, you give me road race...

Good to see the teams training on Box Hill today.

Here's one of Brad training for the post medal beers, taken by teammate David Millar

Here's one of Cav, hopefully coming up to lap the others rather than getting dropped:

Ah, this is more like it Cav!

I do worry that he has the expectation of the nation on his shoulders. He can certainly handle it, and rarely disappoints, but it's a tough race to control and it could be won by a breakaway. I don't think the Olympic road race has ever come down to a bunch sprint. But we are talking Cav, and Dave Brailsford, and an immense team of Wiggo, Millar & Stannard, so I'm not going to second guess anyone.

Meanwhile, the girls team are all smiles, despite the problems they had at the World Champs last year. Their race is tough to call, but Nicole could get away, or Lizzie Armistead could do something if it comes to a sprint. It'll probably be The German Judith Arndt though.

In Beijing, Emma Pooley put huge turn in for Nicole and then got the life squeezed out of her at the end by a delighted winner. She might be a better bet for the time trial.

This morning, Cav tweeted this pic of Brad - maybe in revenge for the head & shoulders gag yesterday!

Oops

So we're up & running then, and Our Girls got the victory!

Unfortunate flag mix up for the North Koreans - who do we blame for that one, the Scots? LOCOG? IOC? And of all the flags to pick...

Our Boys start their efforts tonight - I'm intrigued to see how Gareth Bale & Spurs will explain away scoring in a friendly while being too injured to play for Our Boys. Even Gary Lineker weighed in on Twitter, rather echoing my own view: "Once in a lifetime opportunity thrown away #baffled"

Sure, in the greater scheme of things the Olympics is not a great prize, but try telling that to Brazil, who have never won it and are DESPERATE to!

The thing the armchair sportsman like me doesn't understand is why WOULDN'T you want to be part of the greatest sporting show on Earth, in your own country, an event which simply won't happen again in your sporting lifetime and probably not your natural one either? Just being at the ceremonies, living in the village, getting the kit, having the credentials, being able to say "I am an Olympian". It makes no sense. Same thing goes for the young lad Adam Gemili who qualified at the trials yet prioritised the junior world champs or something. Luckily he saw sense but a big FFS goes out to him as well.

Linkage

PRINT MEDIA (if you can still call it that!)

I've really enjoyed The Guardian's 50 Stunning Olympic Moments series, available here

Full Guardian coverage here

The Daily Telegraph always has excellent sports coverage. Their Olympic coverage.

The Independent is here, but unfortunately, as The Times in behind a paywall, then their wisdom will have reamin a mystery...

ONLINE

Yahoo has some good memorable moments as well.

The BBC's full coverage is here including Barry Davies, that doyen of commentators, remebering his 10 most noteworthy Olympic Moments.

More links as we have them - please send me your favourites too!

Anyone care to predict the subject of the obligatory photo of an athlete inside a red phone box?

Starlisteny

Jonathan from work gets interviewed on Radio Jackie, SW London's finest radio station!

He's about 40 seconds in, and is sooooo excited!

Jonathan's appalled teenage daughter commented "OMG Dad, it's so cringe"

Getting into the Olympic spirit (1)

Proudly wearing an Olympic rosette!

Flaming 'eck...

So, there was a bit more excitement than usual when I got off the train in Kingston this morning - the Olympic Torch was passing by!

I think we all could have done without the 3 advertising floats "from our sponsors" which went first, but the kids liked it and they dished out stuff to wave.

Now, I know the naysayers like to nay say, and inform us that the torch relay first started in the Berlin games of 1936 - but you know what? Bollocks to them. It was great, loads of people lining the streets, all ages, really enjoying the atmosphere & their chance to get close to the torch. I joined a bicycle peloton following the police van at the back of the parade.

I bumped into my brother David, and we nipped around the back streets and came out at a handover point, where we got a good close up look.

As if the Tour de France, pathetic loss to South Africa and the not very teasing teaser tweets from another brother at the rehearsal for the opening ceremony weren't enough, then this has certainly got the old Olympic juices flowing...ROLL ON FRIDAY!