Time For Some Olympic-Sized Lying

Of all the wonderful Olympic moments, I can't decide which to claim that I witnessed first hand. I could go for something obvious, like Mo's 5000m or Jessica Ennis wrapped in the flag. But I am more minded to choose something less-anticipated - yet no less amazing - like Nicola Adams doing the Ali shuffle, or Gemma Gibbons mouthing words of love to her late mother.

Of all the wonderful Olympic moments, I can't decide which to claim that I witnessed first hand. I could go for something obvious, like Mo's 5000m or Jessica Ennis wrapped in the flag. But I am more minded to choose something less-anticipated - yet no less amazing - like Nicola Adams doing the Ali shuffle, or Gemma Gibbons mouthing words of love to her late mother.

Not that I generally approve of making stuff up. But with each momentous victory, commentators referred to the million people who supposedly say they were at Wembley when England won the World Cup. It seemed like they were egging us on. The "I was there, honest" line is practically sanctioned by the IOC.

Luckily, I don't need to rush my decision. Now is not the time for the lying to start. I am not brazen enough to look people in the eye this very week and tell them I can still smell the chlorine when anyone mentions Tom Daley's brilliant bronze.

But as time passes, and the edifice of truth is worried away at by repeated waves of wishful thinking, I will surely find it easier. And if I start to pretend for the benefit of other people, how long before I start to believe it myself? And once I start to believe it myself, it may as well actually be true.

And it's not as if I don't have all the relevant, may-as-well-have-been-there facts to hand. The one thing the sofa viewer will remind the smug ticket-holder is that the view from home is clearer, if not truly better. So I've got all the memories already in full technicolor glory, they just need adjusting slightly. I practically was there, really I was.

It's not as if I actually feel left out. The atmosphere throughout the Games was amazing everywhere. I rushed home to watch sports I have always liked, sports I didn't know I liked, and sports I was pretty sure I really didn't like. I cheered and cried along with everyone else. I had a fantastic Olympics.

But in 2020, when my daughter is ten, she is bound to ask whether I took her to the Olympic Park when she was a toddler. I'm not sure if I can bring myself to tell her that I meant to apply for tickets, tried to be clever by leaving it until the last minute, then forgot and missed the deadline.

And there's no point going on about how I tried repeatedly to buy the extra tickets that went on sale during the Games. Yes, I did spend hours watching synchronised swimming on one half of the screen, while on the other half the 2012 website teased me with tickets that were there, then suddenly were not.

But the fact is, I didn't try hard enough. And when I did try, I didn't try luckily enough. This is not an image of yourself you want to project before the eyes of your adoring child.

I do have one chance of redemption: getting tickets to the Paralympics. Channel 4, which bought the TV rights, is cleverly showing adverts thanking the Olympics "for a great warm up". All the signs are that they will be brilliant. But I've been on the website and nothing is available.

More tickets are apparently going on sale before the sport begins. I do hope this is right. And this time I had better get lucky. Otherwise I will have to lie about going to see two sets of Games.

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