Paralympic Closing Ceremony

The shame with that is in the OBS Broadcasters Pocket Guide it documents all the production enhancements they were introducing for the Cycling Road Race, such as real time position maps, all of which we know failed as the mobile network used by the GPS units collapsed with the demand.

Much credit has to be given to OBS though, as wonderful as BBC/C4's production has been it has to be remembered most of what we saw was produced by OBS. The quality of their output has been top notch, and they have to be applauded for looking after so many simultaneous sports/feeds while keeping them all to the same high standard.

Exactly - London's rights were only awarded in early 2010 so it could be another couple of years before the Rio rights are on the table. I'd expect to hear something about Sochi in the next few months (only 18 months till the Winter Games, that's cheered me up!) but suspect the Winter Paralympics might stay with the BBC. The Winter Paralympics have got some way to go to get to the point where the Summer Paralympics have. and obviously Britain's historic lack of Winter success doesn't help.

From inside the stadium we could hear fireworks from somewhere outside - about that timing too, that must be it.

anybody know if the UK have to wait until they can bid for the olympics again

I think 2024 is the next one we could bid for in theory. In reality they'd never award it to a UK city again for at least 25 years.

Remember London has hosted the summer games more times than any other city. It would be unfair for us to hold it again in the near future, and it was billed as a "once in a lifetime" event.

On the other hand, I think the success seriously increases our chance of finally winning a Football World Cup host bidding. Almost all of the criticisms raised against London / the UK by FIFA were also raised by the IOC, and we not only managed to solve those issues, but we did it well.

Only problem is that most of the Fifa Board including Blatter and his likely sucessor Platini hate England.



We didn't lose because of anything in our bid. Can I just remind you that they awarded the next two to Russia and Qatar

FIFA have been complaining for years that we would struggle with transport, security, getting the wider public behind a competition and creating a legacy. The Olympics has proved these concerns baseless.

FIFA are even more stupid than I thought then.

I fixed that for you.

Though equally this is the first games we actually bid for isn't it?

Manchester have bid a couple of times and Birmingham once.