Marching into Beijing's Olympic stadium with Team GB was like coming out of the Wembley tunnel for the FA Cup Final
Opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games have a very special significance. The first symbolises hope and anticipation, a metaphorical starting gun that ends four years of hard, unrelenting effort for many of the assembled athletes and coaches; and the ending is a joyous relief that this commitment is over, albeit temporarily for the majority, enhanced by the happiness of those who have succeeded, not just with medals but also with personal bests and courageous endeavour.
But both ceremonies have more than just the Olympics in common. They celebrate not just the 鈥済reatest show on earth鈥� but, more importantly, a kind of worldwide teamship. The Russians and Georgians may be staring down the barrel of each other鈥檚 guns, but in the Olympic Village their athletic citizens are swapping pins.
Pin-swapping is a peculiarly Olympic activity. It is a kind of ritual, which was certainly there when I was in Barcelona (1992) and has grown even more significant since. If you swap pins then the thing to do is stick your home country pins on the ribbon of your accreditation badge and 鈥� hey presto 鈥� within a minute of outing yourself, someone will ask you to swap!
I tried it today, while queuing for a coffee, and instantly a nice lady called Moira from Malaysia asked me to swap. We struck up a pleasant conversation, just one of hundreds that take place every hour in the Olympic Village, all because of