In a little over 24 hours, London, Londinium, Lundene, one of the greatest cities on earth, if not the greatest city, will open the 2012 Olympics.
The XXX Olympiad.
The city that is already host to every culture and creed on the planet will become the only city to ever host the modern Games of three Olympiads.
England will invite you into its gentle arms and embrace you with lashings of British culture and heritage, English values and traditions, London cockiness and old-world charm.
Ten and a half thousand athletes from around the world will come together to ignite London and the world for 17 days of unrivalled strength and skill, courage and determination. They will join as one for the greatest show on earth. The finest display of sporting art and theater.
London will provide a feast of sport and sportsmanship fit for any King.
Photo credit: Peter J Dean (Flick Creative Commons)
London will put on a show
It will rain. Traffic will grind to a halt. The transport won't run on time.
This might not be a perfect Games - it won't have the fantastic weather that Sydney had, it can't have the iconic facilities that became the hallmark of Beijing, it will never have the ancient connection to the Games that we saw with Athens.
London will march to its own beat, sing to its own tune. It will do things its own way and it will put on a brash, modern show. This is the way that London has been for time immemorial.
Londoners may be slow to accept these Games, but accept they will. The complaints will eventually end once the performances have commenced. When Day One gets underway, London will thrive and we'll quickly forget any problems there were.
It will be hard
I hope this is a tremendous Olympics, that the sun shines, possible threats recede, and the naysayers turn a leaf and enjoy a sporting spectacle the likes of which we only see once every four years.
But I won't lie to you.
I will grow homesick. I will pine for the place of my birth. I will reflect on a possible future return.
Watching this Olympics from the land down under will be hard. It will tug at my heartstrings and pull me from afar. I will fill with patriotic pride and I'll mourn absent family and friends.
Yet, rather than wallow in self-pity, I'll try to draw strength from these historic Games.
Finding greatness
You don't have to be a star athlete to be great. You don't have to win gold medals to show how capable you are.
You just need to be great in your own unique way because everybody is good at something.
Whether it's completing a 10k run, meeting those lofty targets at work, or writing that killer blog post, great things can be achieved in less high-profile ways.
I will use these Games to find my own tiny piece of greatness. I will write, I will train, I will be the best daddy-to-be I can be. I'll tell myself I can be great in my own small way and I'll be as proud as punch when someone else agrees.
During this Olympic Games, go out and find your own small piece of greatness. Tell yourself you're good at something and go be the best you can be.
For these will be a massive Games. They might even be the best Games yet.
Here comes London 2012.
So let the Games begin.
Will you be watching the Games? Who will you be cheering on?
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