I really hope the paralympics are well supported too, I'm looking forward to going down.

They should be there's some absolute quality all across the board in those games too mate

....not forgetting that similarly 15 year old Lithuanian swimmer.

You've just got to feel for the athletes: such high emotions good and bad. As I previously stated, I was so damn impressed with the women competing that triatholon. After all that effort it was scintillating to see a race resulting in a photo finish. I still think both should have been given gold.

My wife and I are going to do our damndest to combine a good holiday in four years time with a successful application for Rio tickets ....Brazil has always been on our to do visit list anyway.

Brazil is great as long as you don't go a couple of streets off the tourist areas!!

In fairness I guess that applies to a lot of places.....but thanks for the advice. I take it you have actually been to Rio ? I'll be coming to you for recommendations on places to stay, visit, dine etc

Just re-read my post and I think I kinda coma across negative about the Olympics - Nothing could be farther from the truth. We've literally had nothing else on the box since the opening ceremony.

I've found myself watching some real odd-ball sports, not really understanding them but enjoying them never the less.

Men's foil fencing - absolutely no idea what was going on but sat and watched an hour of it anyway.

Can reflect your position exactly. Bizarre isn't it ? Sports that I wouldn't normally give the time of day to are proving captivating (even the confusing sailing events).....the cycling is fast becoming my second fav sport to RL.

Just watched the women's 400 metres final

I have a new found enthusiasm for the women's beach volleyball and the women's heptathlon. Not sure why...

Bolt in 9.63 - wow

I've been enjoying the Handball. From the size and skills of them, looks like the men from Eastern Europe and Scandanavia who would in other circumstances play Rugby instead play handball. In contrast, the GB team are clearly those who can't play anything else, and are terrible.

Struck me that if we had a Handball team, given half-an-hour's coaching, of Hall, Tomkins, Watkins, Atkins, BJB, Lauititi (naturalized), Westwood (gk) then we'd have more of a chance.

Sort of. My cynicism about the rampant profiteering, corporate whoring and the attempts LOCOG have made to destroy the Olympic ideal remain intact.

However, luckily the athletes arrived after much waiting around. And they've been amazing. Not just the British ones. It turns out that when you get literally thousands of men and women turning up to pursue dreams of glory and sportsmanship in return for no money, not even the attempts to sell that spirit to McDonalds, Coca Cola, Samsung and Procter and Gamble can stop it being remarkable.

I would still prefer it if more than half of the 80000 who witnessed first hand those unbelievable events in the stadium on Saturday and Sunday had been members of the public who acquired those tickets by applying for them like everyone else.

The socio-economic debate will rage on. In sporting terms the Games have been sensational. May it continue.

The jury is still out for me.

Its not about the sport, the sport is superb and I am loving it, it was always about the cost and the tangible and the huge untangible legacies.

Of course I'm not naive enough to believe that sports funding in GB would ever have benefitted from a £10bn tidal wave of money, and I'm cynical enough to think that if Paris had won these Olympics then sports funding in GB would have continued to have been cut as I believe Seth has pointed out in the past so to suggest that his organisation would have been better served by just having the money instead of the Olympics is fanciful.

The real tangible benefit will come next year when (from memory) 1800 apartments get released to a housing association with an instruction to rent them out at "affordable rents" and the same number are released to the market to be sold at full valuation, the association are currently inviting applicants to apply for interviews with a view to start occupying in the summer of 2013 - whether the definition of "affordable rents" match the max capped housing benefits for London remains to be seen, if they don't then we know where the housing association are coming from.

From what I read of the scheme they have some quite radical ideas for what will basically become council house tower blocks (to put it crudely), with a resident caretakers living on site to handle day to day problems, if they can achieve a good balance of private/social housing and maintain the estate as it looks now then that will be a huge tangible benefit and a blueprint for every local authority to follow...

...and be incredibly ironic that the government in charge of re-introducing the concept of social housing was a Tory government.