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DOWNING COLLEGE ASSOCIATIONdifferent sports. It wasn’t like that, though. It was really different. The Olympicshave this absolutely unique buzz and the reason it’s so special is because it’ssomething you can’t put into words. The whole feeling of going to the Olympicsis really indescribable.The biggest difference this time around is that all my friends and family hadtickets to watch me in Beijing, whereas none of them managed to get tickets towatch me in London. At this stage four years ago, we were talking about thechallenges we would be facing in Beijing. Now we’re talking about the challengeswe’ll face in London. There’s challenge and opportunity in every scenario.”S IXTY YEARS AGOSwimmer Peter Head (1954) represented Great Britain in the 1952 HelsinkiOlympics. He describes a post-war world very different from today….The Finnish Games are sometimes referred to as the forgotten games. Rumourhas it that someone bought the film rights and did not use them much. Therewas no TV in Finland at the time and little in England. Radio communicationswere unreliable. Coverage was not available every minute of the day as the publicnow expect. There were no telephone facilities.Helsinki should have held the Olympics in 1940 but they were busy fightingoff the Germans and the Russians and World War Two occupied everyone else.1944 was equally out of the question.Surprisingly London had the makeshift facilities for a quick Games in 1948and it was not until 1952 that the Finns could provide the facilities requiredfor the first totally purpose-built Olympics.1952 was perhaps the first world Games, although China did not compete.Russia competed for the first time since 1912 but were housed in their ownbuilding surrounded by barbed wire! Other than when they were competingyou did not see them although I think they wanted to be friendly but were afraidto be unless they were handing out some of their magazines explaining howwonderful the USSR was and how decadent we were. West Germany and Japancompeted, having been disqualified from the 1948 Games for starting wars.The Games have grown not only because of an extra sport each timebut with more countries and competitors: 59 countries in 1948 and 69countries in 1952 (4879 athletes, but only 518 women, mostly swimmersI suspect). Compare this with the 2008 Games which hosted 204 nations and11,028 competitors.As to my own involvement, following the Olympic trials at Blackpool, I hadbeen selected to compete in the 400m freestyle and 4 x 200m team race. Myfirst international was for England against France at Brest in 1951. At 17 years42