ContinueSo I had better keep my trap shut when doubting Great Britain? How unpatriotic to have a moan and groan last week asking where our first gold medal was coming from?
Oh ye of little faith! The boys and girls have done well and the gold, silver and bronze trickle has become an avalanche which has culminated in a better golden medal haul than four years ago in Beijing - and that was reckoned to be unbelievable.
Oh yes, my lovely reader - how is Megan and the kids back in Ystradgynlais, Dai? - we are doing remarkably well.
And the frightening thing is that there are still days to go yet before the Closing Ceremony where Del Boy's Robin Reliant, so the papers in London say, is going to make an appearance.
That means more chances of the glittering stuff to come. Alistair Brownlee's victory in the men's Triathlon on Tuesday sent us over the total of golds from China in 2008, and, with more possible golds from the equestrian arena, boxing and hockey up for grabs, who knows where this run will end?
The Olympic Games have not only inspired British athletes to heights they could never have imagined possible before the start but has captured the imagination of a gripped public in the UK.
But one other group should be heartily congratualted at these Games. And those are the volunteers and officials who have made these the easiest of sporting events to cover from a journalistic point of view.
I am sure the public who have flocked to Olympic Park in their hundreds of thousands over the last week will whole-heartedly agree.
The volunteers in and out of the Park may have been instructed to put on smiles as broad as those from the synchronised swimmers in the Aquatic Centre but they could not be more helpful as they direct you to Stratford Station and wave 'goodnight' from high 'umpire's' chairs more akin to the leafy tennis courts of Wimbledon than East London.
I did feel sorry for one fella in the Veldrome's cafe earlier today. He was an official at the track cycling and was cornered by yours truly in ardent praise of the team of media officers in every sport here.
When I first came to the Games a week last Friday - what day is it today, reader? - that the 'norm' of top-grade football and rugby in the way of media relations would be in situ at the Olympics.
Those 'norms' often mean that press officers at certain clubs can be obstructive, unreliable, nosey (they ask 'which paper are you doing this for?' What business is it of yours, mate?) and with 'instructions' from their football or rugby club to keep a press conference or interview 'on line' with what they want to say and what they want you to report (not what you, the reader, want to know.
At Olympic Park, the media and PR operation has been like a breath of fresh air from the clinical, sanitised tripe we are forced to put up with in the usual jobs of covering big-time sport.
My concerns about those 'norms' melted away when panicking about missing a swimmer in a media Mixed Zone - where athletes mix with the media for post-event interviews. I asked 'Has (athlete) been through yet?' It is five minutes since her event'.
"No worries," came the accent of a young fella, one of four there ticking off the athletes as they passed by. "She is on her way. Where are you standing? There? I'll bring her over."
Minutes later, the athlete directed over, stood in front of a crowd of us and spoke. Two minutes later, it was job done. Happy days.
That is how a media operation of Olympic standard operates which benefits the athletes, the sports, the journalists but, most of all, you, the readers and viewers.
Premiership football and rugby would have learnt an awful lot about how to handle the media properly had they been at the Games to see this fantastic operation in full flow.
Follow the London Olympic Games with Gary's blogs here on Sportsvibe, at www.walesandwest.com and also on Facebook (Gary Baker) and Twitter @wwmedia
