“We are GREAT Britain”: British newspaper narratives during the London 2012 Olympic Games

Theme 1: “Welcome to these, our isles of wonder”

Since Britain’s “finest hour” ⁵ in the Second World War there has been a prevailing sense that Britain has been in decline (Porter, 2004). Indeed, British social anthropologist Kate Fox (2004) identified an underlying sense of national skepticism, pessimism, and anxiety that things will always go wrong and “to expect the worst.” Reflecting this, an editorial in The Daily Telegraph reminded its readers that the nation “… seemed unsure of its place in the world” and that many Brits thought that “…London 2012 would be a flop—that a dismal, second-class nation such as Britain could never raise its game to the required heights” (4 August 2012: 23). Paul Kelso, chief Olympic correspondent, recapped how Britain “…may have invented the Olympic sports,” but “…had long forgotten how to win them or build stadiums to play in” (The Daily Telegraph, 27 July 2012: S5). However, Olympic opening ceremonies usually furnish host nations with opportunities to positively showcase their history, national culture, and greatest achievements to a global audience and the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) spent an estimated £27m on the “Isles of Wonder” opening ceremony, a theme inspired by William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. Scripted by novelist Frank Cottrell Boyce, with costumes designed by Suttirat Larlarb, and directed by Danny Boyle, well-known for his direction of Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire, the ceremony choreographed famous scenes and achievements from Britain’s past. The opening ceremony showcased Britain’s eccentric sense of humor in a pre-filmed spoof sequence featuring the British actor Daniel Craig, in his role as fictional spy James Bond, and the Queen, a symbol of reserved British tradition, cast in a new humorous light, appearing to enter the Olympic stadium using a parachute. In contrast to showcasing Britain’s imperial history and military victories, the story the nation chose to tell itself and a global audience contained four main acts, which featured the English/British countryside, the industrial revolution, the National Health Service (NHS), and children’s literature all fused within a backdrop of British music.

Many British press reviews showered Boyle’s opening ceremony with praise. A Daily Telegraph alliterative headline described it as “BRILLIANT, breathtaking, bonkers and utterly British” (28 July 2012: 4). Several editorials suggested Boyle receive formal recognition for his services in the form of a knighthood for distilling “… the best of British culture into an amazing show” (The Sun, 28 July 2012: 10). Many narratives reflected how “… the many layers of our national identity was perfectly reflected by the … ceremony’s blend of whimsy and spectacle” (The Daily Telegraph, 4 August 2012: 23). No congratulatory adjective was left unwritten, including: open, liberal, tolerant, inclusive, cosmopolitan, multicultural, ironic, quirky, humorous, self-deprecating, understated, and creative. All praised Boyle’s selective cornucopia of Britain’s past, present, and future underpinned in a benign version of Britishness. Boyles “Isles of Wonder” largely glossed over any injustices, misdeeds, crimes, or atrocities perpetrated in the name of the British Empire or in military exploits and focused instead on British liberal democratic values, inventive creativity, and global contributions. Echoing the consensus of British press opinion about the benign opening ceremony, The Sun’s guest columnist, Richard Bacon, an English television and radio presenter, quoted a tweet from Ian Watson describing the opening ceremony thus, “It was brilliant because it reclaimed patriotism from swivel-eyed loons and recast it as love of pride in your fellow people” (2 August 2012: 15).

Given the contested nature of what modern Britain represented and the combative nature of the British press, as expected, there were counter narratives. Several journalists criticized the celebration of British humor, self-mocking irony, self-effacement, and eccentricity, suggesting it may have been too esoteric for a global media audience. Several conservative editors, journalists, and politicians criticized its bowdlerized “…nostalgia of the NHS” (Daily Mail Comment, 4 August 2012: 16) and “… re-fashioning of history,” which minimized several “…traditional symbols of patriotism” (Daily Mail, 2 August 2012: 19) and subverted “… the inflated, martial spectacles that custom usually demands” (The Daily Telegraph, 4 August 2012: 21). Most newspapers reported how Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, had expressed disquiet about the absence of British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, a strong advocate of the Empire and defender of Anglo-Saxon values, after viewing a rehearsal. Some journalists critiqued that the benign opening ceremony was underpinned by the civic values and consciousness, including the constitutional democratic principles that protect citizens’ rights and freedoms and underwrite social cooperation, which could apply to almost any Western European national identity. They similarly condemned aspects of the ceremony deemed tainted by Boyle’s left-wing political ideologies. They objected to the focus on 1948 as the pivotal year in modern British history, when Attlee’s Labour Government created the NHS and the first wave of Caribbean immigrants came to Britain. In British conservative national identity politics, multiculturalism is often perceived to be a euphemism for the dilution of traditional Englishness (see Burdsey, 2016), and reflecting this all the sampled newspapers reported how Aidan Burley, a British Member of Parliament tweeted, “The most leftie opening ceremony I have ever seen—more than Beijing, the capital of a communist state! Welfare tribute next?” Burley then added a second tweet: “Thank God the athletes have arrived! Now we can move on from leftie multi-cultural crap. Bring back the red arrows, Shakespeare and the Stones!” (Daily Mail, 30 July 2012: 10). However, Burley’s tweets were roundly criticized by leading Conservative politicians including David Cameron, the Prime Minister, and Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, and in an interview with his biographer Amy Raphael (2013: 411–412), Boyle responded, “The values espoused by the opening ceremony are not left-wing values. They’re more to do with that fact that we can be a modern, progressive country, and as such we can be an inspiring beacon for people everywhere.”

Theme 2: A benign Britain looking for a Great Briton

Buoyed by Boyle’s widely acclaimed, progressive, uplifting opening ceremony, the narratives mainly projected a benign Britishness. Reflecting this, David Hannan, Conservative Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England, noted the benign outpouring and expressions of patriotism the home Olympics generated. He recalled how, before the first event, the men’s road race through the leafy suburbs of Surrey, every house lining the route had a Union flag. He observed how spectators shared “…drinks and sandwiches with strangers” and noted how, even when foreign cyclists “flashed past,” it “… made little difference to the mood. People had been celebrating their common identity with one another, not just Britain’s sportsmen.” He concluded, “The Olympic Games have brought British patriotism back into fashion: British patriotism in its broadest, most benevolent, most generous form” (Daily Mail, 7 August 2012: 14). Paradoxically, the narratives also reflected an expectant home nation “looking for a British hero” (The Sunday Times, 29 July 2012: front page). In contrast to French aristocrat Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s original Olympic egalitarian ethos, that what was important was not winning but taking part (see Jenkins, 2005: 142), the elitism of Olympic competition came to the fore in partisan newspaper narratives as the LOG provided a perfect platform for demonstrating national sporting prowess and for fostering national sentiment in an “us versus them” binary narrative. Further, as Andrews and Rick (2014: 196) noted, “… the Olympic Games provides a seductive and effective platform for the production and dissemination of celebrated persona.” Accordingly, British journalists, charged with the important role of creating national sports heroes for the “imagined community,” were steadfastly focused on the relatively few out of the British contingent of 542 Team GB athletes that were in contention for medals. Reflecting this, The Daily Telegraph columnist, Mathew Norman, remarked that:

…any eruption of national pride will be reserved for the first time one of our athletes stands on the top shelf of the podium blinking back the tears as the Union Jack climbs the flagpole.…It is impossible not to love a compatriot with a gold medal around their neck. (28 July 2012: 21)

Demonstrating the benign, deprecating, ironic, quirky British humor celebrated in the opening ceremony, at the outset of the Games, Boris Johnson, the then Mayor of London, issued a tongue-in-cheek prediction that Britain would do well in the sitting down sports it had targeted to medal in “…cycling, rowing, sailing and riding” (The Daily Telegraph, 30 July 2012: 16). But the old British pessimism persisted. Reflecting on Britain’s lack of early success, Derek McGovern, the Daily Mirror’s sport betting tipster claimed, only half-jokingly, that Team GB stood for “Getting Beaten” (1 August 2012: 60), while The Sun’s Ryan Sabey suggested that the “[imagined communities] nerves can’t stand much more” and colloquially urged Team GB to “GISSA gold” (31 July 2012: front page).

On day six the tide changed and The Daily Telegraph’s chief sports writer Paul Hayward noted the cathartic moment when community “despair” veered to “euphoria” with the first British gold medal. Predictably, the “seminal moment for these Games” came in a “sitting down sport” (2 August 2012: 2) when Helen Glover and Heather Stanning won the women’s rowing pairs. A jubilant 26,000 spectators, including Prince William and Prince Harry, witnessed the event. Hayward exuberantly declared, “This was for the whole team and the whole country,” which sparked delirious scenes of “mass elation” and “… rejoicing at the Eton Dorney rowing lake” ⁶ (2 August 2012: 2). The Times’s Matt Dickson described the scene by the rowing lake as “thoroughly British” as “pent-up anxieties were unleashed in a great rush of relief, joy and national pride” as “…two smashing women won the first British gold” (2 August 2012: 8). Commentating on their victory, and illustrating the ingrained connection public schools, sport, and national self-assertion and prestige hold in the British imagination, the Daily Mirror’s Oliver Holt could not resist evoking the “invented tradition” of the Duke of Wellington’s oft-quoted, elitist claim that the Battle of Waterloo was “…won on the playing fields of Eton and now the London Olympics have been rescued on its rowing lake” (4 August 2012: 10). These celebratory, comforting, and inclusive narratives largely ignored that the scenes at Eton Dorney were more representative of the exclusive, predominantly White and prosperous upper-middle-class socio-economic demographics of the English Home Counties ⁷ that surround London, and that like many of the 542 athletes representing Team GB, Helen Glover and Heather Stanning had been privately educated at prestigious, highbrow public schools, Millfield and Gordonstoun, ⁸ respectively.

In the aftermath of Glover and Stanning’s victory most newspapers reported how Lord Moynihan, the Chairman of the BOA, was critical of how more than half of Britain’s gold medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics had been won by athletes who were products of costly private schools, often in sports that required considerable financial resources. Given that only 7% of British students attended private schools, Moynihan called for an overhaul of public school sport policy. Claiming he personally benefited from competitive school sports each day, Boris Johnson, the London Mayor and the product of a privileged Eton upbringing, was also widely quoted advocating the populist position of the re-imposition of the two-hours of school sports each day. Finding humor in this social issue, under the headline, “Does everyone in England go to school at Eton?” Daily Mail columnist and satirist Richard Littlejohn parodied a fictional American journalist who wondered how in a celebration of British diversity, it seemed like half the British athletes went to Eton (10 August 2012: 17).

In cycling, Paul Kelso, sports reporter for the Daily Telegraph, noted how “anxiety about Bradley Wiggins’ prospects in the time trial had increased with every day that passed without a British Gold” (2 August 2012: S5). On the same day, Paul Hayward chronicled how Wiggins, who had won the grueling Tour de France 10 days earlier, was spurred on by very loud British spectators sporting fake Wiggins sideburns while waving Union flags, to win the men’s individual cycling time trial (2 August 2012: 2). Rojek (2001: 52) noted how in the cultural politics of sporting celebrity and national identity, sport stars offer “powerful affirmations of belonging, recognition and meaning.” Reflecting this, the front page of The Sun on the 2 August 2012 edition had a photograph of Bradley Wiggins sitting on a throne at Hampton Court Palace, saluting the crowd and photographers with iconic Churchillian victory salutes ⁹ under the headline “GOOOOOOOOOOOLD!” In the same edition, The Sun’s chief sports reporter Steven Howard saluted Wiggins’ achievement as the first cyclist ever to win the Tour de France and an Olympic gold in the same year. Howard, a journalist for over 30 years, concluded, “As the country in general, and the roads round Henry VIII’s old palace at Hampton Court in particular, were bought to a halt, you searched in vain for a more glorious moment than this for any individual sportsman” (2 August 2012: 63). The Daily Telegraph’s chief sports writer, Paul Hayward, embraced Wiggins’ working class credentials and humility, and enthused about how after his gold medal win at the Hampton Court Palace cycling venue he was “…embraced as alternative sporting royalty.” He described Wiggins as “funny” and “irreverent” and how he “…appeals instantly to British sports fans, who tend to warm to people they could imagine having a pint with” (2 August 2012: 2).

In those early days of London 2012, Glover, Stanning, and Wiggins, though products of different backgrounds, became exemplars of British sporting exceptionalism as the nation basked in their reflected glory. Their gritty performances and down to earth, unassuming behavior, chronicled in the newspaper narratives, made them easy to identify with. Their gold medal performances would be celebrated nationally through the “invented tradition” of a special set of Royal Mail stamps. Haywards concluded how “… on this special day, the whole country won” (2 August 2012: 2).

The success of the first gold medal performances by Glover, Stanning, and Wiggins marked a pivotal turning point with an increasing number of enthusiastic self-congratulatory narratives that romanticized successful Team GB athletes, who were extolled as exemplars of British values that captured the imagination of the British public, and inspired a mood of celebratory patriotism. Uplifting feel-good stories were fed to the “imagined community” about the inspirational, dedicated, self-effacing British athletes from all the home nations. How they radiated human warmth whilst living up to the Olympic ideals of sacrifice and determination, dedicating their lives to rigorous training regimes often without major financial rewards, was contrasted favorably to the behavior and lavish lifestyles enjoyed by highly paid professional footballers. Superlatives abounded about their “sheer decency,” “their modesty in victory,” and “…unself-pitying in disappointment” (Daily Mail, 4 August 2012: 16). They epitomized the best of traditional British public school values in both victory and defeat, and a sense “…that there’s still a Britain in which we can all take pride” (Daily Mail Comment, 4 August 2012: 16). Such commentaries were in stark contrast to the corrosive tribal expressions of popular English national identity associated with the English national soccer team and their fans during unsuccessful World Cup and EURO tournaments (see Maguire and Poulton, 1999; Vincent et al., 2010; Vincent and Harris, 2014).

Theme 3: “Us versus them”—We can do malign Britishness rather well, too

Although many of the themes found in the narratives accentuated benign versions of Britishness, the complex, defensive, and divisive nature of British identity politics was also revealed, highlighting both internal and external divisions.

For the first time since 1960, a Great Britain football team competed in the Olympics, with teams in both the men’s and women’s competitions. However, the development of the teams was not universally accepted because in other international football tournaments, the home nations of the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) were represented by their own national teams. ¹⁰ The difficulty encountered in selecting Northern Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and English players for a combined Team GB, dominated by English players, illustrated the complexity and contested nature of British identity politics, in which “people define themselves in opposition to other nationalities in the UK” and “… claims for sameness and differences are … made” (Malcolm, 2009: 615). The difficulty in fostering an overarching, shared British identity in this context was illustrated in the Olympic football matches during the pre-game ritual of playing each team’s national anthem, which can publicly emphasize either unity or dissent as football players’ deportment and behavior as “patriots at play” becomes the subject of intense media scrutiny.

In the build up to the LOG Daily Mail sports columnist Des Kelly displayed an insular, malign Britishness when he questioned the authenticity of the so-called “plastic Brits,” suggesting they were not really “one of us.” In a similar vein, during the LOG, under a headline “Let’s hear it if you’re British” Kelly displayed an Anglocentric version of Britishness when he criticized the male Welsh football (soccer) players Ryan Giggs, Craig Bellamy, Joe Allen, and Neil Taylor, and female Scottish players Kim Little and Ifeoma Dieke for not publicly demonstrating their patriotism by singing the British and English national anthem God Save the Queen before their respective Team GB matches (28 July 2012: 99). Kelly clearly expected the Welsh and Scottish players to subsume their Celtic home nation identity in favor of an overarching British identity for the pre-game ritual. The Daily Mail described how Ifeoma Dieke was born in Massachusetts to Nigerian parents and elected to play for Scotland, where she had lived since she was a small child, rather than the United States. The same article reported how Kim Little’s family claimed that, as a Scot, she objected to the alternate and seldom sung fifth verse ¹¹ of the anthem, penned in 1745, which expressed anti-Jacobite sentiment and the words “Rebellious Scots to crush” (27 July 2012: 4). Welsh players Giggs, Taylor, and Bellamy, who all played for English clubs, responded that singing the British and English national anthem instead of the Welsh national anthem, Land of my Fathers, was difficult and not something they felt they could join in with their English teammates. The complexity of integrating Welsh and Scottish players into Team GB was a challenge because for many Welsh and Scottish players and fans alike, their sense of Britishness was less meaningful than their Welsh or Scottish identity. Illustrating this, ahead of Team GB men’s third match, played at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, several newspapers reported how Ryan Giggs felt compelled to urge Welsh fans not to boo the performance of the British and English national anthem.

Several vitriolic adversarial “us versus them” exchanges were reported between British politicians and their counterparts in the United States and France. Every newspaper examined reported the Republican US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s “clumsy diplomatic touch.” Visiting London on the eve of the Olympiad, Romney disparagingly opined that preparations for the LOG were “disconcerting” and he didn’t know “…how well the Games would turn out” (The Times, 27 July 2012: 12). His comments hit a collective British nerve. Jon Swaine, The Daily Telegraph’s New York correspondent, noted how this brought a defensive, terse retort from the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, who was quoted as responding, “We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world. Of course it’s easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere” (27 July 2012: 4). This was a reference to the sparsely populated state of Utah, which hosted the 2002 Winter Olympic Games under Romney’s direction. Sunday Mirror journalist Mark Austin similarly criticized the organization of the 1996 Centennial Atlanta Olympic Games, and concluded “we don’t need an American to come over here to tell us that we are not ready for the Games” (29 July 2012: 14). Under the headline “Mitt the Twit” Graeme Wilson, The Sun’s deputy political editor, described how Romney “… also questioned” whether the British people will “come together and celebrate.” He further noted how Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London “…publicly ridiculed” Romney to popular acclaim to a crowd at a concert in London’s Hyde Park (27 July 2012: 6). Jeremy Clarkson, the host of Top Gear, the iconic British television show about cars, was reported to have caustically tweeted, “My ideas for the opening ceremony were rejected. I suggested we should crash a burning Jag into Mitt Romney” (The Times, 29 July 2012: 8). Lucy Bannerman, home news reporter for The Times, described how a British couple interviewed in the Olympic Park expressed optimism and pride noting that “regardless of what Mitt Romney might think, the British can do these things well” (28 July 2012: 10).

A recurrent tension found in the newspaper narratives was the contradiction between the Olympic charter ideals influenced by the British sense of fair play and being a good sport, which originated on the playing fields of Eton and Harrow in the late 19th century, and the intense competitive desire to gain every advantage to win and facilitate a national feel-good factor (Tomlinson, 2014). The BOA bid was won against fierce competition, beating its closest rival, Paris, by four votes and Daily Mail columnist Robert Hardman detected some “sour-grapes” in several French responses (9 August 2012: 15). Before the LOG, David Cameron, the Conservative British Prime Minister, aggravated newly-elected socialist French President Francois Hollande when he offered to roll out the red carpet to disaffected French entrepreneurs and firms upset at Hollande’s newly imposed top rate of tax. Hollande responded when on the fifth day of the Olympics the French President “…jokily thanked Britain for ‘rolling out the red carpet’ for French athletes” to win a number of medals. At the time this placed France third in the medal table while Britain languished in 21st position (Daily Mail, 1 August 2012: 10). Hollande further provoked British conservative Euro-sceptics when he said: “We will put the French medals into the European pot so that the British will be happy to be European” (Daily Mirror, 1 August 2012: 6).

Nationalistic tempers became further frayed between the French and British sporting contingents after cyclist Chris Hoy won the sixth gold medal of his illustrious Olympic career in the men’s keirin. This underpinned British dominance in a sport long considered a French specialty as Team GB won seven of the 10 gold medals contested at that point. Under the headline “I hate French whine” Mark Irwin, The Sun’s football correspondent, described how L’Équipe, the French sports newspaper, mischievously questioned, “Are the British cycling performances stained by cheating?” (9 August 2012: 6–7). Invoking the epithet, “Perfidious Albion,” which originated from French and Spanish perceptions of British duplicity during the Napoleonic Wars (see Rojek, 2007: 112), Isabelle Gautheron, the French cycling team director, was quoted complaining that British cycling dominance may have been “…. down to illegal technology” because “the British hide their wheels a lot. The ones they use for the bikes they race they put in the covers at the finish” (9 August 2012: 6). Dave Brailsford, the Team GB cycling performance director, was humorously reported to “… have wound up a gullible French interviewer by joking that … specially round wheels were the key to Britain’s gold rush” (The Sun, 9 August 2012: 6). Buoyed by stellar medal winning Team GB performances David Hannan, the Conservative MEP for South East England, reflected a sense of schadenfreude when he opined:

…while it would be un-British to gloat, I think we can be forgiven a certain inner satisfaction, after French President Francois Hollande’s boast about rolling out the red carpet for his own country’s victorious athletes, at the way we are thrashing the French. (Daily Mail, 7 August 2012: 14)

Journalistic accusations and ripostes were exchanged again when the British cycling team known for its high “… standards in professionalism and attention to detail” “…exploited a loophole” when so-called “plastic Brit,” Philip Hindes, a member of the British men’s cycling sprint team, admitted in front of a television camera that he deliberately crashed after a poor start to get a restart in a heat. Hindes, a dual national, was born in Germany to a German mother and RAF airman, and competed for Germany until 2010, when he joined British Cycling’s academy program, and challenged traditional understandings of British sporting heroism narrative formations. Under a headline “Cheating? It’s all foreign to us,” Des Kelly, a Daily Mail sports columnist, noted how a British cycling spokesman quickly went into public relations damage control when he “…retreated behind a cover story that Hindes was a bit too foreign to understand or explain himself.” For the entertainment of his readers, Kelly sarcastically compared this to an episode of the iconic British popular television show from the 1970s, Fawlty Towers: ‘Lost in translation?’ “Not since Basil Fawlty hit Manuel on the head with a spoon and explained ‘Don’t worry, he’s from Barcelona’ had there been a more comical excuse” (4 August 2012: 101). Kelly, who in the buildup to the Games had been one of the journalists critical of “plastic Brits” that he claimed are not really “one of us,” noted how Hindes almost cost the Scottish and British national treasure Chris Hoy a historic victory. He likened Hindes’ deliberate crash to the poor sportsmanship of a professional football (soccer) player taking a dive. Hoy, Hindes, and Kenny went on to win the team sprint final against, of all nations, France, and Kelly noted how if the French had “pulled this trick’” Team GB would have vehemently complained until the next Olympics. Kelly’s damning indictment highlighted the hypocrisy of the malign “us versus them” national identity politics, noting that: “when Hindes was winning gold he was British. When he took a dive he was German” (Daily Mail, 4 August 2012: 101).

Theme 4: Super Saturday—A symbol of a progressive, hybrid Britain

In what became known as “Super Saturday,” the narratives about the gold medal winning performances brought “old” and “new” versions of Britishness together. It featured an indigenous, White Briton, Greg Rutherford, and two hybrid Brits, Mo Farah, a transplanted Somalian Muslim, and Jessica Ennis, of mixed-race, working class descent, and framed them as symbols of modern Britain. It also illustrated how “…sport can bring unscripted drama of the most compelling kind” (Simon Barnes, The Times, 27 July 2012: 29). Team GB’s six gold medals in one day made “Super Saturday” Britain’s most successful day at an Olympics since 1908.

“Super Saturday,” the middle Saturday of Olympic competition, was so-named because it was the day when the greatest number of medals were to be won. It also featured a number of Britain’s best medal prospects competing during television primetime. Not surprisingly, “Super Saturday” was billed as a defining day for the host nation. It began well. In the morning on the river at Eton Dorney, British oarsmen Alex Gregory, Tom James, Pete Reed, and Andrew Triggs-Hodge won the men’s coxless fours rowing. Shortly after, Katherine Copeland and Sophie Hosking won the women’s lightweight double sculls. However, there were also disappointments. As sports columnist Andy Dunn noted, there were not “… just tears of joy” (Daily Mirror, 6 August 2012: 71). Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter were favorites in the men’s lightweight double sculls, but despite leading for most of the race they were overhauled in the final meters to finish second. Journalist Malcolm Folley reported on how Purchase and Hunter’s nobility in defeat touched the British nation. Barely able to stand, distress written all over their faces, they apologized in the post-event TV interview for letting the nation down (The Mail on Sunday, 5 August 2012: 7). The raw emotion of the moment was captured as the experienced sport journalist John Inverdale could not conceal his own feelings and was widely reported as muttering “Emotions, goodness me … It’s quite hard being here as well” as he too broke down in tears (Daily Mirror, 13 August 2012: 5).

Further British success followed the emotional scenes at Eton Dorney in the afternoon with a dominant performance at the velodrome as Dani King, Laura Trott, and Joanna Rowsell won the women’s team pursuit cycling, breaking the world record twice in a two-hour period before a “deafening crescendo” of support. The newspapers reported how Britain’s triumphs at Eton Dorney and the velodrome filtered through to thousands of eager spectators making their way to the Olympic stadium, there to see British hopeful Jessica Ennis run the 800 m, the final event of the heptathlon, and Mo Farah run in the 10,000 m in the evening. UK athletics performance director Charles Van Commenee recalled that there “… was the sensation that a whole nation was living the moment, both inside and outside the stadium, and it felt incredibly emotional” (Chadband, 2012).

“Our Jess.” In the buildup to the LOG, Jessica Ennis, the daughter of a Jamaican-born painter–decorator and an English social worker, was billed as the “…Sheffield ¹² girl next door” who became the “Face of the Games” (Daily Mail, 4 August 2012: 106). Reflecting her status, there was a large image of her painted by British Airways on a field in Hounslow below the flight approach to London’s Heathrow airport, with the caption “welcome to our turf” (The Daily Telegraph, 5 August 2012: 2). As Ennis did not compete in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games after injuring her ankle, this would be her first and possibly career-defining Olympics. Despite being one of the world’s finest female athletes, victory was “…far from a foregone conclusion” (Daily Mail, 3 August 2012: 13). For two days, though, she would shoulder the burden of a nation’s hopes over the seven grueling events that comprise the heptathlon. On the eve of “Super Saturday” chief sports writer Simon Barnes explored the notion of Ennis as an exemplar of modern Britishness:

We love Jess because Jess is Jerusalem ¹³ : beautiful, talented, vulnerable, a perfect emblem of the green and pleasant land we long to live in. She is us. She is the people we would like to be, the place we would like to live in. (The Times, 3 August 2012: 3)

Barnes noted that she had been beaten at both the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul, Turkey in March 2012, and how “…her petite five foot, five inch frame” made her “… look like an underdog” against taller, “Amazonian” opponents. He noted how her multiracial background made her the perfect symbol for contemporary Britain “… and its mongrel relish for a fight,” which would make a victory “… something to treasure” (The Times, 3 August 2012: 3).

In the evening, Ennis, “… famed for her washboard stomach,” duly won the heptathlon. She did it in style, sealing her gold medal in front of “an electrified” 80,000 fans in the Olympic stadium with an impressive win in the final event, the 800 m. As she crossed the finish line at 9:02 p.m., she “captured the country’s heart” (Daily Mirror, 5 August 2012: 71). The Daily Mirror’s chief sports writer, Oliver Holt, noted how Ennis did not need first place in the 800 m to win the gold, but described how after being overtaken with 300 m to go, Ennis “looked majestic” as she passed the leaders in the home straight looking “… small and slight beside the giants who were her rivals, but utterly indomitable” (6 August 2012: 60). Athletics correspondent Simon Hart applauded “… a virtuoso performance that confirmed her as the greatest all-round female athlete Britain has produced” (The Sunday Telegraph, 5 August 2012: S2). UK athletics performance director Van Commenee concurred and declared:

What made her performance extra special for me was that, more than anybody else, people expected her to win, she was the face of the Games and, effectively, she could only lose.… She was in an event where you have the chance to mess up seven times and yet still she never faltered. Amazing grace under pressure. Absolutely immense. (Chadband, 2012)

Under the headline “She’s Jess Perfect” sports columnist Andy Dunn enthused about Ennis’s “performance of a lifetime” and noted how her “…tears of unconfined joy” were mirrored “… in the stands” where “… people wept with her” as a tangible sporting representation of a modern, progressive Britain (Sunday Mirror, 5 August 2012: 5).

Rutherford—“The Ginger Wizard.” Sandwiched between Ennis’s heptathlon gold and Farah’s 10,000 m race, Greg Rutherford, a redheaded British long jumper from Milton Keynes, ¹⁴ won the second British track gold medal in an hour at 9:24 p.m. Nicknamed the “Ginger Wizard,” journalist Ralph Ellis described how, with most of the nation’s attention focused on Ennis in the heptathlon and Mo Farah in the upcoming 10,000 m, “Rutherford had come into the stadium under the radar” (Sunday Mirror, 5 August 2012: 4). With the crowd still buzzing from Ennis’s victory, Rutherford put in a jump of 8.31 m. As the 10,000 m runners warmed up, Rutherford then had to stand by and watch as each of his rivals failed to better his jump. As the tension built, Sebastian Coe, chairman of LOCOG, was later quoted acknowledging the supportive, fair-minded nature of the quintessentially British crowd, who although “…partisan … cheered every jumper as they went down the runway, which reinforced the notion that… the best of British did not need to only hail the best of British” (Chadband, 2012). Thus, Rutherford became Britain’s first long-jump Olympic champion since Lynn “the Leap” Davies at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. After the disappointment of a pulled hamstring before the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, the narratives enthused about his dedication and perseverance in re-jigging his take-off technique under the tutelage of his American coach Dan Plaff.

Mohamed Muktar Jama Farah aka “Magic Mo”—“He’s ours, ours, ours.” Crowning “…the most extraordinary 45 minutes British athletics will surely ever witness” Mo Farah became the first Briton to win the Olympic 10,000 m at 9:47 p.m. (Daily Mail, 5 August 2012: 4), and in doing so “…he seemed the embodiment of the core pledge … – that London 2012 would inspire a generation” (Daily Mail, 6 August 2012: 10). Many newspapers recounted how Farah, born in war-torn Mogadishu, Somalia, moved to Britain to join his father, a British citizen, when he was eight. He grew up in Hounslow, west London, where his athletic potential was identified, nurtured, and developed. However, in 2011 Farah moved to Portland, Oregon, in the United States, to train under legendary Cuban-born coach Alberto Salazar to prepare for the London Olympics. This caused Daily Mail Olympics correspondent Jonathan McEvoy to bring to mind the pre-Games discourse of “plastic Brits” and acknowledge Farah’s potential outsider status, which was “London-raised” but “shaped for greatness across the Pond” (13 August 2012: 60). However, in contrast to the “plastic Brit” jibes directed at Farah before the home Games questioning Farah’s Britishness, during the Games the newspaper narratives chose to celebrate his British cosmopolitan, hybridity.

The Daily Mail’s chief sports writer, Patrick Collins, viewed Farah’s historic win in the 10,000 m as “… a tactical master class.” He described how Farah skillfully “… covered the breaks, adjusted the pace” and “… tailored the race to his demands” (5 August 2012: 3). The Daily Mail editorial evoked the classic Shakespearean vernacular from Henry V, Act III, Scene 1, when Henry famously inspired his troops before battle at the siege of Harfleur, in describing how Farah “…strained every sinew to win Britain’s sixth gold medal on ‘Super Saturday,’” (11 August 2012: 16). In one of the defining images of the London Olympiad, Farah demonstrated his pride in his British nationality as he metaphorically and literally wrapped himself in the Union flag after his success. For this he was widely praised in newspaper narratives as evoking the kind of diversity celebrated in the opening ceremony. The Sun’s Chief feature writer, Oliver Harvey, claiming him as “one of ours” noted how after winning the 10,000 m Farah’s “… reaction was to fall to his knees and kiss the ground. To embrace the land that gave him succour when he needed help as a little boy” (6 August 2012: 6–7). However, as if wrapping himself up in the Union flag in post-race celebrations was not a sufficient display of his Britishness, every newspaper reported how at the post-race press conference a journalist evoked the “plastic Brit” epithet, and questioned Farah’s British credentials, asking Farah if he would have preferred to run for Somalia. Farah responded indignantly, “Look mate, this is my country. When I put on my Great Britain vest I feel proud—very proud” (Daily Mail, 7 August 2012: 14). Reflecting on Farah’s pledge of allegiance and loyalty as a proud, assimilated British Muslim who had passed a modern version of the Tebbit test, ¹⁵ Daily Mail sports journalist Laura Williamson enthusiastically proclaimed Farah an insider and reflected that Farah’s success was “…. something inspirational and uplifting that tells us about the power of sport and the make-up of the nation we live in today. Farah is a success story made in Britain: a Londoner who won gold…He’s ours, ours, ours” (9 August 2012: 2).

At the beginning of the New Millennium, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (2001), an eminent British journalist, academic, and authority on British immigration, diversity, and multiculturalism, had noted the dawn of what she sensed was a new inclusive modern Britain. This perspective underpinned the dominant narratives found in the newspaper coverage of “Super Saturday.” Sports journalist Jim White argued that the success of the three British winners in the Olympic stadium on “Super Saturday,” “… demonstrated that anyone from any minority can succeed in a country as tolerant as this: Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah, and Greg Rutherford, the mixed race woman, the refugee, and the ginger kid.” He reminded his Daily Telegraph readers how former Prime Minister John Major had sought a multicultural “nation at ease with itself” and reporting on the events of “Super Saturday,” declared “here it is” (6 August 2012: 2–3). Trevor Kavanagh, The Sun’s political editor, enthused about what he perceived to be, at least temporarily, a synergized plural British identity, symbolized by a communal celebration of the success of multinational, multiethnic, and multiracial athletes. Kavanagh thought Twitter captured the enthusiastic, celebratory embrace of British diversity during “Super Saturday” brilliantly: “A Somalian, a mixed race woman and a ginger man walked into a bar. Everyone bought them a drink” (The Sun, 6 August 2012: 10). The Sunday Mail’s editorial enthused how “Super Saturday,” “…transformed the spirits of the nation” and emphasized how winning medals may have influenced the narratives when it described how “the bedraggled ugly duckling is now a beautiful swan bedecked with a dazzling array of golden medallions” (5 August 2012: 29). Dominic Sandbrook writing in the Saturday essay section under the headline “Rebirth of Britishness” asked, “What better symbol could there be of a united inclusive country in the post-imperial age? What better advert for British identity; confident and colour blind?” (Daily Mail, 11 August 2012). Michael Deacon, The Daily Telegraph’s television critic, concluded:

Mo Farah is an immigrant. Jessica Ennis is mixed race. Most of our gold-winning rowers are women. Clare Balding, the BBC’s best and most popular Olympics presenter, is gay. In other words: these Games are a triumph not only for Britain; they’re a triumph for modern Britain.

It’s a privilege to watch them. (6 August 2012: 2)

Brian Reade, a Daily Mirror sports columnist, summarized, “…these Games have made us feel more at ease with who we are. A modern, creative, generous, tolerant nation that can still win” (13 August 2012: 3).

Undoubtedly Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis’s performances on “Super Saturday” showcased Britain’s new multicultural identity and the theme of inclusivity resonated in the newspaper narratives because the LOG was the first time that every country sent female athletes, especially those from Islamic nations who broke with age-old traditions to compete. All newspapers reported Lord Coe’s ringing endorsement of the gold medal successes of the British women, such as Nicola Adams, a woman of color, who, in women’s boxing’s Olympic debut, won the gold medal in the women’s flyweight division. Coe also noted how the concept of sportsmanship and fair play was invoked by British fans, who supportively acknowledged the barriers women from several Muslim countries broke through just to compete. However, as Burdsey (2016) noted, the progressive, inclusive narratives, embracing proud, successful multiethnic, hybrid British athletes during the LOG, stand in stark contrast with the lived realities of many in a multicultural Britain that has increasingly been marked by segregation, social exclusion, and economic deprivation. As Rojek (2007) commented, many British Muslims feel a sense of estrangement from British culture, which was compounded by the British government’s foreign policy support of the United States invasion of predominantly Muslim Iraq and Afghanistan, which fueled Islamic fundamentalist extremism and the homegrown Muslim terrorists responsible for the 7/7 terrorist bombings on the London transport system, the day after London won the bid to host the Olympics.