The UK is arguably the epicentre of sport spectatorship, but this weekend it took a giant leap towards being true. The men's final of Wimbledon, the Formula 1 Grand Prix at Silverstone and that annual anabolic carousel, the Tour de France, all took place in the country over the same weekend. An estimated four million people lined the streets of London and Kent as the cyclists flashed through at lightning speed, past the street parties, garden tea gatherings, village fêtes and town centre carnivals. Once they had all gone through (don't blink, or you'll miss it), people went back to their celebrations thinking "what was that all about?" But still, the longest annual sporting event had passed through their place. It was the best attended and most enthusiastically greeted "Grand Départ" ever according to the world press. Ken Livingstone said it would definitely come back to the UK within the next few years, and as it went so well he didn't think they'd have to lobby very hard. Imagine, even the race organiser was lost for words. It took a lot of courage for him to declare London the start of the 2007 race so soon after Paris lost the 2012 Olympic bid, and my hat goes off to him for doing it.
Up at Silverstone, the deafening noise of the cars was drowned out by the earth-shattering sounds of spectators' horns greeting the Finnish Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen. Another quarter-million people in and around the place going mad over yet another podium finish for Lewis Hamilton, F1's brightest young star.
Deep in London's leafy suburb of Wimbledon, the usually tepid crowd is whooping like Texans at a barbecue because a Brit, Jamie Murray, has won the mixed doubles with his Slavic partner Jelena Jankovic. It is the last game to be played there this year in the weird-looking roofless Centre Court.
That was just this weekend. But all through the summer Brits take to the stands at cricket matches, golf tournaments, rowing regattas, athletics meetings, even darts competitions. It seems that the British number one hobby is spectating at sports events. And who can blame them? They organise them so well. Take the London Marathon. Not only is it the most watched city marathon of the year, it is also the most oversubscribed. For the simple reason that Brits have a penchant for being a little mad. You see, they don't only take part in it to say they've run 26 miles or indeed because they want to keep fit. The British love to raise money for good causes. They dress up in Roman soldier outfits or as a camel with two people in the same suit, or they play a musical instrument as they run round London collecting sponsorship money for all types of charities, from leukaemia to a damaged church roof. And the locals come out to cheer these eccentric runners on. Marvellous.
In Belgium there is something called the "Dodentocht", or "March of the Dead" which takes place every year from Bornem. The aim is to go 100 kilometres around Flanders in 24 hours. Nice idea, except that many just do it for the hell of it. If it was in the UK, they would feel ashamed if they didn't do it for charity.
In the Summer Olympic Games over the last decade and a half, the highest amount of non-local spectators was British. This was one of the deciding factors in awarding the 2012 Games to London. And it deserves them. London was made for sport and sport was made for London. I for one can't wait for 2012, where I will make a prediction: the largest gathering of people in Europe was an estimated 5 million for the Pope's funeral in April 2005. Second was Princess Diana's funeral in 1997, which attracted 3 million. The largest gathering of people in a European city for a non-political event or a funeral was the Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2003, with an estimated 1.5 million people on the streets. The most amount of tickets sold for an Olympic Games ever was 8.3 million in Atlanta in 1996. I am convinced these records will all be broken in 2012.
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