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Sunday 5th August 2012 | 12:05
A doctor's Olympic story
One of the many moving moments in Danny Boyle's Opening Ceremony was the tribute to those killed in the 7/7 attacks.
Few can forget the way the Olympic elation of July 6, 2005, was swiftly crushed by the Tube and bus bombs a day later.
Now, Seb Coe has added just one more story that helps explain why the Games matter so much to so many Brits.
Speaking on BBC Radio 5Live, he said:
"It’s been extraordinary. For me there’s a moment, which I wasn’t even actually sure whether to even tell this story, but it really focuses on the volunteers...
"I was on the Tube going out to the stadium early the other morning and saw one our Gamesmakers in the now familiar uniform and I shook his hand and said ‘Thank you for doing this'.. I said first of all ‘What venue?’
“He said ‘I’m at the boxing’, I said ‘What are you doing there?’ He said 'I'm medical’. I said ‘That’s a good one, it’s important we get that one right for all sort of reasons in boxing’. I got hold of his accreditation and I said ‘Look, thank you. What do you do when you’re not doing this?’ He said ‘I’m a consultant at a large hospital in London, A&E’.
“I said ‘Well that gives me even more confidence that the boxers are in good hands’ and I said ‘Thank you very much for doing this, we can’t do it without you.’
"And he said ‘No, no, no..’ and he looked at me and really quite seriously and he said ‘Thank you’. I said ‘Well, no, no, no thank you’. He said ‘No, no. This is closure for me..’.
“I was a bit taken back by that and he said: ‘I was a consultant anaesthetist on the morning of 7/7. I didn’t even really know whether I wanted to be a volunteer. I ummed and ahhed at putting the forms in. I got the job and did the training but I wasn’t even sure I would make it through the first morning..This for me has been closure because I saw the worst that day in mankind and I’ve now got into this and I’m seeing the best. For me this has been an extraordinary journey the last few days..'
“That really summed up to me what the volunteers are doing here and for that one person, to have that conversation, that is a conversation I will remember for the rest of my life.”
UPDATE: Ian Wylie has uploaded the clip. Click HERE to listen.
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