The feelgood factor stirred up by London 2012 may have faded, but those golden memories created by the Olympics are still shining brightly.
Summer of this year was a spectacular time for the country, especially for sports fans, and surely the undisputed highlight of this extraordinary period was the Olympic Games.
Those two weeks provided a countless array of epic moments and seemed to put everybody in a positive mood.
You can now spend the gloomy winter nights reliving the many highs, and occasional lows, from the glorious summer with the BBC’s London 2012 Olympics DVD boxset.
You can say what you like about the BBC after its recent controversies, but I think the corporation provided excellent coverage of the Games, and this splendid collection does a great job of highlighting the strength of the Beeb’s broadcasting.
In terms of a sporting legacy from the Games, it’s a shame the BBC can’t bring back its flagship Grandstand programme so it could continue providing top coverage of lots of different sports on a more regular basis.
The five-disc London 2012 collection kicks off with a specially-edited version of the entire amazing opening ceremony.
It’s great to be able to watch through the spectacular curtain-raiser again and to be able to fast-forward through the only boring part, which was the overly-lengthy parade of athletes coming into the stadium.
One of the highlights of the entire DVD presentation is the option to switch on the director’s cut and commentary from Danny Boyle. It’s fascinating to watch the ceremony while listening to him and writer Frank Cottrell Boyce talking about their ambitions and inspirations for the event, including the reasons behind choosing who would carry the torch on opening night and light the cauldron. There are also various other interesting little snippets, such as a technical glitch with Sir Paul McCartney’s performance.
After the majesty of the opening ceremony the second disc moves on to the sporting action.
There are more than seven hours of highlights which feature all the emotion, drama and achievements from the Games, including the many magical moments provided by members of Team GB.
Treat yourself to once again watching the performances of Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, Chris Hoy, Oscar Pistorius, Nicola Adams, Victoria Pendleton, Tom Daley, Gemma Gibbons, Chad le Clos and many more. Once again enjoy the tremendous excitement of Super Saturday featuring the gold medal victories for Jessica Ennis, Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah.
Each day of the Games is presented on the DVDs as a mini documentary in its own right, featuring not just the sports highlights but also some of the stories behind the headlines as well as reaction and interviews.
I’m not usually a fan of the BBC’s musical montages to accompany its sports coverage, but here they work well, providing a nice conclusion to each day and showing some nice backdrops of London.
Overall I think the Games highlights have been skilfully edited, although it will depend on your personal tastes which parts of it all you find the most interesting. I couldn’t care less about the gymnastics so I fast-forwarded through an extended segment of it on one of the early days.
There is a good range of sports covered during the seven hours, so there should be something to please everyone. When you watch it all back together you get a true sense of just how much happened over a relatively short period.
After all the sport is over the full closing ceremony rounds off the DVD collection. While this wasn’t on the same level of magnificence as the opening ceremony, it was still a great finale to the Games.
Overall, this is a really comprehensive and nicely presented package showing all the main moments and events from the Olympics. It’s a must-have purchase for anyone who enjoyed the Games and wants to have the footage handy for watching whenever a wave of London 2012 nostalgia sweeps over them.
It’s easy to see how this DVD set could take the gold medal in Christmas sales.
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