The Power of Noise

Daily Prompt – Crescendo

We were sat looking down on the track, along with a few thousand other spectators.  Our view was of the finish line, so we really shouldn’t have been worried about whether we might have a restricted view at all, it couldn’t have been better!  We had been lucky enough to obtain tickets to numerous sessions of the 2017 World Athletics Championships and tonight was one of the highlights – Mo Farah running his last World Championship race, the 5,000 metres.

There was some concern about whether Mo could repeat his success of the 10,000 metres the previous week, but we were all hoping and praying that he would do well.

As they announced the race and the athletes started to came out onto the track the noise and anticipation grew – and then there was Mo and the crowd erupted!  The atmosphere in the stadium was like nothing else and as they lined up on the start line and waited for the gun to fire, it felt like our hearts were all beating nervously together…. and then they were off… the crowd were on their feet and a wall of noise followed the athletes as they made their way around the stadium. You could hear and feel it as they approached, until they were running directly past our seats and the crowd around us increased the volume to spur Mo on as much as we could.

There was jostling, there were tactics, the other athletes tried to work together to make sure Mo wouldn’t win… we all hoped this would have no effect and also that no-one would fall in their efforts!

As the laps were ticked off the noise grew and grew until that bell rang to indicate they were entering their last lap.  The athletes upped their game and the crowd followed suit.

The pace picked up and as the athletes rounded the final corner, running straight towards us down the last 100 metres, the noise from the crowd reached a crescendo and bounced painfully off my eardrums.  I didn’t care though, I was one of them, making as much noise as I could in an effort to drive Mo over the line in a medal winning position!  He made a massive last minute dash for the line and managed to throw himself across it, winning a silver medal in the process. It was an amazing, never forget experience and I was so very thankful for those tickets that night!