Suzanne Harrington: Watching talented people excel in their field is a thing of such joy

Disturbingly, these overnight art critics extended far beyond the Greggs-looting end of social media all the way to individuals opining in national newspapers. Almost as though they didn’t bother to google the paintings in question, so keen were they to share their knee-jerking.

Then there were all the overnight creative directors who took it upon themselves to eviscerate the meticulously planned, hugely original, beautifully detailed and symbolic opening ceremony, designed to showcase both French history and the city of Paris itself as a living backdrop upon which the Games took place. You don’t get a silhouette of the Sacre Coeur from inside a purpose-built white elephant, which will then languish unused for decades as officials recriminate about busted budgets. But no. Gary in the online comments knew better: should of done it indoors without all them woke drag queens.

And as for the overnight boxing experts piling on to the assigned-female-at-birth boxer Imane Khelif, what exactly is the message here? That if a woman throws a killer punch in the ring, she’s a man? Tell that to Kellie Harrington, the greatest Irish boxer of all time, and one of the nine women to beat Khelif. The instant pile-ons from individuals such as the Harry Potter woman and the current proprietor of Twitter were shocking both in their vitriol and inaccuracy.

Yet what we really learned from these Olympics is how confidence and ability are the most gorgeous combination on Earth, a combination that never gets old. From Thomas Jolly, the artistic director, to Simone Biles via our own Kellie and Daniel Wiffen, watching talented people excel in their field is a thing of such joy and beauty that it spurs us to keep doing it every four years. To come together, to be involved. 

The Paris Olympics appear the most confident and assured to date, modern and mature, with flashes of pure brilliance (Snoop Dogg, take a bow) played out against one of the world’s most beautiful cities. To detract from it seems like a great big gob full of sour grapes.