I spent a very enjoyable two hours last night wallowing in sporting nostalgia on YouTube. The first thing I watched was camcorder coverage of some of the women's gymnastics at the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the second was a documentary looking back at the Steve Ovett/Seb Coe clash at the same Olympics.

I remember the Moscow Olympics very well. I'd finished A levels, was waiting to see if I'd got into university, and spent the two Olympic weeks in front of the television. I was really only interested in the gymnastics and track and field. I wanted Nadia Comaneci to win the women's gymnastics and Steve Ovett to beat Sebastian Coe. Like most people, I thought Coe would win the 800m and Ovett the 1500m, but would have liked Ovett to win both. In the event, Ovett won the 800m and Coe the 1500m. Comaneci came very close to winning the gymnastics all-around title (which she was defending from Montreal), but lost out to the Soviet Union's Elena Davidova, after Comaneci's beam mark was held up for about half an hour because of a judging dispute (the coverage was on ITV at the time and they even delayed the ads to wait for Comaneci's score ... those were the days).

Last night, watching these, and remembering that I was disappointed with Ovett's 1500m bronze and firmly convinced that Comaneci had been robbed of gold because the Olympics were in Moscow and she was Romanian, I felt annoyed with myself with just not appreciating the talent of the time. To have both Ovett and Coe representing Britain then was just incredible, and it was a pity that the papers took sides so much and encouraged the public to do so. And, as the camcorder coverage shows, all the East European women gymnasts were fantastic back then. Davidova's routines were highly original and she deserved her gold. But there were just so many other brilliant gymnasts around at that time, some of whom didn't even medal individually, so high was the standard. I don't enjoy watching women's gymnastics today, because there is no artistry and the routines seem less fluid. The camcorder coverage is really interesting, because you get to see lots of gymnasts (though part 4 seems to be missing) and I certainly never realised how noisy the crowd was!

Very entertaining! It took me right back in time to sitting in the "front room" with my dad, in front of the telly, while my mom sat in the "living room" on her own, whingeing about the fact the Olympics seemed to be on every channel!