Opinion | Let's hope the youngwill be inspired by these golden Games

Hats off to IOC president Jacques Rogge. He clearly had been humming the national anthem of Great Britain in the back of his limo and when riding the lift to his hotel suite over the past two weeks.

When he came to penning his closing speech, he drew heavily on the lyrics God Save the Queen, and inserted a salient line to describe London 2012. "These were the happy and glorious Games," he said during a brief lull in the raucous closing ceremony.

It is also clear that in his DVD collection he has some choice British humour listed under C for comedy. These have been "absolutely fabulous Games," he said, before the brilliantly inspired final song - My Generation (sans the f-word) performed by The Who - sent the10,500 dancing athletes into the dizzy London night and the partying testosterone level deliriously into the red.

IOC presidents agonise over their choice of words in their closing speeches for fear of offending the hosts, past and present. The late Olympic chief Juan Antonio Samaranch fell into hot water for using the "best ever/greatest" accolades too many times, as he last did for 2000 Sydney. The "best ever" or "greatest" line not only cheapens the summing up sentiments but also causes too much upset among organising committees and rabid tweeting nationalists.

Rogge has been wary of being seen to compare the summer and winter Olympics on his watch, rightly summing up each for their individualism and slipping in the bad bits between the lines.

He called 2004 Athens the "unforgettable, dream Games" even though the event was blighted by nightmarish problems, from unfinished venues to few spectators, and he said Beijing was the "truly exceptional Games" despite the exceptionally joyless atmosphere and heavy, triumphant and political chest-beating overtones. Both events were very good though they did not tick all the boxes.