We missed a chance to celebrate our great range of music

I HAVE loved watching the Olympics and am so proud of our GB team who have done brilliantly. However, the closing ceremony was disappointing. We have such a rich diversity of talent, why on earth did we just have to show our pop culture?

It started off promising with Julian Lloyd Webber playing his cello but I would have liked to have seen more. The Spirit of the Flame dance with the wonderful Darcey Bussell was superb. It would have been good to celebrate our musicals with perhaps Alfie Boe singing. We could have had the talented Nigel Kennedy playing the Four Seasons and perhaps Katherine Jenkins singing some opera. The Irish could have danced an excerpt from Riverdance and how about a Scottish marching band with bagpipes which would have been wonderful?

I feel we missed a chance to show the world our full musical talent.

From: D Birch, Smithy Lane, Cookridge, Leeds.

THESE Olympics have been well subsidised by the Lottery and it has been great to see what our athletes have achieved and that London has now got a great legacy of very extensive infrastructure to help its people get round much easier.

But now its time to look after the other 70 per cent of our population who are not in the London area.

From: Michael Ross, Weeton Lane, Dunkeswick.

THE Games are over and no one can deny the spectacular success stretching from the opening ceremony to the closing ceremony.

Team GB gave a truly outstanding performance and of course as well as the organisers,the members of the IOC must be slapping each other on the back and bathing in the reflected glory.

I don’t for one moment suppose that in the midst of all the celebrations these frandees will give one moment’s thought to their refusal, despite very strong representations,to pay respects to the 11 Israeli athletes massacred by Arab terrorists at Munich 40 years earlie.

It is difficult to understand why they could not allocate one minute to officially mark this most barbaric atrocity.

From: Paul Emsley, Newton Way, Hellifield, near Settle, North Yorkshire.

HOW does the Saudi Arabian Government square the circle of giving active support to the Sunni revolutionaries fighting against tyranny in Syria with their stance on traditional Muslim headwear for their women athletes at the 2012 Olympics?

Do they really imagine that this is what the women in Syria are fighting for?

In my opinion, women fighting against oppression in the Middle East and North Africa, are one of the strongest symbols for freedom in the world today. For hundreds of years, they have been exploited and ignored by their menfolk; whereas in truth, they have a greater understanding of the needs of a society to be free and for a community to live in equilibrium with others. The only common bond in men is football!

Russia will be next.

From: Don Burslam, Elm Road, Dewsbury Moor, Dewsbury.

THE Olympics have left a few deep impressions with me. I was very impressed with the smooth organisation which did full justice to the event.

The Games themselves have drifted far from the pure Olympic ideal. To include such events as beach volleyball is just a joke and cheapens the whole experience. So far as women’s boxing is concerned, I think it is unpleasant and demeaning to the sex.

Some disciplines are more pleasing to the eye than others. I cannot raise even a flicker of interest in watching cyclists robotically circling the Velodrome over and over again though I suppose to the patriotically inclined, they would get excited over shove ha’penny if there was a gold medal at stake.

I did enjoy the boats bobbing on the water at Weymouth and the pole vault with the athletes’ defying gravity. The dressage event was a delight and of course as we came out on top, joy was unconfirmed.

From: JW Slack, Swinston Hill Road, Dinnington, Sheffield.

I SEE the PM is vowing to follow up our Olympic success with ensuring that every primary school has a PE teacher (former PM John Major wishes he had done it when he was in office) and Boris Johnson wants four hours per day exercise for the under 11s.

Has teacher training changed so much that every primary school teacher was given a basic training in teaching PE as part of their course (Tom Richmond, Yorkshire Post, August 14)?