Five hours of sleep ahead of the last day of London 2012 - and getting up and ready to do one more day before heading home.

We (the newspaper) were lucky enough to get tickets for the Men's basketball Final, which had been ticketed for the Media due to high demand. Before the games this was a game that I really wanted to attend and photograph, so I should have been bursting with joy.. but for some reason things felt very flat after the celebrations of Saturday evening and leaving the Olympic Park for the last time.

First there was the hunt for the tickets - which the Finnish press had left first at their desk at MPC, then took them to the Stadium.. and then left at the reception of their hotel. Can't say they made things easy - after a long and anxious wait the reception FINALLY managed to dig out the tickets from somewhere and off I was to North Greenwich Arena (or as we know it - O2). Local knowledge once again came handy as I parked the car only few minutes journey away from the Arena, for free! BlogB2

Walk through the security checks, meets pretty much all of UK basketball media over at the media centre.. Woods, Ahmedas, Swiss, Mark, Fab and Mitchell.. all there and still kicking after a long two weeks (some of them looking worse for wear).

Watched the end of Bronze medal game on the media centre TV - bought my last rip-off price cola drink and just got ready for the Final. Basketball Final seemed to be one of the very few events where I think the organizers had got the photo arrangements wrong (just my personal opinion). The seating on the court level was normal crush of a Final, but to position about 60-80 photographers high into the stands amongst the crowd with long lenses. This just screamed out for problems.. BlogB

First rows of photographers had to ask the FANS in front of them to not stand up -and fans were also moved as they stood to celebrate baskets. For the first time in these games I felt embarrassed to be a photographer - when person on Row C/Row 3 who probably has paid good money for his/her ticket is told not to stand up because of us.. that just sound very wrong to me. Also another group of colorful fans were moved to place where they would not block photographers. Let's just say that I shook my head a few times and felt sorry for the fans.

Easy solution for this would have been to limit the number of photographers more - yes, many of us wouldn't have made it in, but some of us probably did not NEED to be there. But wanted to be there because it was the Final as USA playing. As one photographer who has been to 90% of the games said to me..'I haven't seen any of these photographers here during the basketball tournament so far....' BlogB3

Game itself - the UK journalist told me it was brilliant, I thought it a bit slow paced and dare I say 'boring'?? And looking at the picture of photographers from during the game.. doesn't seem like EVERYONE was that excited. And shame that the final Final of the London 2012 had so many empty seats - although the volunteers were brought into fill some of them for the second half :-) B

Enough of a moan there - snap the pictures that I can.. rush out before the medal ceremony and beat the crowds to the Tube.. one stop of travel.. into the car and 3 hour drive back home.. 'landed' at the parking lot in front our home at 9pm.. and sat down to watch the Closing Ceremony. That was it - my Olympics were finished and as the flame went out it was all over. Great two and half weeks.. and I will get a re-cap and 'best pictures' written to the Blog during the week, as I get a chance to catch my breath a little.

OH - and off to the dentist on Monday morning.. talk about returning to reality with a BANG!