Bring on our Games - and prove the doubters wrong

Or the hardcore line of resistance: It's "just" sport. A "hop, skip and a jump", as one of my sportophobic colleagues puts it, as if there were not something noble in hopping, skipping and jumping, as long it is done to the absolute best standard anyone can achieve at a given time.

Hand back that gold medal in worldweariness. This is a great global capital and we should have the pride and belief that we can pull off an Olympic spectacular of our own - and give Britain the Games it has not had since 1948. The Queen wasn't even on the throne then: we haven't exactly rushed it. Isn't there something very odd about a prosperous, peaceful and generally admired world capital somehow failing to secure the supreme major international event since rationing was in force - and then complaining when it finally lands it?

The other reason for cheering on London 2012 that has become clearer to me since watching the Beijing games is that ours will not be like theirs. It should play to the best side of our outlook: more relaxed, friendlier ( without having to train an army of fixed-smile hostesses) and mercifully free of mass clockwork performances.

That opening ceremony in China was a visual triumph. Breathtaking, memorable, awe-inspiring. Yet at heart there was something unlovable about it. For the country which still has some of the most rigid controls on what can be published and resists open discussion of the bleaker parts of its own history to boast about inventing printing and paper, is championship chutzpah.

In a rowdy democracy, major projects should attract scepticism and argument. If the Government leaves the VAT off its calculations and tells us afterwards, we should cry "Offside". When costs overrun, we should demand more restraint and clearer accounting we can all understand.

And when the legacy of the games for London sport, highlighted by the dogged Sports Commissioner Kate Hoey, remains so uncertain, we should push harder to ensure that hosting the greatest festival of sport will really give us facilities and training to prod a new generation of urban children to take up activities more exerting than a Game Boy.

Like most other Londoners, I have my criticisms of the preparations so far. The case for shutting Greenwich Park for so long for the sake of an equestrian backdrop looks ill-made. Existing users of scant sporting facilities should not be penalised where it can be avoided. The main stadium is way too expensive for a venue that can't be used for a major football club. Some cost controls were asserted late. Long lists of imperfections can be drawn up. More to come, no doubt.

Many attacks on the idea of a British games, though, run deeper than rigour. A lot has been said of our inability to "match" Beijing.

Well, good. I don't want to live in a country which has vast displays of compliant people pretending to be keys in typewriters, thanks. "We haven't got a big vision," cry the critics. Oh woe is us. We are a normal(ish), mediumsized but reasonably successful country. We don't need a "big vision" to tell the world we have arrived (and by implication, should beware us).

What we need is well-run, enjoyable games that lift the spirits of guests and Londoners alike. So yes, we can pare down, but not cheese-pare. Whenever I hear people say they want a "leaner" games I wonder what they would miss out. (Don't all shout "beach volleyball": that won't halve the budget.)

Anyway, minority sports are part of what makes the competition more than just another world championship. Whoever thought of watching the canoeing during which we held our breath for David Florence? He is the best of the British Olympic spirit - fiercely competitive in his event, utterly normal and unaffected in triumph.

Olympics are part of our memories and our mental map of the world. Even the crazy range of sports unites the old world - horses, fencing, archery - with modernity. I know my boys will remember their Beijing highlights and am happy they will see what I waited so long for: the Games in all their glory and absurdity, in their own country.

And if we don't win "enough" medals? Well, if it's a choice between nurturing four-stone girl divers by making them miss their dinners for a year or a lower tally, I'll pass on a few laurels. So far, our medalists have looked well-honed but unfreakish: we need athletes we don't feel queasy about watching.

Sure, Beijing has shown us already some areas where we could be better. The sorry debacle of those divers ending up in an argument about who should be on a mobile phone in the middle of a contest had a touch of Little Britain about it. Put the bloody phone down and just dive.

And yet we have seen far more to lift the heart than wince at. A woman who wants nothing more than a pair of designer shoes to celebrate her gold medal. Earnest teenagers taking on the best of the world in men's gymnastics and the women qualifying for the final with panache.

Had you told me, as a young (un-Olympian) gymnast, that Britain could turn one of its ugly-duckling sports into really breathtaking performances, with modest funding centred on a provincial gym, I would have been utterly disbelieving: one delight of sport is that you can always be confounded.

We've heard Paula Radcliffe saying she'll "give it a go", knowing she will give it her all - and doesn't it just feel rather good? Worth a dozen Britishness speeches by politicians.

In four years, we can do it all on our own terms and do it well. If, that is, we keep our nerve and don't lapse into revelling in the flaws and cock-ups along the way, more than in the goal itself.

The Games survive all their drawbacks and excesses because the desire to celebrate the best is deeply ingrained in us. Wilde knew the score: a cynic knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing. By all means, keep the rampant spenders in check, pin down the politicians and demand a legacy that means more than an expensive bill for taxpayers. But remember that 2012 is also our chance to shine. We can do it.