So this is how the Olympics works. First of all you hear about a possible bid by London for the 2012 Games, and you think – "No. It will be Birmingham and Manchester all over again. It will be 'You have a strong bid' before 'And the winner is...Paris." Same old story.

Then Seb Coe arrives on the scene and new possibilities seem to be in the air. But Paris is still favourite. And then, in Singapore, the envelope containing the IOC members' vote is opened by their President Jacques Rogge, who seems to have a little smile to himself before announcing the word which sends one relatively small but very important part of the world potty: "London".


There follows years of wrangling, slowly transforming building sites, scare stories, warnings, ballooning budgets, more wrangling, people taking grave offence, local traders protesting, transport groups prognosticating gloomily. Rows emerge over the future of the Olympic Stadium. And all this is marked by a series of countdowns. Five years to the Olympics. Three years to the Olympics. One year to go to the Olympics.

As that year turns into mere months, like one of those colouring books where blank pages spring up at the application of water, details start to flare into life.

So the swimming pool is finished, and it is possible to go and splash around where Olympians will strive in the opening days of the Games. And the velodrome gets finished, with its wonderful warp of a roof. And the main stadium itself becomes accessible – as it will be later this month when a lucky few will be able to conclude a five-mile race within its upright arena. And the Athletes Village is built, and it is possible to go and have a look at some finished apartments and sit on beds in rooms that will be occupied by Olympic and Paralympic athletes only a few more months down the line.

Names start to arrive which turn general events, such as the Closing Ceremony concert in Hyde Park, into specific events. The announcement of Blur sharpens the focus on a key part of the Olympic experience beyond the Park.

People all over the country learn that the Olympic Torch Relay, bearing a sacred, sporting flame all the way from Olympia, will pass through their general neighbourhood. In November, for instance, the announcement of key points for the event includes the fact that, on Saturday, July 7, the Torch will be carried from Hertford and Ware to Bishop's Stortford – Bishop's Stortford! That's where I live! – and thence to Stansted, Newport and Saffron Walden, and thence, ultimately, to Stratford in East London...


And now, this week, we hear details of the exact routes that human Torch transport will take. The Olympic Torch will come down the Much Hadham road, past the rugby club and the Bishop's Stortford Swifts clubhouse, curving round the Causeway, then making its way up Hockerill to the crossroads – where they used to hang people, as it happens – and turning left into Stansted Road, where, after about 100 metres, it passes THE END OF OUR ROAD.

Whatever next? First Samuel Pepys stops off at a hostelry in the town, and now this. It's all go in Bishop's Stortford!

But seriously. Having covered Summer and Winter Games as a journalist, there have been occasions when I have felt the mass voltage thrill that can be generated by the greatest sporting spectacle on earth – and I say that as a football lover.

Odd fragments of memory come back. Taking off from Heathrow, bound for Barcelona, hosts of the 1992 Games, looking across to a colleague and hearing him say: "Here we go!" Being in that stadium at Montjuïc in Barcelona for the Opening Ceremony and leaving the stand to go down to the press room, passing as I do so massed ranks of schoolchildren waiting for their cue to race into the arena and take part in something they will remember forever. If you could have harnessed the mass excitement of those children, you could have powered the Catalan city for the night.


Being at the Ogden Ice Sheet during the Salt Lake Winter Games of 2002 as Rhona Martin (pictured), skip of the British women's curling team, prepares to send down the stone of destiny which will decide whether it is to be the gold or silver medal. Watching that stone slide inexorably into the perfect place, knocking and jolting the opposition away as it does so.

Excitement. And the idea that the Olympic Flame will be carried just past the church at the end of our road en route to igniting the London 2012 Games is something I also find exciting, astonishing even, although I know that this is how the Olympics works. You could say it brings the Olympic experience home.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the past five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames. Rowbottom's Twitter feed can be accessed here.