ON your marks, get set, go.

After four years of waiting the Olympics is finally back.

It didn't seem four years ago that the country was uniting in a sea of red, white and blue to cheer on Team GB to record success.

Brighton beach was packed as people waving flags and wearing big coloured glasses gathered in front of the Big Screen to take it all in.

Even the Queen got in on the act skydiving out of a plane with 007 into the Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremony.

I was among the millions of people who scrambled around for tickets and one of the lucky few to get inside the Olympic Park to sample the whole thing.

But four years on a lot has changed.

That big stadium out in a corner of east London has now been converted into the home of West Ham football club with the taxpayer bearing the brunt.

And while in 2012 the country was gripped to the television as everyone become overnight armchair experts in a range of sports from archery to volleyball, this year the build up has been rather muted.

With the games in Brazil, the home of carnival, that's a bit of a head scratcher.

Perhaps it is because the builders in Rio make those in Athens look positively competent.

Perhaps it's because due to a tightening of the purse strings, rather than the Queen dropping from the sky, the opening ceremony looked like a performance from Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights, complete with dodgy accents and Cassio-style keyboard backing.

Or perhaps it is because that much talked about promise of an Olympic legacy just hasn't come true.

Before, during and after the games, the L word was touted about more often than steroids in the Russian athletes training camp.

It became a buzzword to throw at those that thought the whole thing was a waste of money, a conversation stopper on the pub.

But even the man leading the crusade, Seb Coe (what's he doing now??) struggled to enforce the point that legacy was not about the party; it was how everything looked after the clean up.

It was about supporting new jobs and skills, encouraging trade, inward investment and tourism.

It was about affordable housing.

It was about getting more people out and about to play sport.

But just a few days ago, newly-elected London mayor Sadiq Khan questioned the whole thing.

His major gripe has been housing.

More than 24,000 units were promised; four years from the £9 billion games, less than a tenth of that number are under-construction.

Of these 1,500, less than a third as classed as affordable (that's still more than £250,000 in case you were wondering...)

But for me, the biggest impact should have been about getting people fit and healthy.

At a time when one in four children are classed as obese, when adults spend more time exercising their thumbs on a phone then their legs walking, when diabetes is on the rise, the 2012 games was a once in a generation opportunity to get people into keeping fit.

But figures show that fewer people are taking part in regular exercise now than before London.

Instead of breeding gold medallists of the future, the focus has been on grooming the next YouTube or computer game prodigy.

Locally we have had some success, such as running, rugby and football.

But these probably would have happened anyway with the Brighton Marathon, Rugby World Cup and the Albion on the march.

Below that level we have seen costs of going to leisure centres increasing and grassroots football on the verge of going bust.

Even the world's oldest velodrome in Brighton's Preston Park had to be closed for a while due to being unsafe.

It was only reopened for competitions thanks to a spirited campaign by locals who persuaded sporting bodies to dispense with some of its cash.

This was not how it was all supposed to be.

And while I look back at the picture of me in front of the Olympic cauldron with fond memories, I think was it all worth it?

Personally, without a shadow of a doubt.

But there are many more who have long taken their red, white and blue tinted spectacles off.

The Argus:

JUST when you thought Southern Rail couldn't get any worse the much maligned firm hit a new low last week.

As if a week-long strike, thousands of irate daily commuters and hundreds of delayed trains are not enough, last week the company managed to misplace a train.

Somehow the 14.17 from Victoria to Eastbourne on Wednesday took a 'wrong turn' along the way, ending up in Brighton.

Those on the train were far from happy as you'd expect.

What next? A station gets closed to the public during rush hour? Oh wait, that one's already been done, hasn't it....