JESSICA Ennis can be taken to represent many things, not least her own athletic brilliance. She also stands, although she may not wish to, as a rebuff to that twit of a Tory MP who was mentioned here last week.

Aidan Burley it was who referred to the opening ceremony of the London Olympics as “leftie multicultural crap” in a careless sentence burped out on Twitter, in which he did also ‘thank God’ that the athletes had arrived (in what, if you ask me, was probably one of the most mind-numbing processions known to man, but never mind).

The word multicultural is bandied around a lot, usually by people who wish to cause trouble. It is sourly uttered by those who, like the unfortunate Mr Burley, disparage any idea of different cultures pulling together; who wish to attack the very notion that disparate strands of society might wind round each other to the general good.

Now I am not much of a watcher of sport. In normal times you would not find me sitting down in front of the athletics, but these are not normal times.

I confess to having enjoyed seeing Jessica triumph, along with Bradley Wiggins, Mo Farah, Lizzie Armitstead, Victoria Pendleton, all those rowers – and watched with everyone as the Yorkshire medals have piled up.

The endlessness of it all does wear me down, especially all the filling-in between races, when the presenters run out of anything to say, but go on saying it anyway.

Yet the heady, giddying atmosphere can even reach those of us who rarely watch sport (an annual glut of tennis excepted). And Jessica Ennis was truly inspirational. Her success has been a great personal high: her dedication, her effort, her triumph, along with those who supported her. She is also a perfect image of a modern multicultural woman, having a Jamaica father, a mother from Derbyshire and a home in Yorkshire.

Her roots are mixed but she is not; she is who she is, and the world is all the better for her glowing presence.

As the poster girl for these Games in which people of so many races and creeds come together in a celebration of all things driven and sweaty, Jessisa Ennis could not be bettered. She also, does she not, shows what might be taken as a more modern, confident face of Britain, a place where as time passes more and more people will come from different and mixed backgrounds. That’s multiculturalism and it’s not crap at all, whatever the likes of Mr Burley say.

And yes of course I watched Usain Bolt’s triumphant dash too. The big men of the 100 metres do provide a spectacle that even the usually unconverted cannot resist. All that training, strength and muscled magnificence for a race that’s over in a blink of an eye – only no one dares to blink. The fleeting briefness only adds to the theatre of it all, as do the camera-mugging antics of the runners; and no one flirts more with the lens than Bolt.

• OUR medal-winning cyclists are trained and funded to the hilt, and good luck to them: they really are miraculous. Yet you cannot help but wonder at the gap between the fastest cyclists around and those of us who weave in and out of the traffic every day.

Bradley Wiggins had barely got his gold medal round his neck when he was called on to comment about the death of a cyclist who was hit by a bus carrying journalists to the Games.

In the heat of the moment, he said all cyclists should have to wear helmets and that the wearing of headphones while cycling should be banned – sensible views which he modified slightly afterwards.

I always wear a helmet and would find listening to music too distracting, although others seem to manage. One task at a time is enough for me. But wouldn’t it be wonderful, in this age of cycling, if we had proper, safe and separate cycling tracks, instead of those thin strips of dangerous compromise at the edge of busy roads or along the pavement?

We can raise the money to produce world-beating cyclists, and all praise to that, but we shouldn’t forget those who pedal daily on our hazard-strewn roads.

Follow Julian at twitter@JulianCole5