A long time before I enjoyed the privilege of actually working on the programme, was always my favourite television show.
Growing up as a sports-mad youngster, it was the one opportunity to guarantee seeing all your sporting heroes appearing at the same time and in the same place together. It was also one of the few television programmes I would sit down and watch with the rest of my family, including my grandparents.
It signalled the start of Christmas for the Doran family. We would enjoy looking back at the great sporting moments of the year and we'd always have some great debates on who we thought should be the overall winner of the prestigious award.
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I'm writing this on a grey Monday morning in London and there's nothing live from China on TV. No, not even the bronze medal match in the Taekwondo.
But on the radio Victoria Derbyshire's talking about whether London 2012 can live up to the Olympic ideals - and even though we've left behind the stunning spectacle of Beijing, we know for certain that the Olympics will be one of the biggest themes in British life for the next four years and beyond.
The final day's audience figures are in, and they confirm the nation was hooked.
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I said in my last blog that the best was yet to come from , and that turned out to be an understatement.
Coming into the office in this morning, having bid a reluctant goodbye to Beijing over the weekend, it was magnificent to see the newspaper coverage of a golden weekend.
"Britannia Rules The Games" splashed across the front page of , and "Great To Be British!" taking up the whole of the front page of the along with pictures of our victorious .
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At half past midnight, just after this Saturday night becomes Sunday morning, .
Two hours earlier, will embark on a marathon of its own, one which will arrive at the finish line in late May 2009.
We're in no way claiming that preparations for our marathon have been anything like as arduous or lonely as Paula's, but it will be a relief when we hear the starter's gun and the actual action gets underway.
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There are always nervous moments when we're covering big events.
I was in our production office as we counted down to the start of the Beijing opening ceremony on Friday, and with about two minutes to go Huw Edwards in one part of the stadium couldn't hear Sue Barker in another part of the Bird's Nest - and he couldn't hear the programme editor either.
It's at times like that you realise how much we depend on the technology and the human ingenuity in making it work. We came on air smoothly as scheduled.
The second point for nerves is waiting for the first audience figures.
They're not the be-all and end-all, but having made the investment and cleared the airtime - it does help if people tune in.
We needn't have worried.
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