Jacques Rogge, the IOC Pres, opened London 2012 with this observation: “And to the athletes I offer this thought: your talent, your dedication and commitment brought you here; now you have a chance to become true Olympians. That honour is determined not by whether you win but by how you compete”. A much-derided clichè, I know, in this world of fast money and instant celebrity. But I suspect that the two camps (pro and anti London 2012) are divided by a simple criterion: have you been a competitor in sport yourself?
If you have pulled on the colours of any school, club, college or wha’ever and played your heart out, you almost certainly respect and revere many of the participants in London. Because you know what it takes just to be selected to represent others in any particular discipline (out of the Olympics’ 36). By contrast, those who have never had any such experience (willy nilly) are likely not to enthuse.
I generalise, of course – wot I’m quick to criticise in others – but I’d be interested to know if I’m right.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Well you are wrong as far as I am concerned. I played both hockey and tennis for both school and University. It never occurred to me to get very enthusiastic over either winning or losing. I never regarded sport as being anything more than a pastime.
I object to the olympics as being a money grubbing bunch of parasites, both the organisers and the competitors If they really must do it, let them do it on a Greek island and win a laurel leaf or two. It is of no consequence at all to me who wins or loses, or their nationality. What is quite wrong is that they should be allowed to discommode the tax paying citizens of London currently and anywhere else the decide to blight by their presence.
CO, well there’s an exception to every rule, innit? 🙂 However you are unrepresentative of public opinion – which probably cuts little ice?
Môre Janus
Of course the sports that we are historically pretty good at aren’t Olympic events, rugby, cricket, golf (although that’s changing soon.)
That however doesn’t dim our enthusiasm.
The Daily Mail had the temerity to refer to the interview with chad Le Clos’ father as ‘hilarious’ I told them not confuse hilarity with pride and passion 😉
Perhaps a ‘binge drinking’ event should be considered (held over two legs on the first Fri & Sat evenings) that might encourage a few more participants 🙂
I played rugby for school and local clubs. I was not brilliant, but I absolutely thrilled at pulling on the jersey and loved playing the game. And I can tell you that I got as big a kick out of watching Internationals and Currie Cup matches, even high school matches during the amateur days as I do now. The difference then was that you knew that the people playing were doing so purely for the love of the game and you were supporting your team made up of people who lived in your country, community or attended your school. While there may have been an illicit bung here and there, it was never going to be enough to support a player who had to have a proper job to make his way in life. Who can forget the surgeon J.P.R Williams, playing for the best Welsh team ever in the 1970s. Wouldn’t or couldn’t happen these days. Now they do it for money and the sporting ethos is disappearing has it has done from so many other pro sports. As in club football and to a lesser extent international rugby and cricket, Team GB is made up of Plastic Brits (For goodness sake, even the name Team GB has a sickeningly commercial ring to it.)
To a large extent, we can thank our American cousins for the excessive commercialisation of sport. Even though the Olympics are supposed to be amateur, medals mean prizes. (What do medals mean? Prizes.) And those prizes come in the form of sponsorship and endorsement deals and performance fees after the Games are over. And as was pointed out in the debate on cycle helmets, so much of this nonsense is to enable manufacturers of sporting goods to sell their products, including team jerseys whose designs change with the weather (though obviously not the British weather which remains persistently overcast). Anybody who seriously believes that the Olympic Ideal has any currency, is seriously deluded. It’s Money, Politics and Social Engineering; I suggest
Yep. Competed and agin. (Rugby, Cricket, Boxing, Biathlon (Military) – hated the poncy downhillers .) Not agin the olympics per se as the sporting occasion it should be, definitely agin all the wasted money on the commercialisation and extremely definitely agin Zil lanes and treating these puffed up bureaufatcrats as commissars!
PS. Haven’t seen a single ‘olympic’ vehicle on the A40, just empty lanes – in fairness, no traffic holups outside what is normal for this stretch of road, either.
Bugrit! ‘holdups.’
OK, Bravo, that’s a vote for taking part and being proud. Yes! 🙂
Hi Janus.
Never brilliant at anything but always whole-hearted and prepared to try my best. Played for my house, my school and, at a very, very, very social level for my University at rugby. I knew full well that I was only ever picked to play for the Uni of Embra seventh or possibly eighth team because I knew the words to all of the songs and could drink a yard of ale faster than most. Did not alter the pride that I felt when I pulled that jersey over my head.
Still remember the trial match in Fourth Year at school when they played the useless pack and the quality backs against the quality pack and useless backs. At loose head prop for the inepts, I destroyed the First XV incumbent. Invited to go to the serious after-school training and doing my best, I can still remember glancing across and seeing my Dad lurking behind a tree to watch me. We never ever mentioned it to each other but it was one of the proudest moments of my life. Dad was seriously good at football and played to a very high standard as an amateur. Sport mattered to him. As it does to me.
You name it and I’ve tried it and not been that good or that bad at it. From golf to rugby. cricket, volleyball, archery, football, squash, curling or badminton. Left with bowls these days and am no mug at that. In my opinion.
For the purposes of your poll, the reason that I am enjoying the London Olympics so much is because I truly believe that the overwhelming majority of the athletes who are doing their best have worked long and hard to be there and are not driven by gain or gold but by a desire to be as good as they can possibly be in their chosen discipline.
JM, you make a fair point about the ‘overwhelming majority’ of athletes. Most of them have no chance of winning a medal and stand to make very little financially or otherwise, other than the satisfaction of taking part. There is a young man from Zimbabwe competing(ed) in the rowing. His grandfather came from Buncrew, between Inverness and Beauly. His great aunt was one of my mum’s childhood friends and I have known his father since we were very young children. They moved to Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) shortly before we did where they acquired some land which they developed into very successful cattle and tobacco estates. But like so many Zimbabwean farmers, they had their property taken and the family is in straitened circumstances. His grandfather was a truly wonderful man who led the campaign for HIV awareness in that benighted country, way back in the early 80s. He was known by all as Bwana Condom. In any event the family all had to work very hard to raise the money to send the youngster to the Olympics, with little or no support from the government, while he himself had to work hard to qualify. Zimbabwe does not have the best rowing facilities. He is young, only 19, and though he has not won any medals I am sure the thrill of competing with the best of the world must have been immense. Watch for him in 2016.
So, I take back some of my more cynical observations.
Incidentally, Janus, the young man’s aunt is married to a Dane and lives in Gentofte, which I imagine (purely on the basis that Denmark is a small country) is not far from you.
Sipu, quite right! Gentofte is a desirable neighbourhood just north of København, a mere 90 miles from here.
I was lousy at Games. For fairly valid reasons, I never owned a ball, a bat or a skipping rope until I was about eight. Consequently, when I went to school I was a total incompetent at any kind of sports.
Not one P.E. teacher in the whole of my academic career ever bothered with me – they simply wrote me off as ‘useless’. I’m not saying I would have been brilliant – but I might have been spared much humiliation. If I sound a bit resentful – I am. It took Bearsy a whole half an hour some twenty years ago to teach me how to throw and catch a ball – It’s hardly ‘Rocket Science’.
I opted out of the ‘Sporting Scene at about 13 – so I’ve never ‘pulled on the colours’ of anywhere. I decided at 13 that brains were far more important than brawn. I haven’t changed my opinion.
I find it very sad that the world is prepared to spend so much money applauding those who simply want to do something for themselves: i.e. run / swim faster than someone else, throw a ball / discus / javelin further than someone else or do-whatever better than someone else and that there is no great celebration of those who dedicate their lives to doing something that increases the store of human knowledge and benefits other people.
I can fully appreciate Sipu’s comments about those who, in the past, competed and those who, now, struggle to compete for the sheer love of the sport – I admire them all – as I do the paraplegics who work so hard to overcome their physical disabilities.
But the present Olympics are dominated by athletes from countries who can afford to, effectively, buy medals, and are organised to augment the profits of Big Business and anyone else who can get in on the Act.
Your ‘generalisation’, Janus, may be right – but I think the reasons behind that generalisation are a little simplistic! 🙂
Boa, I’ve mentioned that tendency to Backside but he says people are always complicating things for him.
Afraid I think the Olympics should be held in one place at a permanent site and have said so for years. The money is going to line the IOC’s pockets and make the developers filthy rich at the expense of the tax payer.
However good luck to all the competitors though I think there is far too much political influence, the Chinese do something to their team, either genetic engineering or untraceable drugs, it could of course just be fear, “Do well or die”.