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TITLE: The Olympic Games Are Due Into London In 2012, But Will They Totally Live Up To Their Promise Or Will The Bad Side Of Sport Ruin The Party
I’ve been a sports fan since childhood, having been given a crash course in football by my neighbour when I was about eight years old. John was lucky enough to get a ticket for the F.A. Cup Final one season, and I, with childish enthusiasm, spent the afternoon following the match on a television screen hoping that I would be able to spot him in the stands. Of course, I didn’t spot him, but I had got hooked by the spectacle of the big match. During my teens I turned into a dedicated football fan, with the match round-up at five o’clock|5pm|tea-time on a Saturday afternoon affecting my mood for the rest of the weekend. Fortunately for my family, I supported a team who won more frequently than they lost!
Over the years, I began to watch numerous other sports on television. Test cricket was soon a firm favourite when an attack of glandular fever left me spending all my time indoors during a series in the West Indies, snooker had been coaxed from the pubs and clubs of the UK and turned into primetime viewing via some inventive marketing and the realisation that it was a game that was reasonably cheap and simple to televise. And then there was the Olympic Games, a magnificent sporting spectacle which happened every four years and in which the whole world participated on equal terms. Or so we were led to believe.
Since my earliest memory of anything connected with the Olympics was the tragic events which occured in Munich in 1972, it’s perhaps surprising that I embraced the whole notion of the event so much. But the Munich games also delivered Mark Spitz’s outstanding haul of seven gold medals in the swimming pool – an achievement only bettered thirty-six years later by Michael Phelps. Years of viewing Eastern Bloc athletes effortlessly defeating all the other athletes aided by performance enhancing drugs which were not identified didn’t diminish my enthusiasm either, and I have avidly watched as much footage as possible in past years – until now. (Is it any wonder that I now need glasses to see properly and am considering having Laser eye surgery? Too many days spent watching sport on the small screen!)
No matter how much I try, I’m finding it a problem to get any enthusiasm for the London Games. Even colleagues who generally don’t have any interest in sport think that they’d probably like to go and spectate at a couple of events, as it will be the only opportunity that they have in their lifetime, yet I, who used to be such an avid sports fan, and can reach the main Olympic arena in less than an hour from my house, have no inclination to buy tickets.
I believe that there are several reasons for this. Firstly, I am bored of the number of scandals and less than savoury events that have begun to sully many sports – pub fight footballers, bribed cricketers, drug cheat athletes, jockeys accepting backhanders, and in the background, the dubious characters who are responsible for most of the damage and who cause such havoc purely for personal financial advantage.
Secondly, big business has muscled in on on so many events now. Everything has business branding, events are timed to fit in with television executives wishes rather than the fans, sportsmen and women are told whose clothes they can wear and what products they have to endorse, including diet supplements and Laser eye treatments – aren’t these really ‘legal’ cheating? But the end result for sports lovers is paying stupid prices to watch a tournament in order to top up the corporate pockets of those who are running the show, and without necessarily being convinced if teams or competitors are really competing against each other on equal terms. The golfer who is advertising Laser eye surgery – doesn’t the operation give him an unfair advantage? The football team whose management have employed some obscure type of therapist – is everything he encourages the team to do totally above board?
Finally, I don’t notice the wealth of personalities in sport any more. There are a handful of characters who would be referred to as entertaining, but due to the money now involved, most sportspeople don’t believe that they can do something outrageous occasionally because anything they do or say may impact on their contract. I find myself hoping for another Kriss Akabusi, Jackie Stewart, Tommy Smith, Henry Cooper or John McEnroe (though I can imagine that he’d probably be promoting Laser eye treatment if he was still playing at his peak now – although for the tennis officials rather than himself!)
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