LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

I was fascinated by my experiences on Boxing Day.  I was a bit lost in Kingston, trying to find the Wimbledon football ground on foot (Wimbledon play at the Kingstonian ground).  I didn't recognise the road, but, using my incredible inate sense of direction and natural navigation skills, I set off along the road.

After a while, I realised that I had no idea where I was.

I popped into the local shop to ask directions of the Indian shopkeeper.  'Football ground?  No, there are no football grounds round here, mate.'  Why do Indians always call me 'mate'?  'But this is Kingston, isn't it?  Kingstonian?  Wimblkedon FC?'  'No, mate, the only football ground I know is miles away - back the way you've come from until the main road, then turn right and keep on going until you see it.  But it's nowhere near here!

Hmmm.  That wasn't too encouraging.  So I went into the off licence and asked the Afro-Caribbean shopkeeper.  'Football ground?  No.  I don't kniow any football ground.'  I was beginning to wonder whether I was in the right town.  'There is one football ground over the other side of the town.  You are driving?  You're on foot!!!  Well, I don't think you can walk it.  It's way down there to the main road and then up to the right some distance.  But you can't walk there!'  'Kingstonian?  Wimbledon FC?'  'Well, which you want?  Kingston or Wimbledon?!'

So, same directions, but also same lack of convincing knowledge.  Outside the shop, I spotted a white man.  'Wimbledon football ground?  Yeah, down the main road and turn right and you'll see it.  It's only about a half a mile away.'  And it was.  10 minutes walk.

So why don't local shopkeepers know where their local football team plays?  Do minority communities not support football?  Is it only white persons that walk anywhere?

Second Best is Best

            Second Best is Best      Oct 26, '07 2:17 AM

for everyone

What a week it's been! We had four chances for glory this week, but it ended (yet again) in tears, with the sounds of 'plucky Brit' ringing in out ears.

First, Andy Murray played Rafael Nadal in the Spanish Open, a tournament he was given some hopes of winning. The Spanish crowd gave him a standing ovation, not because he had beaten their champion (he lost in straight sets), but because he pushed him to his best tennis and could, but for the odd stroke of luck, have won.

Next, unhappy England fail all but, to qualify for the soccer World Cup, thanks to a few dubious decisions (the manager's included). Macedonia, Croatia and Israel may yet rescue them, but that bit of luck will probably be denied us. England's gallant band of supporters (including that band) kept up the encouragement however to the final whistle and were praised by onlookers for their untiring efforts.

Then, England lose in a World Cup final full of grit and rugby that was more heroic than attractive. Again, a decision or two might have helped us a little. Again, respect to England and its supporters, as French police remove from the Champs Elysees the riot police they deployed a few days earlier against the French supporters.

Finally, having led the championship table for most of the season, Lewis Hamilton, leader of the pack on the day, fell to seventh place, through no fault of his own (still clocking the fastest lap time on the day), and missed winning the F1 championship by one point. A couple of different team decisions on tyres and he'd have stormed home. As you will have expected by now, he received the highest accolades for all he has achieved this year (coming second).

But is this all that it's about? Is winning everything? Don't we still believe that it's not about winning, but really all about taking part? Well, no, we don't actually and frankly we should have done better. There were very, very few faults in the play of our opponents in any of the above sports. We have only ourselves to blame for failing. But is that all?

Look at the side statistics. School children all over Britain have been signing on to learn tennis and are beginning to apply themselves - training regimes, diet, exercises, etc - in a way that never happened when I was at school. England's travelling soccer supporters number at least 10,000. Even in Japan, when I was there for the 2002 World Cup, there were 11,000 registered England supporters there for the month. Half the kids I see in the street (and many of their dads) wear Beckham football shirts and the Beckham football academies are reportedly flourishing. As for the rugby, admittedly it was just across the Channel, but 60,000 England supporters were in Paris on Saturday. Not only that, but the flags were out on houses and cars through England, and the whole of the country unable to travel to France were sat glued to their TV sets for the evening. On the green opposite my house, I now see as many egg-shaped balls as round. Then on Sunday, not only were TVs on all over the country, but viewing figures were up 70% on F1 programmes during the year and the sports programmes unable to stake transmission rights were none the less forced to give regular updates on the progress of the races. Everyone knows the name Lewis Hamilton; few could name more than 2 or 3 FI drivers last year. And I see that go-cart tracks (where Hamilton started) are currently packed with wannabe kids.

In short, it is the sports that have won. Of course we want to win. Of course second is no good. Of course we'll win next time. But meanwhile, isn't it great that kids are taking to sport in such numbers? I don't know whether we'll produce another Murray, or a Beckham, or a Wilkinson, or a Hamilton, but we are increasing our chances. And isn't it great that there is so much interest in getting fitter and fighting it out on the playing field, rather than on the streets or in the school playground?

DOWN FALL

So Andy Murray has capped the most wonderful summer of sport we have ever known.  I tried to watch the progress of the Murray game on Twitter, but the tweets were flashing across my screen so rapidly I couldn't read them.  It was as though I had my finger permanently on the scroll button.  I checked the online news and saw that he had won the first two sets, so went to bed.  In the morning, as expected, I heard that he had won.  What I had missed, however, was the intervening 2 hours where he was definitely not winning.  So well done, Andy.  He has matured extraordinarily over the last year from his collapse at Wimbledon through his recovery at the Olympics to his first Grand Slam (our first Grand Slam win for 76 years).  Hopefully now he can relax a little mentally and go on to greater things.
But what of this summer?  Andy's win came at just the right moment.  The Paralympics Closing Ceremony had ended on Sunday, the parade of Olympians through London on the Monday had finished, and we were in danger of slipping into anti-climax.  And then along came another feat of sporting excellence.  What a summer it has been!
But it is over.  And, as if to underline the end of that chapter, the weather, which had behaved beautifully throughout the Olympics and Paralympics, and even during the Parade, now turn decidedly autumnal.  The magical summer is over and the end of the year is approaching (I saw the first Christmas decorations in the shops last week and my first Christmas tree in the pub today!) and the slight chill in the air hints at an ominous return to reality.  How long will it be before we stop hearing how inspired everyone in Britain is and what a united motivated society ours is, and start hearing people ask, ‘what has then Olympics done for me?’
Sadly, consumer spending was down during the summer, the recession is still with us, and various problems relating to production, transport and education have floated to the top of the public’s champagne glass of euphoria and consciousness.  Never slow to take advantage, the unions are talking of strikes and even a general strike (as though not working will solve our production and export problems).  I fear we will soon have forgotten the patriotism and collective well-being of the last few months.
But it needn’t be like that.  I hear so many stories of children being inspired, from my neighbour’s little girl who decided to sign on for diving lessons, but found there was already a waiting list, to the little boy, looking in his colouring book at Captain Hook, with one leg and a hook for a hand, and assuming he was an athlete.  Whatever else happens in the adult world, we must make sure this juvenile focus on sports is maintained.
How do we avoid sinking now into the doldrums?  Well, one of the problems of course is the sudden lack of programmes to watch on television.  I loved Boris’ assertion that the athletes created such enthusiasm and excitement on the sofas of Britain that, now only have they inspired the next generation, they have probably inspired the creation of another one.  Anyway, to avoid misery and pessimism now, don’t revert to watching soaps; nothing happy ever happens there.  You can watch the new season of Strictly Come Dancing if you like, but much better would be to invite the neighbours round for a game of boccia, or carpet bowls, or even dominoes.  Me?  I’m playing more bridge.  I’ll get it into the Olympics one day.

MOVING

I started writing something last night about the Paralympics.  But I felt tired and went to bed before I'd finished.  The outcome is that today's newspapers have said most of what I wanted to say.  But of course I'll say it anyway; it deserves to be said.

I said earlier that I had changed my mind about the Paralympics and that, far from feeling uncomfortable watching blind football or the 200m for those with cerebral palsy or swimming for those with missing limbs, I am both stunned and captivated.

One often finds oneself listening to disabled persons speak animatedly of their pastimes or intellectual pursuits, or examining handicrafts displayed at a home for those with various disabilities, and one's enthusiasm is unavoidably tempered with a touch of pity or sorrow.  I think I had originally thought of the Paralympics in that way too.  Simon Barnes in The Times got it right when he said that many of us had felt previously that we should watch the Paralympics out of a sense of compassion or duty or support for some liberal social ideal.  But Lord Coe couldn't have been more right when he said at the Opening Ceremony that we should be prepared to be amazed.  And I am amazed that I, and everyone else for that matter, should be so happy.

So I watched Sarah Storey cycle home in the road race, after cycling 64km, a distance way beyond my fit capabilities, and she slowed down to pick up a Union Flag, flying it behind her as she crossed the finishing line and finishing over 7mins ahead of her nearest rival.  Sarah now has 5 golds for swimming and 6 for cycling, plus 7 silvers and three bronzes.  I have no hope of even qualifying for these events (not because I have all my limbs I don't mean, but because I could never equal, nor never have equalled, her achievement).  I watched Jonnie Peacock run the 100m in 10.9 secs with one leg and Richard Whitehead in the 200m with no legs . . . wow!  Just watch this.  You'll probably need to watch it twice.

Did you see that he was in last place at the 100m mark?  Watch it again.  Could I run as fast in my youth as either of these guys?  I doubt it.  Disabled?  Only superficially anyway.  And could I feel sorry for them?  Just look at how fired up and happy they were.  Of course I couldn't feel sorrow in the face of their achievements.  Envious a little maybe.  Who'd have thought that, that I might envy a man with one or both legs missing?

And there are so many other athletes I would wish to mention -  Hannah Cockcroft, who won the wheelchair 200m 2 secs ahead of anyone else; Jessica Long, the US swimmer, who won her first gold in 2004 and now has 12 golds, 3 silvers and a bronze; Ellie Simmonds, winning 2 gold medals at Beijing, aged just 13, and going for her 3rd gold today, after breaking 2 world records already; Danielle Brown and Sophie Christiansen, winning golds despite extraordinary handicaps, yet somehow transforming into totally different people when engaged in their sports; the Iranian men’s Sitting Volleyball team, odds-on favourite for the gold, doing so well because, poignantly, there are so many polio victims to choose from for the team; Esther Vergeer, the Dutch wheelchair tennis player, who hasn't lost a game I think for 7 years (at least she has only lost one in 11 years).  I think I'm in love with Esther BTW; who'd have thought that?  Certainly not Natasha Kaplinsky or Julia Bradbury (who don't know about each other incidentally, so don't say anything).

So, yes, suddenly disability is not a handicap.  But, more importantly, we don't now see it as a handicap.  I was struck by the wheelchair-bound lady interviewed on the radio the other day (I can't remember the context), who said that, when she visited the Olympic Park, no one ignored her, as they usually do, and many people came to talk to her because they thought she might be a Paralympian.  And, in today's Times, Melanie Reid, the famous paralyzed horserider, said that she hadn't wanted to go to the Paralympics because she was embarrassed at what the Paralympic equestrian team could achieve, but found herself surprised at how cool it now seemed to be to be disabled.  She also recounted amusingly the story of her in her wheelchair encountering a lady with a pushchair in a narrow space and finding she had to move out of the way.  No concessions then now to so-called disabled; they might be more able than we used to think.

And this is perhaps the legacy of these extraordinary Games - we now have a completely different view of disability.  I don't know whether it will remain cool to be disabled; I don't know that you will hear many people say (as we have heard many say at the Paralympics) that, if they could start again, they wouldn't want their legs back; nor do I know whether we will revert to ignoring or feeling sorry for those in wheelchairs, but I do know that there has been a step change.  And nowhere is it more apparent than in those countries which previously looked askance at those with disabilities.  It is notable for example how well the Chinese and Russian athletes have done this time (and note Jessica Long and Elisabeth Stone's stories).  I suspect that in Rio the Paralympics will be an even bigger event.

I am feeling particularly proud of myself today.  I have just been to the gym and had my performance measured.  Since I left hospital 6 months ago, I have put back a stone in weight, but, since starting the gym 6 weeks ago, I have remarkably lost an inch and a half round my waist at the same time.  So I won't now need to have a limb amputated to improve either my weight or my performance (or my street cred?).

IT HAS LEGACY

A desultory discussion has broken out again about the Olympics legacy.  Comments range from one miserable view in today’s Times that ‘the Orbit should be taken down and the stadium razed’ to Lord Moynihan’s (responsible for the British team at the London Games) sceptical, if political, prediction last year that ‘the 2012 London Olympics will fail to deliver any lasting sporting legacy for most young Britons’ to various specialist journals who are less pessimistic about the impact on their discrete sectors.

The first excellent legacy will be the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.  The plan is that, by next year (or the year after), the Olympic Park will become an exciting new visitor destination and community park.  It will certainly look good, if it is properly maintained.  And it will hugely benefit the people of the area and be attractive to visitors, no doubt to foreign visitors, for some years to come.  But it is a major commitment maintaining such a huge area (560 acres).  I visited the 1970 Osaka Expo (a sort of commercial Olympics) Park a few years back to see the site of one of the most successful British promotions.  Sadly, the park is now a bit derelict.  But the proposed usage of the London park, and the overseas interest, suggests it will survive.

The next obvious legacy arises from the commitment to ‘Inspire a Generation’.  Some effort (if not massive funding) has gone into a school sports promotion and the signs are that young people in Britain have indeed been inspired – there are reports from up and down the country of increased memberships at boxing gyms, archery ranges, athletic clubs, etc and reports of major sales by bicycle shops.  There was also a recent survey which found that 5m more adults had recently signed up to sports clubs too.  This legacy was of course the pledge that won the Olympics for Britain, but it was made with no evidence that I am aware of that Olympics do in fact inspire anyone to do anything (except watch more television).  The Sydney Olympics of 2000 has apparently had no such legacy, since Australian athletes won fewer medals this year than athletes from Yorkshire.  The feel-good factor of both the general euphoria at these Games and the pride of the success of Team GB has though it seems inspired many. 

As we struggle with the Olympic hangover (described by one blogger as picking out iced gems biscuits from a dish after someone has eaten all the icing), and in a country beset with obesity in every age group, maybe even the immediate interest in exercise and health is good news and legacy enough.  Of course the adults may have been less encouraged by the toning as by the salacious undertones of watching a succession of finely honed, semi-naked bodies for two weeks.  But even that’s a start.

However, apart from the Olympic Park, it’s clear to me that inward tourism will benefit enormously from the London Olympics.  Security is good after all, the transport works after all, it doesn’t after all rain all the time, the people are wonderful; why shouldn’t foreigners pour into London next year?  The Olympic period has apparently not been brilliant for shops or hotels, although I remain unconvinced that anyone visiting for the Games would stay or shop in Central London anyway, so any hopes of such a bonanza may have been misplaced (pricing may also have had a bearing here), but London theatres seem to have done particularly well in the last two weeks.  And it appears that the Paralympics are also set to be a success too – all advertising slots on TV during the Games has been sold, all ticketed event are sold out.  I’m not sure how much Paralympics I will watch; I will watch the start, but somehow feel awkwardly voyeuristic (in a different way from when I was watching the beach volleyball intently and over and over of course). 

The longish debate before the Games started over this question of legacy hinged primarily on whether the Games would actually offer a return on investment and lift Britain out of recession.  I felt at the time that this was a sterile debate; I don’t think the intention was ever that hosting the Olympics would make a profit and provide an immediate boost to the economy.  Any effect was always going to be long-term.   And the economic forecasts are not bright, particularly with the Eurozone going backwards. 

There was a temporary construction boom of course and unemployment has gone down also in the short term, and there is some optimism in the business world that companies will feel confident enough or will feel that the populace is now self-confident enough for them to expand employment.  And we have seen companies showing growth, Land Rover Jaguar for example have just introduced a three shift round the clock employment to cope with burgeoning demand.  And, once sponsor-imposed advertising restrictions are lifted, engineering, construction, design, etc companies in particular feel that they could benefit from the Olympic venue showcase.

The Olympic Village owner is also introducing creative selling/letting plans which should help first time home owners.  This will be of particular benefit to Londoners, since so many first-time buyers seem to want ‘affordable housing’ near Central London. 

The blue Union Flag segment of Team GB has also become something of a hit around the world too and has been turning up on fashion clothing, bags, etc.  I’m not sure whether any royalties are paid for this, but the interest in the brand is a plus.

And perhaps that’s the most important legacy.  Our confidence and patriotism will not have gone unnoticed around the world.  Coupled, as I say, by evidence that all is well with British infrastructure, this will encourage a new wave, or reassure an old one, of investors in Britain.  Our system of free market enterprise depends vitally on companies investing in the country, both through M&A and green-field start-ups, as well as the employment of British expertise in a range of sectors.  The Olympics has been one of the most successful investment promotion campaigns we’ve ever had.  And this comes at a time, not of British desperation, but of the faltering of the Eurozone, accompanied by unrest, notably in France, Greece and Spain, but even in Germany, as economic measures bite.  Britain must look a good bet in Europe at the moment.

And perhaps the surge in self-confidence and renewed pride in our nation, as it is today, is a legacy to be proud of in itself.  I have seen many comments from members of the public which encourage me in this thought, several from those who have seen the patriotism of immigrant athletes or the camaraderie of different nations’ athletes, and even comments from immigrants about how proud the Olympics made them (including from one who had always thought Madness’ Our House was an anthem of skinheads and racists, but hearing it at the Olympics opening and closing ceremonies now sees it as an inclusivity anthem).   And one has to say that the very natural way in which athletes and performers from all ethnic backgrounds have represented Britain in the last two weeks has been quite remarkable (or maybe I mean not remarkable?).  All this makes one feel that multi-culturalism does have a place in a peaceful world.  What a legacy that would be!  (Of course Peter Hitchens takes the opposite view of international competition.  But that too only encourages me in my view).  Wouldn’t it be wonderful, if the sight of a united kingdom encouraged divided nations – N and S Korea, Israeli and Arab, Syria, Ireland even, to put aside their differences?  OK, sorry, that was a bit of daydreaming there for a second.

But it is true that the foreign athletes and the foreign spectators returning to their own countries will be the best ambassadors we could have.  They had great time, they loved the people, they loved the country.  And maybe the appearance of Iranian athletes at the Games (despite the threatened boycott) and of Saudi women (despite criticism at home) will have reassured some sceptics of the harmlessness of such gestures.

But, one has to say, I still have this sneaking suspicion that the whole Olympics programme may just have been one massive political ploy to convince Scotland that it is better off joined inextricably to England in a sort of Team GB.  In the present wave of mass euphoria, Scottish Ministers must now begin in earnest their campaign for Scottish independence.  Who will now listen?  Can this have been the Government’s first shots across the Scottish bows?  Anyway that’s a whole different question.  But even Andy Murray has shown that he is not after all a miserable git and has clearly now been adopted by English spectators.  The Olympics has, if nothing else, shown one thing – that anything is possible.

TWIDDLING HEELS

Or kicking my thumbs.  Just sitting here.  No Olympics to watch on television.  Not doing anything in fact.  Apart from trying to think of a sport I can do and in which I might compete in 2016.  Maybe heel twiddling could become an Olympic event?  Or maybe I should just go to Rio without competing and just enjoy the atmosphere.  But I think I have to go.  After the closing ceremony yesterday, a lot of Brazilian people came into the arena to give us a taste of what we could expect in Rio.  I wasn't much attracted by the man in the white suit with a beard round his neck, although I gather he is quite famous in Brazil and dances a bit of samba.  But the accompanying ladies looked interesting.  Beach volleyball is clearly going to be even more enthralling in four years time.  Yes, must go to Rio.

But the fact remains that I have nothing to do now.  I am inspired by the Olympics.  I'm not sure I'm the generation they intended to inspire, but here I am desperate to get into something.  But what?

I've watched rowing, sailing, taekwando, shooting, running, jumping, horse-riding, everything!  I've just been gripped and entirely captivated by the prowess of all the sportsmen and sportswomen involved.  I am totally motivated to get on and do something more than just sit here on this sofa watching others do the running and jumping.  The Olympics have ended and now it's time to get involved.

Hang on a moment.  The football season starts next weekend.  I can sit here and watch that.  That's my free time sorted then.  Isn't it great to be inspired!?

MEDAL FATIGUE

I know a little about equestrian events and can even be excited by them, but, while I was watching the Olympics this afternoon, I was totally gripped by the drama unfolding – man and horse welded into one being, raising the dust as they tore across the course (must be some sort of cross-country event I thought), leaping ditches, splashing through rivers (hmmm, must be a kind of steeplechase), then the rest of the team joined him (a team steeplechase?), then they stop to fire their rifles (aha, must be the team equestrian biathlon), the other team were in the distance and didn’t seem to be doing so well.  Then the adverts came up.  ‘We will return shortly to your Saturday afternoon film, Gunfight at Dodge City’.  Oh, I seemed to be watching the only channel that isn’t showing any Olympics.

Never the less, another exciting Olympic day here.  But are we satisfied?  First we were moaning and carping because we hadn’t won a medal, then came the goldrush and somehow we just got used to winning, now there are beginning to be doubts about whether we should be winning so many.  Isn’t that just so British?!  On the other hand, I do wonder whether we place a bit too much importance on the gold medal.  Or on medals per se.  More on that in a moment.  First I thought you might like to see the impartial BBC commentary box as Mo Farah took the gold in the 10,000m.

And here’s the commentary box when he gained double gold by winning the 5,000m.

Not the most exciting races I’ve ever seen, but you can tell that the last laps were electric.

But back to medals.  Originally, winners were given an olive branch.  Not even a special olive branch - just one from a wild tree that anyone could go and pick, if they wanted to, out in the countryside.  Afrter that, winners came to be given an olive branch and a silver medal, while runners-up got a laurel branch and a bronze.  Then, some Olympic hosts started giving cups to the winners.  Finally, in the St Louis games, gold, silver and bronze were introduced.  So now the object is to win a gold medal.  The prowess of athletes is measured in the number of golds they have. 

Of course, some athletes have a better chance of taking medals than others; Mark Spitz won seven gold medals at the 1972 Olympics – a phenomenal achievement – but it was a trickier task for John Williams, another American gold medal winner in those Games, who won one medal for archery.  But what chance did he have to win another medal?   Not even a relay event in archery.  But that’s a debate for another day.  And then look at the reactions of the British silver medal winners, Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase, who put so much into their double sculls race that they had to be carried practically from the boat and could hardly speak.  Of course interviewing them then was bonkers, but that’s another story too.

So we have come from the day, when the honour was simply taking part in the Olympics, to today, when not winning a gold is somehow a total failure.

I don’t think we have too many medals and certainly not too many golds, but sometimes I wish they would devote less of the end of day round-up on television to positions on the medal table and the number of gold medals we have won (actually Russia has more medals than us; but we are above them purely because of our golds).  Maybe we’ve placed too much emphasis on the trophies and not enough on the winning of them?  I watched excerpts of today’s Mo Farah race on the news followed by the display of the medals won by each country to date and the shot of the medals table was longer than the clip of the 5,000m. 

And don’t forget that sometimes the result is not purely based on athleticism.  There were several falls or off-days or rules infringements that cost competitors a medal.  Victoria Pendleton for example was disqualified from two cycling events that she had won, whereas she had never made those mistakes in reaching the same results in training.  She could have taken home three gold medals instead of the one single one she won, all on a technical fault.  And what about the team ball sports?  With very few exceptions, there were no out and out expected winners; they all benefited from the odd fortunate score or fortunate miss.  So is awarding gold medals to the winning team justified?  Who can say?  It’s based on the winning score on the day, regardless of who’s fastest, fittest or strongest in fact, so we accept the result and the medal awards.

But isn’t it wonderful when someone wins an exciting event?!  And wouldn’t you like to have a gold medal for something?  I think, after this two weeks, that I should get a gold medal for bouncing in an armchair and screaming (and, yes, it’s hardly believable, but it’s the closing ceremony tomorrow!  And my spies tell me that it’s to be a celebration of great British music.  So no Lily Allen then.  But they are trying to get the Spice Girls back; apparently, there is too much happiness and smiling after the Olympics and they thought Posh Spice might help make everyone miserable again).  Anyway, if you want a gold medal, I’ve just discovered you can buy one for £6 on eBay.  Maybe that’s like going into the countryside and cutting a branch of wild olive after all?

TEARS APART

If we were still having a drought, it would have ended anyway now with all the crying that has been going on at the Olympics.  Even Sir Chris Hoy, six time gold medal winner and that model of coolth and steely resolve, had his blubber moment as the National Anthem played.  As for me, I'm on my second box of tissues.  And I'm only a spectator. 

Of course the steely resolve from the years of training and self-denial required to win an Olympic gold has to evaporate as the ultimate goal is achieved.  The relief would lead anyone to tears.  I was quite shocked though that even our gold medal clay pigeon shooter collapsed from the stress and tension after he had won.  You wouldn't think it on a par with cycling half a dozen laps of the velodrome at 70kms an hour, would you.  But it seems to be the same for almost all athletes. 

The dedication, not just the strength and fitness, needed to reach world standard is incomprehensible.  Some of the stories that are emerging now, make it very clear (if we didn't already suspect it) that winning is not just luck on the day.  Katherine Grainger for example, our double scull gold medal winner, has won silver medals at three previous Games, and explained that she has been training for 15 years to reach a good enough standard to take the gold medal.  15 years!  No wonder she cried.

I have written two posts before about Jessica Ennis, so it would be churlish of me not to highlight her again, now that she has finally won her Olympic gold medal.  She too has done little else for years but to train for this moment.  She is so little and so sweet that it hardly seems possible that she could compete against the other athletes in the competition.  Yet she pulled out personal bests in three of the seven heptathlon events and her time for the 100m hurdles equalled the 2008 Beijing gold medal winning time for the individual womens 100m hurdles event.  No one could ask more of her.  Her winning points total was a new British and Commonwealth record.  What a golden girl!  What pressure she faced to win on her home soil!  But she is so normal and cool that she seemed to acknowledge her achievement with a smile and a wave and without a tear in her eye (until the last moment, when her lip quivered a little).  Lucky I was making up for it or we'd soon be back on that hosepipe ban.

Perhaps the greatest achievement though was that of double gold medal cyclist, Laura Trott.  She was born with a collapsed lung, subsequently developed asthma, and then decided to try cycling to build up her strength.  She still suffers from a vomiting condition which requires her to have a bucket on hand when training and usually throws up after a race (and famously threw up on live TV at the World Championships last year).  Yet, since competing for the first time last year, at the age of 19, she has never lost a race.  Double world champion and now double Olympic champion.  Wow!  Makes complaining about a bit of a stomach ache seem really wimpish.

But, in amongst a slew of remarkable Olympic champions and even in the midst of extraordinary cycling success, I feel I have to pluck out Ben Ainslie as my British champion of champions.  Ben has just won sailing gold in his fourth successive Olympics (he only made silver in 1996).  OK, I know he hasn't run or jumped or peddled or lifted any heavy objects, but how can one sailor be so obviously better than the rest of the world for so long with identical boats, identical water and identical wind to his rivals?  I don't know anything about sailing, but his achievement seems way above all the others.  He's not sure he'll be at Rio, but why not?  I want to see him one more time!  And he didn't cry when he won either.

GAMES AT THE TWENTY12 OLYMPICS

So, now we’ve started to win medals, the media mood has improved a little.  

 

There is still a tendency to look on the black side.  Commentator in interview with silver medal winners : ‘so you didn’t win.  How are feeling right now?’  I was amazed to hear also on the radio news this morning that retail shops and hotels in London are complaining that the expected crowds of tourists haven’t materialised.  I’m not surprised about the shops incidentally – most people are either in the Olympic Park or sitting in front of a television somewhere.  Did anyone really expect tourists to come here during the Olympics and to spend all their time in the shops?  But they interviewed a hotelier who complained that he had just had to reduce his tariff from £500 a night to around £100.  I wonder whether putting his prices up 500% in the first place might have discouraged one or two people.

It may be true that there are not so many people about, but I am pleased to see that venues are on the whole packed now and there are few empty seats.  I think that the Olympics just took a while to get properly underway.  Or maybe there weren’t so many people wanting to watch unheard-of athletes in preliminary competitions.  But I was certainly struck in my one foray so far (to the tennis) by the feeling of there being such an entity as an Olympic family.  It’s a horrible term maybe, but there was a friendship and a sense of something shared at the matches I watched, with jokey rival chanting for GB or another team.  And on the next court to ours there was a match between India and the Netherlands, where half the audience was Dutch and half Indian (no doubt from the Indian community in Britain), and the noise was extraordinary.  It struck me then how much this Olympics is more than just Team GB performing in Britain.

But the radio news went on unwisely to add that visitors have been put off coming to London by stories of security concerns, transport problems or weather.  Hang on a mo, I thought.  Where did these stories come from?  Exactly.  This is another case of the media creating self-fulfilling prophesies, talking up issues and fears when they have nothing else to write about and then claiming there actually is a disaster when that story has run long enough.  

The same applies to the question I heard on one of those awful radio chat shows the other day.  ‘Do you think the Olympics is going to help Britain out of the recession or will it add to our economic burden?’  I don’t think these are opposites exactly anyway, but still I don’t recall, when we won the lottery to host the Olympics, anyone predicting that all our economic problems would now be solved either.  Similarly, I don’t think anyone predicted a retail boom.  What was suggested though was that in London this summer (if you can call it that) there was to be one long festival of arts and culture.  There are in other words many other things going on apart from the Olympics and it is then, when the Games have ended, that perhaps people will be wandering the streets and popping into shops and restaurants.  Let’s see if that happens . . .

But there is another question here.  I do understand a little how sponsorship works and how it pays to have a few ‘official sponsors’ rather than lots of competing companies at an event like the Olympics.  But I just wonder whether we have thought this through fully.  There have been so many cases of shops having window displays removed (for displaying the wrong company names with Olympic logos) or athletes prevented from showing the names of their own sponsors (where not official sponsors) or rival company names being obscured, that it is clear that sponsorship agreements have become too draconian.  See here for more details.

Apparently, even using the incorrect terms to refer to the Olympics can mean that you are breaking the law (hence the (safe) title of this post).  But it is the width of the ‘exclusion zone’ that is so extraordinary.  I thought it just plain silly at Wimbledon that Pimms was not permitted to display its brand name and therefore called itself ‘No 1 Cup’, as though that made some sort of difference.  Nearly everyone knew what it was anyway and simply asked at the bar for Pimms.  I heard one foreign visitor ask what No 1 Cup was and the barman said, ‘oh, it’s Pimms’.  So what did hiding the brand name achieve?  

But it became perfectly clear what sponsors’ aims are, when, at Lords cricket ground this morning (where the archery is being held), a BBC commentator had his umbrella confiscated because it displayed a company name that wasn’t a sponsor.  Isn’t this ludicrous?!  The most important objective for sponsors therefore is not the Olympics, nor even advertising; it is restricting the activities of its rivals.  This apparently is a benefit big companies are willing to pay up to £100 million for.  The fact that rival companies are paying good money to sponsor athletes or that totally unrelated and non-rival companies, such as construction companies, have won contracts to supply products to the stadia, is beside the way; they must all be penalised to ensure a clear passage for the official sponsors.

So, I come back to the point about the absence of visitors.  If it really is a problem, don’t you think one of the things sponsors could usefully have done, in exchange for their sponsorship rights, is to promote the Olympics as an attraction and London as a place to visit?  Instead they seem to have operated the other way round – every view of the Olympics must have their companies’ names in sight, and athletes compete under the threat of punishment if they don’t comply, police must be taken from their usual tasks to penalise non-sponsoring companies on the sponsors’ behalfs, and whenever we wish to eat or drink, we must have sponsors’ logos flashed in front of our eyes, as if claiming credit for the meal, even if we actually eat and drink something else.  None of this seems to benefit the Games or even London.  It is no help to the authorities, athletes or spectators.  And apparently not to hotels and shops either.  In fact, since the sponsors have so little time left from their war on rivals to promote either London or the Olympics, the opposite seems to be true.

The Olympics is of course an international event, so sponsors don’t have to be strongly associated with the country hosting the Games, but, given that we are trying to present a welcoming image of London and UK, it does seem odd to me that we can’t sell bitter, or Pimms (except under a pseudonym), or sausage and mash, or Marmite on toast, etc at venues - all those things in fact that make Britain the desirable place to visit that it is.  Sponsoring companies paid tens of millions for the privilege of displaying their names; we possibly spent all of those receipts on policing the sponsorship terms, penalising innocent members of the public, and obliterating from view names that the sponsors didn’t like.  Can it be so much worse if we have lots of local sponsors paying smaller sums each for the benefit of providing food and drink that we actually want and sports equipment that we actually use and maybe some hotels and shops that we want visitors to patronise too?