TITLE: The Olympic Games Are Heading To London In 2012, But Will They Really Live Up To Expectations Or Will The Unsavoury Side Of Sport Upset The Party

I’ve been a sports fan since I was at junior school, having been given a crash course in football by my friend when I was about eight years old. John was able to get a ticket for the F.A. Cup Final one time, and I, with childish optimism, insisted on watching the match on television hoping that I would be able to see him in the stands. Obviously, I didn’t notice him, but I had got enthusiastic about the spectacle of the big match. Once in my teens I evolved into a dedicated football fan, with the scores round-up at five o’clock|5pm|tea-time on a Saturday afternoon impacting on my wellbeing for the remainder of the weekend. Luckily for my parents, I was a fan of a team who won more often than they lost!

In time, I began to watch numerous other sports on television. Test cricket rapidly became a favourite at a time when an attack of glandular fever left me holed up indoors during a series in the West Indies, snooker had been pulled from the pubs and clubs of Britain and turned into primetime viewing thanks to some inventive marketing and the realisation that it was a sport that was reasonably cheap and straightforward to televise. And then there was the Olympic Games, a stunning sporting spectacle which came around every four years and in which the whole world competed on the same terms. Or so we were led to believe.

Since my earliest memory of anything connected with the Olympics was the dreadful events which took place in Munich in 1972, it’s perhaps surprising that I adored the whole concept of the event as much as I did. But the Munich games also gave us Mark Spitz’s amazing tally of seven gold medals in the swimming pool – an achievement only bettered thirty-six years later by Michael Phelps. Years of viewing Communist regime athletes effortlessly beating allcomers aided by performance enhancing drugs which were not tested for didn’t dent my enthusiasm either, and I have enthusiastically watched as much television footage as I have been able to in past years – until now. (Is it surprising that I now need glasses to see properly and am saving up for Laser eye surgery? Too many years spent watching sport on television!)

No matter how hard I try, I’m finding it a problem to build up any enthusiasm for the London Games. Even friends who usually don’t like sport are of the opinion that they’d rather like to go and see a couple of events, as it might be the only opportunity that they have in their lifetime, yet I, who used to be such a keen sports fan, and can reach the main Olympic site in less than an hour from my house, have no interest at all in trying to buy tickets.

I believe that there are a few reasons for this. Firstly, I am tired of the number of scandals and unsavoury events that have begun to discredit many sports – pub fight footballers, bribed cricketers, drug taking athletes, jockeys accepting backhanders, and behind them all, the shady types who do most of the damage and who create such havoc purely for personal financial advantage.

Secondly, big business has forced its way into on so many events now. Everything has company branding, events are planned to suit television executives wishes instead of the fans, sportsmen and women are told what clothes they may wear and which products they have to endorse, including diet supplements and Laser eye treatments – aren’t these effectively ‘legal’ cheating? But the outcome for the public is paying crazy prices to watch a match in order to top up the corporate pockets of the businessmen who are running the sport, and without necessarily being certain if teams or competitors are genuinely playing against each other on equal terms. The golfer who sings the praises of Laser eye surgery - doesn’t the surgery give him an unfair advantage? The football team whose management use some obscure type of therapist – is everything he asks the team to do totally legitimate?

Finally, I don’t see the wealth of personalities in sport any longer. There are a few characters who might be described as entertaining, but in the light of the money now involved, many sportspeople don’t believe that they can do something outrageous every now and then because anything they do or say might have an effect on their contract. I find myself hoping for another Daley Thompson, Jackie Stewart, Tony Currie, Henry Cooper or John McEnroe (though I can believe that he’d probably be promoting Laser eye treatment if he was still playing at his best now – though for the tennis officials instead of himself!)
David Kerr (BRA) vs Jonathan Batista (ARG) -80 Kg

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