Should Britain be setting out to ‘own the podium’ at the London Olympics in two years’ time? I mean — we can’t own it every single event, can we? The last time I looked we weren’t exactly overblessed with weightlifters, and we might have to question our chances in Greco-Roman wrestling. I wouldn’t back us to do too well at water-polo, and as for handball, well…
The ‘own the podium’ concept was what brought Canada a record 14 gold medals at the Winter Games that have just ended in Vancouver. If you want a successful Games, went the logic, you have to have the locals behind it, and what the locals want is home success. So you spend what it takes to make sure that happens. Am I alone in finding this a slightly depressing development?
It strikes me as rather bullying behaviour, or at the very least unhostlike — and that modest, civilised Canada should be behind it is perhaps the most surprising thing of all. Haven’t they heard of FHB — family hold back? It slightly took the edge off a fantastic climax to the Games on Sunday night when the Canadian men’s ice hockey team bagged that 14th gold by beating the US with a sudden-death winner in overtime. A man with a name straight out of 1930s music-hall, Sidney Crosby, scored the vital goal, and from Yukon to Nova Scotia will never have to buy his own drinks ever again.
Much has been written about what London can learn from Vancouver, and should we find ourselves in need of a few million tons of snow then we’ll have all the expertise we could need. Possibly of more relevance is how to ensure that a host city is gripped by a fortnight-long frenzy of excitement from which no citizen is immune, and that brings us back to ‘own the podium’.
UK Sport, the body that distributes the Lottery money that has already transformed our Olympic fortunes, is very much signed up to the idea, and the sums pledged to try to guarantee that gold medals rain down on our athletes are incredible. Quite separate from the £9 billion being spent on staging the Games, there is the so-called Beijing-to-London budget, with more than £250 million being spent on 26 sports, ranging from £790,000 for beach volleyball to £26 million for rowing. ‘UK Sport’s remit is quite simple now,’ a spokesman said this week. ‘Winning medals.’
Oh dear. Are the London Games succumbing to the dreaded targets culture that blights almost every state institution you can think of? Desperately wanting to succeed is one thing. Not being able to afford to fail is another. It all sounds a bit joyless.
Part of our difficulty is the standard we have already set. We exceeded all expectations with our nine golds and 30 medals in all at the 2004 Athens Games. But that was nothing to what happened in Beijing four years later. Our golds total leapt to 19, our overall haul to 47, and we finished fourth in the medals table. In sporting parlance, we might have peaked too early. But frankly, so what if we did?
Wimbledon has never been anything other than the greatest tennis tournament in the world — adored by Brits no matter that home-grown success is as rare as hen’s teeth. Can’t the London Olympics be the same?
Manchester United and Aston Villa players are moaning about the state of the Wembley pitch for last Sunday’s Carling Cup final. Give over, lads. Football’s not billiards. A harsh winter’s just a fact of life, and your skills have been flattered by manicured surfaces for far too long.
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