REFLECTIONS ON LONDON 2012

The games now over, already starting to turn cold, memories always of faces, Mo Farah’s extraordinary facial expressions as he approached the finishing line, the astonished look on the face of the young female rower, hugging her team mate whilst intoning “we’ve won, we’ll be on a stamp,” the young female boxer Nicola Adams grinning broadly after winning gold, the broken faces of the rowers who had failed to win. The winners and losers so ordinary, so very young, like the three cyclists giggling like tipsy schoolgirls after winning gold, and sometimes so gloriously working class, like Nicola Adams saying that winning the Gold medal hade “made my day,” rather as if she had found £5 on the pavement rather than reached the pinnacle of her career. Here was working class understatement.

The extraordinary charm of the games did not pass me by.

All this said the Olympics existed only at the periphery of my vision and I suspect this was true of the majority of Londoners. I was pleased when members of my own tribe triumphed, though as the medals began to stack up and the coverage became increasingly and nauseatingly jingoistic my enthusiasm began to cool. The Olympics if it is about anything at all is about individual talent, will, dedication, perseverance and sheer bloody graft. The focus should be on the achievements of individual athletes, not on national aspirations to be top dog nation; if the winner is from your tribe all well and good, celebrate, but the victory is his/hers not a vindication of the tribe.

The dominance of the Olympics on TV, supplanting virtually all other events in the world,[1] and the reverence with which the Olympic flame was greeted seem to herald the arrival of a new religion. To express doubts, let alone cynicism about the Olympics has become the moral equivalent of wearing your hat in the cathedral. 

I visited both Hyde Park and the Olympic Park in Stratford but did not stay long at either venue. What was said about the volunteers, the ‘games makers,’ was all true; they were all irrepressibly cheerful, waving their large rubber hands with its handgun barrel finger, which I began to find increasingly sinister, directing you first this way then another, shouting cheerfully through loud hailers. “Welcome to London, please have your tickets ready, dispose of any liquids now, liquids will not be allowed into the arena.” After about ten minutes of this the phrase smiling totalitarianism was born in my mind. I felt a sense of relief in escaping.

I knew, know that I am in a minority and even in feeling so surly was committing some kind of thought crime against ‘the spirit of London 2012.’ I would though have felt the same at the Nuremberg rallies.[2] For as Polly Toynbee points out in an excellent article in the Guardian[3]’…… for all their shameless demands, those sponsors only paid 6%, the public paid the rest,’ these were state games paid for by the people. Capitalism for all its constant boasting could not have delivered, as it failed to delivery security as demonstrated by the pre-games debacle when troops had to be bussed in at the last minute.

So now we are committed to blowing billions on sport, on ‘games,’ (the clue lies in the name). But again as Polly Toynbee points out.  ‘Glorious, epic, expensive, feel good fun is how people sometimes blow their money on parties, holidays or celebrations, so why shouldn't a nation do likewise?’[4]

For my self I quite liked it when my tribe were indisputably amateur, even shambolic at times, but good sports who sometimes excelled against all the odds. As I say I am aware that I am in a minority, and it looks as if those days are gone for good. In future we will be throwing bucket-loads of money at sport as, emulating the former Soviet bloc states, we fight ruthlessly to retain our position on the medal league table.

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[1] Earthquake in Iran, third item in the news after two Olympic medals for Team GB.

[2] Dear reader I am making a point not seeking to compare the two events.

[3] Comment Is Free, Guardian 13.08.12.

[4] Ibid

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