THE compassion that was clearly mixed with satisfaction and relief as Andy Murray completed the defence of his Olympic title was warming. As his smile froze and he moved towards the net to embrace Juan Martin del Potro, the depth of respect for an opponent who had performed magnificently in the course of the tournament was evident.
They had, too, engaged in a battle that went some way towards justifying the positions of those who remain adamant that sports such as tennis form a legitimate part of the Olympic Games, rather than owing their place to more cynical motivation.
Which brings me to an exchange from earlier in the summer with one
of my oldest pals in this business,
Alan ‘Fozzy’ Fraser and his recruitment of a name that is apparently calculated to boost book sales when publishing his latest opus: The Hitler Trophy: Golf and the Olympic Games.
A ripping yarn, the discovery in a Glasgow attic of the prize put up by the Fuhrer for his golf tournament that took place during the infamous Berlin Olympics serves as an ideal promotional tool for Fozzy’s account of golf’s place in the history of the Games and, he hopes, its future. However the book’s publication also explained why he got a bit uptight when I supported Rory McIlroy’s view, eloquently expressed during the Open this summer, that golf has no place at the Olympics.
His strenuous protests about how important the Olympics had become for tennis, as demonstrated by Murray’s commitment to it and how important they duly would for golf did nothing, however, to persuade me that sports in which Olympic gold medals, do not represent the ultimate prize have a place at a competition principally populated by sportsmen for whom they do.
Tennis, golf and, for that matter, football and basketball, already have vehicles to allow their finest talents to exhibit themselves as big commercial successes in their own right.
Hence, dare one suggest, the real reason the International Olympic Committee wants a piece of the action. It remains shameful that, for example,
a sport like squash, which fits every requirement of the Olympic ideal of inclusivity and ease of access, remains overlooked in their favour. That Murray cares as he does, meanwhile, speaks well of him as an individual, but is irrelevant in terms of the overall discussion that has seen the Olympic credentials of the sports themselves, as opposed to their lobbying power, take too much of a back seat down the years.
By contrast, what could have said more in the past few days about what the Olympics should be about than the social media sensation that has been the appearances on Irish television of Gary and Paul O’Donovan, the brothers who have put the town of Skibbereen, close to Ireland’s southernmost tip, firmly on to the sporting map with their silver?
Population 2568, it lies in Gaelic Football heartland but, deep in Munster, also boasts a rugby club, a soccer club as they call it thereabouts,
a golf club and an athletics club.
Skibbereen – apparently meaning ‘little boat harbour’ – is also a popular spot for fishing, scuba diving, sailing, kayaking and, of course, it houses one of Ireland’s finest rowing clubs.
A first Olympic medal for Irish rowers cannot be compared to the achievements of British rowers down the years. However, when it comes to encouraging participation, the engaging nature of these down-to-earth lads from a remote part of the world may be a bit easier for the average youngster to identify with than products of the Henley medal factory.
It should be noted that while the O'Donovan's have amused and entertained, Irish 'amateurishness' may also extend – in the wrong way – to the behaviour of some of their nation's administrators.
However with regard to encouraging youngsters into sport, rowing's greatest Olympian, Steve Redgrave, observed earlier this summer: “The opportunity of playing different sports and the coaching abilities at private schools are, unfortunately, much greater than at the state schools.”
By contrast, while they cannot possibly be as casual about their approach to sport as they would have us believe, the O’Donovans, whose observations have apparently included that “t’is great to beat the Brits”, make it all seem a bit more accessible.
So, when, in a brief moment of seriousness, the younger of them observed: “It’s a fantastic sport and we just hope that more people will start to realise that and maybe take it up,” you feel that thousands of youngsters from all sorts of backgrounds will be persuaded that it just might be worth giving it a go.
All of which should be placed in the context of the focus placed by those funding British sport on the relentless pursuit of medals – the cost per medal to Team GB being an estimated £5.5 million – rather than participation.
Irish sport, by contrast, seems rather less industrial in approach, yet sent two teams to Euro 2016, while previously acquiring a Grand Slam, four Triple Crowns, three Six Nations titles, six Heineken Cups and nine major championship golfing triumphs.
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