TITLE: The Olympic Games Are Due Into London In Less Than Five Hundred Days, But Will They Really Live Up To The Hype Or Will The Bad Side Of Sport Ruin The Party

I’ve been into various sports since I was a child, having been encouraged to watch football by my neighbour when I was approximately eight years old. John was lucky enough to get a ticket for the F.A. Cup Final one year, and I, with childish optimism, insisted on watching the match on TV in the hope that I would be able to locate him in the stands. Obviously, I didn’t spot him, but I had got hooked by the spectacle of the big match. During my teens I became a dedicated football fan, with the scores round-up at five o’clock|5pm|tea-time on a Saturday afternoon affecting my mood for what remained of the weekend. Fortunately for others in the house, I followed a side who won more frequently than they lost!

Over the years, I set out to watch many other sports on television. Test cricket rapidly became a favourite after a bout of glandular fever left me holed up indoors during a series in the West Indies, snooker had been dragged from the pubs and clubs of the UK and mutated into primetime viewing by way of some creative PR and the realisation that here was a sport that was reasonably cheap and straightforward to televise. And then there was the Olympic Games, a magnificent sporting spectacle which came around every four years and in which all the world competed on the same terms. Or so we were told.

As my earliest recall of anything relating to the Olympics was the dreadful events which took place in Munich in 1972, it’s maybe odd that I loved the whole notion of the event as much as I did. But the same games also gave us Mark Spitz’s incredible collection of seven gold medals in the swimming pool – an achievement only bettered three years ago by Michael Phelps. Hours of seeing Eastern Bloc athletes effortlessly defeating allcomers thanks to performance enhancing drugs which were not tested for didn’t diminish my enthusiasm either, and I have fanatically watched as much footage as possible in past years – until now. (Is it any wonder that I now use glasses to see properly and am trying to find the money for Laser eye surgery? Too many days spent watching sport on the small screen!)

And 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 have any interest in sport are of the opinion that they’d rather like to go and watch a couple of events, as it may be the only chance that they have in their lifetime, yet I, who claim to be such an enthusiastic sports fan, and can get to the main Olympic stadium in less than an hour from home, have no inclination to buy tickets.

I would suggest that there are several reasons for this. Firstly, I am tired of the number of scandals and unsavoury events that have begun to discredit many sports – bar brawl footballers, bribed cricketers, drug cheat athletes, jockeys accepting backhanders, and in the background, the shady types who are responsible for much of the damage and who cause such havoc purely for personal financial gain.

Secondly, big business has an iron grip on so many events now. Everything has corporate branding, events are timed to suit television executives wishes ahead 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 ridiculous prices to watch a tournament in order to top up the corporate pockets of those who are running the sport, and without always being convinced if teams or competitors are actually competing 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 owners have taken on some obscure sort of therapist – is everything he asks the team to do totally legal?

Finally, I don’t see the wealth of personalities in sport these days. There are a few characters who might be referred to as entertaining, but in the light of the money now involved, most sportspeople don’t think that they can do something outrageous every now and then because anything they do or say might affect their contract. I find myself hoping for another Linford Christie, James Hunt, Malcolm MacDonald, Henry Cooper or John McEnroe (though I can believe that he’d probably be advertising Laser eye treatment if he was still playing at his best now – but for the tennis officials and not for himself!)