These last few months have been unsettling. So many wins and winningest performances as the journalists say when grudgingly admitting that the Brits are pretty damn good at some sports.
We went to Beijing with some ridiculous target of medals that was based on doing well in track and field. FAILED!
Redeeming our fortunes were some rather spectacular performances in the cycling – both track and road, one old hand in a boat - Ben Ainslie turned up trumps - and some muscular girls and chaps in rowing boats.
Then came the Paralympics. No longer could we rely on Tanni to do the biz for Britain. Lots of new faces and bodies were out there.
Spectacularly Ellie Simmonds (13 years old!) won hearts and minds with her amazing swims. Dave Roberts backed up the Welsh talent with a couple of golds and again we celebrated home triumphs.
On the back of an Olympic Games that brought more medals overall than had been dreamt of, the Paras did the same. Second in the table.
What a wonderful springboard for 2012 and the Games coming home to London.
There were plenty of reasons to celebrate two months of sporting excellence and yet plenty of questions.
Why didn’t track and field athletes win the medals that were targeted in either games? What was the touch of gold that brought every success to our cyclists – in both games?
However much we enjoyed the successes, we come back to normal sports and see that Britain isn’t as good as we thought we were.
This weekend has thrown up some real problems in our sporting world. Liverpool failed to get a goal against Stoke! Almost enough to send me searching for the Valium. How could that be? Villa puts two in the net against West Brom. Weird.
And more seriously, because, yes, my friends, there are sporting questions more pressing than the Premier League….
Because Britain only has one world-class tennis player (Andy Murray), we have crashed out of the World group of Davis Cup nations and will be forced to play countries that we’ve never heard of for about four years.
And we’ve surrendered the Ryder Cup to a nation of war-mongering fools who think it’ll be a great idea to vote in another Republican this year because they believe that Iran is a misprint on the map.
Am I feeling jaded, sad and pissed off? Yes. You bet. When we achieve sporting excellence it doesn’t just make me feel good. It makes the nation feel good. When Chris Hoy got his third gold medal it was on the front page of every Scottish paper – even the sodding Sun (bumping the obligatory “We’ve found a Paedophile” story onto page 2).
Sporting failure is given headline treatment too. Tomorrow’s tabloids will lead with “Faldo’s Failure” and “Murray’s heroics all in vain”. Or some such garbage.
Every wonderful success in August will be forgotten – yesterday’s chip wrappings as the sharking sports writers go into a feeding frenzy of the weekend’s failures.
There will be no time for reasoned consideration. Very few inches will be given to those who excelled in a losing cause and not for the first time, when I read the sports pages, I will raise my hands to my head and feel like sobbing for the lost cause that is the fun of sport.
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10 comments:
Very entertaining Mimi. Now, though, back to the real business of arguing whether Faldo was to blame for losing the Ryder Cup or speculating whether Andy Murray will play in the Davis Cup again!
I think if Mimi was from Spain she will be dancing the flamenco non stop on the top of la Giralda, waiving the spanish flag- After all, Spain, of all the countries is having the best year ever- Tennis, Bicycle, Football, Toreador,oops!
Faldo was wrong.
If I were Spanish, I think I would dance the Tarentello - because despite the awfulness of everything, I can enjoy Arsene's young boys with their 6-0 win, and the joy of sport is that for every moment of despair, there is one of joy.
I'd love to be overjoyed at Contador's achievement which is epochal, but somehow I don't care and few others do either.
Yeah, Lance is coming back and where does that leave Contador?
Yes mouth; I agree. I am also split between thinking it's a great achievement and putting it to one side in my mind due to his murky past.
As with Lance, is the word on the street not that Contador is privately seething? Can't blame him - although I am a bit sceptical about his achievements he has completed a hat-trick of Grand Tours in 15 months, whilst LA has been in a suit. The problem apparently is that Contador has no buy-out clause in his contract so needs to be fairly diplomatic for the moment.
The men need to learn some grace. All this in-fighting is rubbish. Watch and learn from the world's best Welshwoman.
Nicole Cooke - Rainbow jersey and Olympic title in one year. How grand is that??
Indeed, Mimi, and she even looks good in lycra:)
I can report that down the road from here at Stratford is a large mud-flat surrounded by blue fences, and every day lorries full of readymix concrete go in there and don't seem to come out, so at the very least for 2012 we will have a super large carpark.
Haven't seen any local citizens being trained to smile yet, though.
Zeph,
May be the city is building an underground freeway from S.Pancras station to the Emirates stadium for the french arse fans.
guitou, that would be nice for them, they wouldn't have to set foot in England at all!
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