philmophlegm | Philmo Phlegm’s Review of the London (& Weymouth) Olympics

Some thoughts on the Olympics as they draw to a close.

Best British performance: Volunteers - all the people who gave up their free time to point people in the right direction, to ferry VIPs around in BMWs etc. I know one of the former and one of the latter. But that’s not what you’re interested in, so…

Best British Sporting Performance: We’ve won 29 sodding gold medals. It’s very difficult to pick one winner out of that lot. I can remember when we only won one (Pinsent & Redgrave in 1996). So what has happened since then to vastly improve the country’s performance in Olympic events? There’s probably a long and complicated answer, but there’s also a much shorter answer: The National Lottery (introduced in 1994, but obviously it’s taken a while to turn things around). The big difference is that elite sportsmen and women now get financial support from the Lottery. The lottery was a creation of the Major government, and it was John Major who insisted that sport be a major (no pun intended) beneficiary. So, my vote for “Best British Sporting Performance” goes to Sir John Major.

Oh, ok, you want an actual sporting winner. Well, how about someone with a big part in no less than eight British gold medals, and that is Dave Brailsford CBE (surely if anyone deserves a promotion to a K, it’s him), the performance director of British Cycling and general manager of Team Sky. (Actually it has been fun seeing BBC commentators trying desperately hard not to say the word “Sky” when talking about the British success, but I’ve heard at least two instances of commentators inadvertently referring to the British team as “Team Sky” rather than “Team GB”. The BBC might have covered the games with some skill, but Sky was directly responsible for several medals.) Before Brailsford, British cycling was nothing special. Now…well, put it this way, Great Britain has won eight cycling gold medals this year. No other country has won more than one. (And let’s not forget that in his Team Sky role he also delivered a British 1-2 in the Tour de France.)

OK, you want an actual sportsman or woman who actually won a gold medal. Well again, there are just too many to choose from, so I might have to divide the Best British Sporting Performance into different sports.

Before I get to that though, how about Best Non-British Sporting Performance? Contenders here would be:

Mexico’s men’s football team. Looking at the Brazilian team on paper (surely the most talented and most valuable Olympic football side ever assembled), it was difficult to see how they could lose. Their subs bench in the final had four or five players whose transfer value would probably exceed the entire Mexican squad. Yet Mexico outplayed them in the final and 2-1 did not flatter them (quite the opposite in fact).
The Netherlands’ Epke Zonderland in the Men’s High Bar Gymnastics. I won’t explain. I’ll just ask you to watch this and be amazed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/19171008
Michael Phelps. Over the course of his Olympic career, he has won eighteen gold medals.
Ye Shiwen, women’s 400m medley. She broke the world record by more than a second and her own personal best by more like four seconds. This was so much of a surprise that the Americans accused her of doping. She hasn’t failed a drug test, and at her age (she’s 16), I imagine performance can improve dramatically. Until she actually fails a drug test (if indeed she ever does), we have to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Usain Bolt. Gold in 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay for the second consecutive games. And seemingly (and this must really annoy his competitors) without really trying.

But I’m going to give my vote to David Rudisha, the Kenyan (Masai to be specific) winner of the men’s 800m on the track. I can remember when people like Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett were running 800m and the way to win major championships was to run a tactical race and have a good sprint finish. Rudisha clearly set out in that race thinking to himself “If I run this as fast as I can, nobody here can stay with me”. He was right, and in doing so, set a new world record: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/19203020 . Watch the video and compare how easy his running style seems to be compared to the other runners.

Best BBC presenter: The BBC has some good presenters in its pool of available sports presenters. Thankfully we didn’t get too much Sue Barker, who is just too bland to be interesting or John Inverdale (likewise). Arguably the same could be said of Gary Lineker. On the plus side, they did have the always professional Clare Balding (more on her later) and Gabby Logan. But I’m going to give this award to Jake Humphrey. Whatever the sport, he always comes across as knowledgeable and interested, and I like his sense of humour.

Best pundit: The BBC inflicted the always-too-full-of-himself John McEnroe (why?), the over-excitable Colin Jackson and Denise Lewis (there is more to punditry than simply cheering on your own side) on us, but on the other hand, they gave us:

Michael Johnson. You get the impression that the BBC employs Johnson because his own country have ignored him. If he’d been British, Michael Johnson would be a legend (and a knight). The occasional behind-the-scenes scenes of the athletics studio are very revealing. Jackson and Lewis jumping up and down like children (Jackson once famously exclaiming “Look at whatisname!”); Johnson carefully making notes.
Chris Boardman. Not only is Boardman both a former road and track cyclist (and Olympic champion), he is also, as a member of British Cycling’s ‘Secret Squirrel Club’ perfectly placed to explain the technology and intricate techniques of track cycling.
Brendan Foster. I’ll allow him the fault of never saying anything bad about any athlete he admires because there surely is no commentator who knows the athletes in his sport as well as he does.

But none of those pundits held a candle to Ian Thorpe. Thoughtful, charismatic, assertive in his opinions, supremely knowledgeable. Everything a pundit should be.

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Philmo Phlegm’s Review of the London (& Weymouth) Olympics

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