Antisport

My old blog balaam.wibsite.com can no longer be accessed.

Using the Wayback machine I am trying to save whatever can be saved, There are no images available for these old blogs.

This blog is from 12 May 2012

Last Thursday I watched the lighting of the Olympic torch on TV.

How anti- sport can it get. After raising of three flags (Olympic, UK and Greece) there came the speeches. At length, and of a style that makes the average sermon seen exciting by comparison.

Men who didn’t look particularly athletic, and whose athletic  days, if they ever had any, are long behind them dominated the proceedings. It went on and on and on and….

This is not what sport is about at all, the excitement of competition was notable by its absence in these events leading up to the start. Why does it always come down to talk? Talk at the torch lighting to be followed by talk at the opening ceremony followed by talk in the TV studios. It may be about sport but it isn’t sport. Competition is what it is all about, when it is all finished it will be the performances by the competitors, the excitement of winning, the disappointment of being second. (Second being the first loser according to former Gold Medal winner Chris Boardman.)

It doesn’t matter where the talk is coming from, it isn’t sport. Speeches by politicians about the Olympics are not sport. Neither are speeches from the Olympic board of the organising committees. Neither is me blogging about it.

I can’t wait for the talk to be over and the games begin.