IT is upon us. The greatest sporting event in the world, of course, but also the greatest single media event and, more questionably, a huge political event too.
China is using the Olympic Games, denied to the country after the catastrophe of Tiananmen Square in 1989, to display its competence, ambition and economic might to the world. If the show it is putting on is not quite Berlin 1936, it is not the cut-price Games of Atlanta 1996 either.
The run-up to this will be the medals rankings in Beijing. There was a certain swagger in the confidence yesterday of Andy Burnham, the British sports minister, when he backed the prediction that Britain could win up to 41 medals in Beijing and noted that we could go as far as beating Australia in the table.
“We are about to enter a glorious new era for British sport and I hope success in Beijing will inspire the next generation of young sports stars,” he said.
Well, excellence matters in sport, as in other aspects of human endeavor, and something really interesting does seem to be happening in Britain. It is thanks, amongst other things, to the injection of lottery funds into sports facilities and that is great. But if one of the lessons for Britain that will emerge from Beijing is that excellence needs to be supported, there will, I suggest, be another: It is that other aspects of sport — such as access, diversity, team-building, self-discipline and ingenuity — need to be fostered too.
One of the astounding aspects of the Olympics is the way in which it manages to rise above the razzmatazz, the nationalism and the money, to become a celebration of individual achievement. That is what brings the TV audience rankings, not the ceremony, not the sponsors and not the national coaching machines.
So the challenge for us should not just be the pursuit of excellence. That bit seems to be coming right and we just need to do more of what we have been doing.
