IT’S taken me a while, but finally, this week, I became excited about the Tokyo Olympics.
In previous summers, the animated, months-long build-up has ensured that by the time the sport starts, I’m practically at fever-pitch.
This time, things were so different.
With almost every news headline about Tokyo 2020 bringing more negativity, be it positive Covid cases in the Athletes Village or the thought of empty stadiums as the first athletes try to fulfill a life-long dream of winning an Olympic medal, it’s fair to say the excitement levels have been considerably lower than usual.
I needed a reminder of why I love the Olympics so much, and the BBC’s documentary, ‘Gold Rush’ which detailed Britain’s journey from sporting failure at the 1996 Olympics to the sporting powerhouse we have witnessed at recent Games, was it.
The show recalled GB’s dire performance at the Atlanta Olympics 25 years ago, at which only one gold medal was won and Britain finished 36th in the medal table behind powerhouses of the world of sport like Kazakhstan and North Korea.
We were then taken through the intervening years until London 2012, when GB finished in third place in the medal table with 29 golds, before surpassing even that achievement in Rio by climbing to second in the medal table.
The athletes in the programme shone a light on the mentality that was behind that rise to prominence; there would be “no compromise”.
Athletes who had the potential to win medals would be backed to the hilt, with hundreds of millions of pounds invested; the rest would be rejected.
There would be no compromise when it came to pursuing success.
We’re all well aware of how effective this method is in terms of winning medals; it was pretty-much flawless.
But we’re also all well aware now of the damage this approach caused.
Such a laser-focus on success ensured that concern about athletes’ mental health and welfare was all but discarded.
Things had gone too far.
The no compromise approach has been all but abandoned in recent years, and Tokyo is the first Games after UK Sport’s change of direction, which now has a focus on “winning the right way”.
No longer are medals all that matter; rather, the treatment of athletes is, apparently, now paramount, with funding due to be far more widely spread than has been the case over the past two decades.
This summer will be too soon to see the real impact of this new approach, but we will see the reaction to what is likely to be a far less successful Games for Team GB than 2012 and 2016 were.
Medal predictions suggest there will be a significant reduction for Team GB this summer in comparison to recent Olympic outings, and that’s before the new method really kicks in.
It seems we should no longer expect GB to be up at the top of the standings competing with the giants of the sporting world like USA and China.
Not seeing medal after medal roll in might take a bit of getting used to. After all, the success in 2012 and 2016 means we became accustomed to hearing about yet another medal-winning performance every time we switched on the television.
Less success might take a bit of getting used to.
But actually, for the good of sport as a whole, scrapping the “no compromise” approach, even at the considerable expense of medals, was the best thing to have happened to elite sport in this country.
AND ANOTHER THING…
These Games are not the first at which athletes have expressed their desire to protest about social issues – everyone is well aware that athletes have been taking a public stance on things that matter to them for decades, with perhaps the most recognised athlete protest still Tommy Smith and John Carlos’ Black Power Salute at the 1968 Olympics.
To date, these protests have been relatively few and far between, though.
However, the next two weeks is likely to see that change.
Already, we have seen a number of the football teams, including GB, take the knee ahead of their opening matches in support of racial equality.
This move has generated some pushback, but, I believe, there is much more to come.
The IOC’s much-derided Rule 50 forbids any protests from taking place on the podium but despite that law, it seems impossible to imagine we won’t see athletes taking a stance on the podium in the coming days.
As British sprinter, Dina Asher-Smith, said earlier this week: “If you were to penalise someone for standing up against racial inequality how on earth would that go, how on earth are you going to enforce that?
“Would you revoke someone's medal for saying racism is wrong?
“I see it as completely unenforceable.”
Smith is completely correct, and the IOC surely know it. What kind of look would it be to disqualify an athlete for a protest against racism on the podium, despite it being against the rules. Particularly when it would be a middle-aged white man doing the disqualifying.
So, it seems almost certain that at least a few athletes feel strongly enough about the issue of racism that they will take the risk.
They will be on the receiving end of some criticism for politicising sport, but they have every right to.
No athlete is obliged to take a stance against wider issues, but if you cannot use your success to take a stance against issues that matter to you, what’s even the point of having such a prominent platform?
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