Sunday, August 13, 2006
Jogging through the motions.
The real reasons behind athletic under-performance in the UK.
What is it with the BBC? Why oh why did they feel the need to retire from the track their succesful old theme tune to 'International Athletics'?
Derr de de derrr (bump! bump!) de derr de derr de derrrrr de derrrrr.
That fanfare was a signal for our greatest athletes to take their places at the starting line, anticipate the gun and go for gold.
There is a blame culture in this country; people want to wag their fingers in familiar directions to explain away sporting under-achievement. In this instant, it's our system of funding our best athletes. Six poxy medals (most of which bronze) is all we have to show for our efforts in the European Athletics Championships so far. It has put the motherland 17th in the medals table, behind such sporting luminaries as Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus.
"Why," ask the back-page columnists, "do we continue to molly-coddle mediocrity with handouts from the National Lottery?" Watching last night's roll-out, I found myself laughing at the dicotemy. Surely Dale Winton wasn't the orangey face behind these lack-lustre performances. Does an extra midweek Lotto really breed complacency amongst the elite? Perhaps Christine Ohuruogu was out buying a 'lucky-dip' when the man from the BAF turned up for his sample.
The truth is, there are probably as many reasons for athletic underperformance as there are numbers in the 'Thunderball'. You might as well blame it on the Beeb's change of theme tune... The idiots!
Duncan Priestley
13th August 2006
