Going For Gold

[poliphilo]

 We had the telly on yesterday morning. We saw some swimming and some badminton. Then we saw a middle-aged horseman in a top hat riding round in circles with his head bobbing up and down like one of those noddy dogs people have in the back windows of their cars. The name of this particular "sport" is dressage.

Swimming, badminton, horseback riding while dressed like a time traveller from the 1890s- these are all minority interests. Normally they wouldn't get on TV at all. But because it's the Olympics we're supposed to have developed an overnight passion for them. Well, I haven't. 

The same goes for the sailing. My parents had a sailboat once and my mother still remembers how I nearly ran it into an enormous, rusty, old buoy. I hated sailing. It's a sport- like many of the Olympic sports- only open to people with bags and bags of money. Because we're the nation of Drake, Nelson and Fisher we Brits are quite good at it- and it's one of the few sports in which we stand a reasonable chance of winning gold.  So suddenly this chap I'd never heard of and whose name I continue not to know is a national hero. There was footage of him on the news, sitting in his little cockboat- becalmed- while the other competitors raced past him. And then I remembered that we are also the nation of Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel and Mr Bean.

All the build-up, all the hype, all the vast expenditure- and what's it for? It's for a bunch of activities which- in the grand scheme of things- are about as significant as growing prize tomatoes or building models of the House of Commons out of matchsticks. The Olympics is really just the village fete gone global- a multi-billion dollar celebration of hobbyism.




Jackie Fisher- quite a good sailor.

Comments

[zoe-1418.livejournal.com]

You think of swimming as a minority interest and a hobby for the wealthy? Surely not! It's one of the few sports (running would be another) that don't require any special equipment or facilities to get involved in and enjoy and train (although to compete professionally or in the Olympics is of course a somewhat different story). I would think that the only countries that don't have swimming as a popular, everbody-can-do-it-if-they-want sport would be countries where it's never possible to swim outside in natural bodies of water (I guess some desert nations would fall in this category, and maybe a few extremely northern ones?).

Dressage, though, and sailing -- I'd have to agree about the eliteness of those, in general. (Although I can imagine exceptions.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of swimming as a spectator sport. There's a difference between liking to swim and wanting to sit poolside and watch other people doing it.