Olympic Aspirations

Did an extraordinary Olympics for team GB give you Olympic aspirations? There’s no harm in a little dreaming.

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After the total and utter jingoistic joy of the London 2012 Olympics, I was happy for the Rio Games to pass me by, avoid addiction, reclaim my summer and not find myself awake at 3 am, watching two determined Koreans fight it out for archery bronze. There was also the depressing certainty that team GB would slump back into the mire of sporting under-achievement, where we malingered for so many decades, and compound the feelings of national insecurity brought on by Brexit.

But no… Adam Peaty’s gold in the pool triggered another medal avalanche. We were irresistible – and not just in the elite middle-class, sitting-down sports of rowing, sailing and horse dancing where we traditionally excel; but also in the gritty street ones of punching and kicking people in the head.

So as the psychiatrist might say as you lay down on the velvet couch: “how did the Olympic experience make you feel?” Completely inadequate and from the planet ‘Blob’, as you watched gymnast Max Whitlock nail a triple twisting double back with not so much as a waver? Or were you eternally inspired?

NORMAL

What happens when more people achieve something is that … more people achieve it. It happened with the 4 minute mile and the forward loop – as soon as someone did it and broke the credibility barrier, a load more did it almost straight away.

Britons winning medals has been normalised. As you watch the post-success interviews, you note that most of our athletes look and sound like regular Joes. Cut to Mum and Dad going ballistic in the crowd and they too appear like everyday folk from Arcadia avenue – not a super breed bestriding the planet like track-suited Colossi.