Olympics: I Could do That!

What a weird and wonderful mix of sports! Modern Pentathlon? Archery? Judo? Horse Dancing (aka Dressage), Freestyle Wrestling? Fencing? But that’s the beauty of the Olympics; it introduces you to sports which may be an essential part of life in Japan, Hungary, USA or Uzbekistan but alien to most Brits.

Only once every four years do I ever contemplate watching a BMX race, diving or taekwondo but during that fortnight they are just as vital as any 100m sprint. What about Jade Jones’ double triumph? I get goosebumps just remembering Lutalo Muhammad’s heartbreaking last-second defeat in the 80kg final and post-bout interview in Rio. Admittedly these sports are only considered by the BBC to warrant live coverage when there’s a Brit in contention but they make for really exciting viewing from the armchair.

Of course, these are not events in which I was ever likely to participate, be they in an Olympic arena or my local sports centre. Reverse scissor-kicks, triple somersaults in pike position, Ippon and epee thrusts look great on screen but bear no resemblance whatsoever to my own physical world. However, the Games do feature activities which do. Take table-tennis, for instance. Even in my fifties I can just about spin a ping-pong ball over the net and so I can appreciate the remarkable skill and reactions displayed by the superstars. No matter that they tend to be from Scandinavia or the Far East; rallies involving the likes of China’s Ma Long can be jaw-dropping.I also used to love playing badminton, the perfect social indoor sport for people like me.

It was even one of the very few sports in which I won a trophy (left). OK, so I owed that share of success almost entirely to my Billericay Rotaract mixed doubles partner Kirsten and the rest of the team but I’ll accept glory whenever I get the chance! Yet, as with table-tennis, Olympic-level ‘badders’ is a different kettle of fish. The shuttlecock is caressed, lobbed or smashed with such speed my eyes can barely keep pace.

It is also a sport which brings much-coveted medals to Indonesia, as in Beijing, 2008 but even Britain reached the podium four years earlier, thanks to Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms. Their silver medals meant more to me than any Team GB golds at Athens because they earned them in an event I could easily recognise.

Riding a bike is something most of us have tried at some point in our lives, even if it merely served as a diversion from school homework or means of transport to and from friends’ houses. Hurtling through the trees above Rio or the streets around the Acropolis is something else, even if the scenery is lovely. Then there’s the indoor variety, at which the Brits have become rather adept in the last decade or so.

Not all the disciplines are notably telegenic. Team pursuits simply require viewers to watch the clock while the Madison is just mad. During the race, to the casual fan the velodrome track merely appears to be a chaotic mess of bikes travelling at different speeds. How they calculate who wins is beyond me. Commentators Hugh Porter and Chris Boardman seem to know what’s going on but it’s beyond my comprehension. My favourite has to be the Keirin, the one when competitors follow a gently accelerating moped before sprinting like crazy for the final few laps. Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton and Jason Kenny have all struck gold in this event in recent years. When Kenny’s final in Rio was re-run twice and the Brit was extremely fortunate not to be disqualified, It turned out to be a very late night, but there was no way I was going to bed without witnessing the emotional conclusion to the unfolding drama.

Basketball was a school staple but hardly suited to a vertically-challenged chap like me. Mind you, I could jump and dribble a bit; it’s just the matter of propelling the ball into the basket was a glaring weakness of mine. I believe this is rather important. It’s not a favourite spectator sport of mine and neither is volleyball. I get bruises on my wrists just watching. However, the introduction of beach volleyball was a winner. I’ve seen it played on patches of arid sand on various Spanish playas, usually involving pairs of deeply tanned and improbably hirsute and darkly tanned senores or lissom bikini-clad senoritas. To be honest, Olympic competitors don’t look much different and, whether on Horseguards Parade or Copacabana Beach, the matches have proved unexpectedly enthralling.

Finally, I come to hockey. When I was at school, it was still considered a game for girls. However, on one of the few occasions we boys were let loose with those heavy curly sticks, I found I was quite good. Maybe it was just in my head. Years later, indoor hockey was more my game but, for the IOC, hockey is strictly an outdoor event, even if the green grass has been replaced by a garish blue synthetic surface.. Growing up, hockey at the Olympics seemed the preserve of Pakistan or India. Then, in Seoul, the British men’s team thrilled us all by taking gold. Sean Kerly and Imran Sherwani became household names and Barry Davies’ commentary on the opposition’s gaping defence, “Where oh where were the Germans? But, frankly, who cares?” shocked me for his then-rare burst of patriotic bias.

Almost three decades later, our women emulated the men’s class of ’88 by taking the title in Brazil. I watched the live coverage as they won an agonising penalty shootout against the Dutch. Compared with those distant days chasing a ball, fingers frozen to the stick, across a muddy sports field, it was on another planet, but as a sporting spectacle it was a world-beater.