Twelve years ago I spent one of the most memorable nights of my life, taking my niece Philly to the Olympic Stadium. I got two tickets in the ballot for the second Saturday night, the night when we won three gold medals in the athletics. We saw Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah and Greg Rutherford do their nation proud. Philly was only ten at the time, I think, and I remember saying to her to cherish the memory as she would never experience anything like it again. What a night.
I’ve spent the last ten days watching hour upon hour of all sorts of weird and wonderful (and some incomprehensible) sports, and sometimes getting quite emotional. First it was from my hospital bed, and then for the last week from my sitting room couch.
I suppose I am a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to Olympic sport. For me, it’s all about track and field, swimming, cycling and one or two others. I’ve never really thought the games should include tennis, football or golf. If them, why not cricket or baseball? The one that left me really cold this year was the ridiculous spectacle of breakdancing. The clue is in the name. It’s dancing, not a sport. Thank goodness it was a one-off and it won’t be repeated in Los Angeles in 2028.
The medals table fascinates me. In the end, we came third, in terms of total medals one, behind China and the USA. We ended up with 65, one more than Tokyo. But we won fewer gold medals, which meant we finished seventh, if you count golds as the most important thing. This meant we finished behind the Netherlands, a country with only 18 million people, yet they won 15 golds to our 14. Australia has 32 million yet won 18 golds and 53 medals in all. India, on the other hand, with a population of 1.2 billion won only one silver and five bronzes, six in all. Ireland, with a population of 5 million won four golds, and a total of 7 medals, their best ever showing. Yet New Zealand, a country with the same population, won 10 golds and 20 medals in all. Norway is the only other country in the top 20 ranking population to have a population of fewer than 6 million.
As The Irish Times writes: “Countries with quite small populations are overachieving when looked at per capita, with the top three countries with the most amount of medals all having populations under 200,000 (Grenada, Dominica, Saint Lucia [179,861]). All three are neighbouring countries in the Caribbean.”
Not sure how I’m going to replace The Olympics in my life over the next two weeks. I guess I’ll find some box sets to binge on.
