Olympic Dreams
“Oh no, they’ve gone too early, they’ve gone too early!”
The Olympics opens on Friday. It’s a year delayed, and spectators aren’t allowed in because of the deadly global pandemic. But it’s the Olympics.
It brings back one, very clear memory from my childhoid, of an Olympics.
I remember being at my Uncle Barrie and Aunty Marie’s house. Uncle Barrie wasn’t my uncle and Aunty Marie wasn’t my aunty, Barrie had been one of my dad's shipmates in the Navy, and everyone kind of hung together. I was seven years old, it was 1992, and Sally Gunnell was running the 400m hurdles final.
I had to go and check that, to be honest with you, because I knew it was Gunnell and it was the Olympics. But I couldn’t remember the event, because it isn’t the race I remember.
My Dad loves sport. He played rugby for most of his life, he coached youth rugby for the RFU, he played tennis, he fenced, golf, soccer, weightlifting. I asked him why he had such a passion for sports, and he said something along the lines of “Because sport isn’t your job, it’s not your family, it’s a community and a communal experience of joy and collective struggle, it’s something you can do for the pure personal enjoyment of it.”
What I remember about 1992 is my Dad. He started off on the couch, a brown suede boxy number — you know the type. As the race went on he started to rise, and he started to yell as they came round into the home straight. “Go on girl, GO ON GIRL, GO ON GIRL!” with his hands rising above his head as she won the gold.
That’s stuck with me, that pure anxiety being held for moments before dissolving into joy and celebration. I couldn’t tell you what else I did that day, or that year — really. But I can tell you that my Dad was so happy she’d won the gold.
I’m not my father, although I am a lot like him in many ways. Poor eyesight, a preference for reading and a lack of motivation towards sport took me down a different life path. It’s why I’m writing this now, I suppose. Because he did pass on a deep love and respect for sports, and the place it has in our lives.
Watching sport allows us to back someone or a team, commit ourselves to the narrative of competition, experience anxiety, joy, and heartbreak as we follow their path — or the path of a team. You can see some of the most physically fit and talented people on the planet push themselves to their limits, and beyond — and still not necessarily succeed.
And yes, there’s a nationalist aspect to it. Watching people wearing the flag of your nation can inspire that imagined community of a nation towards pride and solidarity. But it also breaks down those boundaries. I’m switching on to watch Simone Biles compete, we’re going to find out what an Olympic 100 metres is like without Usain Bolt for the first time in 13 years — and those are just the stories that we know of.
In the next few weeks, you and your friends will become armchair experts on track-and-field, of individual and team sports you may never think of again until 2024. Artistic gymnastics, competitive swimming, dressage, fencing — the Olympics is a dream for the competitors, the culmination for many of a lifelong pursuit of excellence. But it’s also a delight for the viewer, can catch you unawares and have you up, out of your seat, cheering someone on.
My son is 4 and a half. He goes to soccer training and enjoys kicking a ball, riding a bike and playing games with his friends. He’s active, in a way I hope he can keep as he gets older in a way I found difficult to. Maybe he will watch me go absolutely bananas as something utterly brilliant happens in the next few weeks. Maybe he’ll remember it. I hope so. A love of sport can be a beautiful, comforting and wonderful thing, on the pitch and off of it.
