Sebastian Coe, Chair of the London 2012 Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games is quoted as saying the vision of the London 2012 Olympics is “to stage inspirational Games that capture the imagination of young people around the world and leave a lasting legacy.” One man, one vision, what a hero. Now we’ve all heard about the government’s budget fiasco for the Olympics, £7, 000, 000.000 and rising, as well as the fact that the National Lottery will be giving the government a rather large ‘loan’ to the detriment of the charity and small art/cultural organisations that Lottery funding would otherwise support, and we’ve all heard the speculation about the 2012 Olympic village becoming another vanity mirror, another Millennium Dome (part of which incidently, is going to be used for the 2012 Olympics), visible from space, another vacuous assertion of New Labour power in the world, but I don’t think we’ve really answered the question of whether the Olympics are actually worth the effort.

To some extent, the Olympic Games are still just as mythological as the gods that were revered in the ancient Greek context they originated from. There are certain iconic moments that are brought back when the Games come under opposition. Jessie Owens running for the world’s freedom before the eyes of an infuriated Hitler is an obvious example. Another example is outlined in Coe’s quote, the illusion of uniting a world, giving inspiration to the young, when in reality he forgets to mention marketing/advertising, regional/national power and of course politics. Granted, we like to watch England battle it out for a couple of bronze medals against the USA or China, we admire the human diligence involved in running a marathon, we also like the potential it gives to our youth, inspiring a generation to be great athletes, to rise to the challenge, but like the World Cup and other such media-driven events we are also great consumers of hype for hype’s sake.

So as the world tunes in to watch the 100m hurdles, somewhere inside is a deep skepticism, and we know that the top runner must be on steroids to beet a 10 second record so easily. On the surface, the Olympics are the illusion of the human spirit at the pinnacle of its glory, underneath the surface, reality is business as usual: sex, drugs and scandals, short, sharp pain-killers for what is otherwise a dismal life.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 5:51 am and is filed under Uncategorized. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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