I haven’t been gripped by Olympics fever in the first week of the Rio Games. At the time of writing this, Australia has won its first gold medal, Mack Horton in the pool. Congratulations to him but, honestly, I hadn’t heard of him before his victory.
So does an Olympic gold medal still hold the same currency it once did? Look at swimming. We have the Olympics, the Pan Pacs, World Championships, Commonwealth Games and World Cup events plus state and national titles.
It seems our athletes are competing every second week in a major event, which downgrades the value of the Olympics. I admit the time difference of these games has not helped, and all the pre-games talk of it being a disaster has had me thinking about other issues rather than the sporting performances.
The bottom line though is that with international competitions on more regularly, and television coverage available for everything, the Olympics have become more of a spectacle than the ultimate sporting contest every four years. Much like the Brownlow Medal, it has become as much about the peripheral activities as the winning of a medal. There will always be the blue riband events like the 100 metre sprint and the marathon, but many of the other events are eclipsed in other competitions.
For me, bringing in sports like golf, surfing and tennis do nothing to increase my attention. Do you remember an Olympic tennis gold medallist or a Wimbledon champion? Would any pro golfer trade an Olympic gold medal for a Masters green jacket? Has that word ‘professional’ ruined the Olympic charter?
The level of drug cheating certainly has. Some cynics suggest we wait to celebrate any medal win for 10 years until tests have cleared winners of ‘substances’. Let’s be frank: sport is no longer about making friendships, keeping fit and being involved in a club or community. Professional sport is big business with big rewards. The Olympics will always have a place but I’m not sure, as Bruce might say, they will be as ‘special’ as they once were.
