OlympicHeraldSport Games London 2012 Wednesday, July 25, 2012 THE HERALD 25.07.12 heraldscotland.com olympic games overview There will be cheating, gamesmanship and corporate greed, but also sporting stories to inspire T is the tune I remember, not the athletes. village, where athletes of all nations will join It was jangly but catchy and caught my together in a purpose that goes beyond gold attention in days when the height of medals. The very act of competing at the excitement was finding a toy in your Rice Olympics is the summit of many athletes’ Krispies and nicking the cream off the milk hopes and, indeed, abilities. Ibefore your dad managed to complete a One will witness it, too, in crowds across shave so rushed and bloody that nowadays the city of London and up into the national health and safety would have demanded a stadium of Hampden. People will watch the paramedic on permanent standby. action with varying degrees of fascination, It was 1964. I was nine. The world was in from the committed relative to the fan who blacK and white and tellies were adjusted suddenly finds himself or herself being by the simple expedient of banging a fist drawn into a drama that should hold only immediately adjacent to where the aerial sat. limited interest. This ability to grip and Good Morning Tokyo would draw me entice is no more obvious than when one away from the routine mano a mano with finds oneself an expert in all disciplines in one of my siblings and I would watch people the modern pentathlon, when one argues running, jumping, sliding, fighting, riding, over the tactics of the steeplechase and when swimming, falling, rowing, fencing, falling one finds that small bore can refer to one’s and winning. And, of course, losing. It was all disposition towards being tedious, rather communicated by frantic commentators in than the shooting competition. tones that should have been reserved for the The Olympics will throw up heroes and arrival of a meteorite into a communal bowl heroines. A personal hope is that Katherine of breakfast cereal. Grainger comes across the line first in the Sport for me then was, I suppose, football. double sculls after taking silver medals at Life for me then was, I suppose, football. three consecutive Olympics. But the theme tune of Good Morning Tokyo It will also create superstars. Will would draw me towards another world where Mo Farah gallop from the edge of the larger playtime meant more than blootering a ball public consciousness to the very centre of and sport involved spikes, swords, gloves or the mainstream? Will Usain Bolt streak to the even horses. heart of everybody’s memory of London 2012, It was my first exposure to the Olympics taking him from great fame to sporting and it left a marK that I would scratch every immortality in under 10 seconds? four years. It opened up a world that would Dozens of hitherto unremarkable figures shut gently with every closing ceremony. will be thrust into the spotlight and take both The Olympics made one an expert on a bow and a medal. And this is where the Dawn Fraser and the 100m freestyle (1964), Olympics will show their strength. This is an on Tommie Smith and BlacK Power (1968), event that has the ability to take the viewer on how sport could move away from awful beyond entertainment into something deeper, tragedy with obscene haste (1972), on how more personal. It is where one can throw off Memories are Scotland could produce extraordinary heroes, tribal loyalties and exult in the heady froth of David Wilkie (1976) and Allan Wells (1980). sport and the punch it can pack. As Olympics seem to come more quickly One knows that the cyclist is merely than every four years, the memories of Coe, spinning wheels, but he is also showing that Ovett, Hoy and Freeman collide with the excellence of technique and strength of Dream Team and decked Decker and barefoot purpose can bring rewards. One knows that made of this Budd. However, the echoes of that 1964 the swimmer is moving through water by a Olympics can still be heard the most loudly as series of kicks and arm rotations, but she is the child never forgets in the same way that also demonstrating that courage is most the ageing adult struggles to remember. powerful when it conquers fear and doubt. Tokyo seems far away now. The message One knows that the runner is only doing of the Olympics have become less clear, less what we must when we are late for the bus, coherent. It is no longer the acme of amateur but her movements are breathtakingly sport. It probably never was. smooth, her will is shining and unbreakable. Nowadays many competitors are It would be absurd to suggest the Olympics professional, many are millionaires. It is exist to make us morally better or spiritually sobering to note that one has been asked to stronger. But it would also be daft to dismiss register a sympathy vote for the exclusion of any notions that small moments in sport can a multi-millionaire from the Games. David and do have the ability to inspire and even Beckham, brand and footballer, stands far make us better in small, important ways. from the ethos of Baron de Coubertin and The winners will give lessons on technique, his ideas of playing for playing’s sake, about drive and dedication. But the losers also offer it all being about the taking part. one a peek into a more recognisable existence The Olympics, too, have become ever of trying doggedly and coming up short. more bloated and thus ever more greedy The winners will be cheered but there will be for cash and hype to sustain it. It groans solidarity too with the losers that might not under the weight of nonsensical rhetoric be spoken of too loudly but will be deeply felt. about its purity of purpose, its capacity for The Olympics offer moment upon creating good, its benefits for mankind. moment, day upon day, week upon week Olympic history is marked by racial of crude entertainment of higher, faster intolerance, cheating, misuse of drugs, and longer. But they provides more than mean-spiritedness and narrow chauvinism. a glimpse into the reality of life. The best In short, the Olympics are the human race will not always win, the sly or downright at play. This may be its handicap but it is its dishonest will occasionally prevail and there triumph, too. The old-time, simplistic notions will be disappointment for those who do not of everyone convening for a celebration of deserve it but are condemned to endure it. sport have been dispelled. But something of The man of 2012 knows this is how the substance remains. world works and how it can sink hopes in a There will be drug cheats at the Olympics. second and, even worse, raise them again to Some of them may even be caught. There face the same awful fate. But he remembers will be gamesmanship and some may tut at the boy of 1964 and how Good Morning Tokyo this though most will accept it wearily or brought a different world into a Scottish otherwise. There will be flag waving of the home and left more than just a residue of crassest type. There will be rows that suggest what the Olympics can offer. that the brotherhood of man is the most A jangly theme tune will be hummed on dysfunctional of families. the road to London 2012 by this observer. But the best of humanity will peek It will be a discordant tribute to the truth through, too. One will see it in the Olympic that the Olympics offer the unforgettable. heraldscotland.com 25.07.12 THE HERALD july 25-august 12 and unite like no other, writes Hugh MacDonald Clockwise from left: Tommie Smith and John Carlos deliver their Black Power salute in Mexico 1968; the Black September group storm the Olympic village in Munich 1972; Dawn Fraser wins 100m freestyle gold Dozens of hitherto in Tokyo 1964; David Wilkie makes a splash in 1976; and Allan Wells secures 100m gold in Moscow 1980. Pictures: Getty Images unremarkable figures }will be thrust into the spotlight and take both a bow and a medal. This is where the Olympics will show their strength THE HERALD 25.07.12 heraldscotland.com 4 olympic games london 1948 Elenor McKay is the only female Scottish swimmer to win an individual medal and her THLETES made their way books had to be handed in before the to the opening ceremony of the six-week journey to New Zealand. “Our 1948 Olympics through a city families should not benefit from extra food,” pockmarked with bomb craters. she explained. London was constrained by Now a 79-year-old grandmother, she A post-war austerity. Food parcels is invited to Friday’s opening ceremony, from around the globe helped British and has tickets for the final of the event in There was competitors whose families were then which she swam 64 years ago, and in which more strictly rationed than in wartime. she won Olympic bronze in 1952. Sadly, she The standard weekly allocation was one is in Hairmyres hospital with a hip problem ounce of bacon and ham per person; one and and does not expect to make it. She missed a half ounces of cheese; two ounces of tea; a date with Princess Anne last week, and seven ounces of butter and margarine, of a Lord Mayor’s reception in London, but uproar.