London 2012 Olympics: one year on

This time last year, during the glorious display of Great Britain that was the 2012 Olympics, I was privileged enough to be living in London and working for the Telegraph during their coverage of the Games.

It’s hard to believe it was 12 months ago, and we’re already a quarter of the way through the wait until athletes reconvene in Rio de Janeiro.

With the anniversary approaching, arguments and counter-arguments about whether there is enough of an Olympic legacy are surfacing, but I don’t want to go into that now.

It’s difficult to believe this was a year ago

Last summer, you wondered whether anything could top those two and a half weeks. The Games showed off Britain at its finest, whether in competition – an historically brilliant third place finish in the Olympic and Paralympic medals tables, and a whole host of new national heroes – or not: the Games Makers have virtually entered sainthood, the capital was friendly to visitors, and it was even sunny (mostly).

Of course, 2013 has already seen a first Lions series victory for 16 years, a second consecutive Brit winning the Tour de France and Andy Murray going one better than last year to triumph at Wimbledon. Then there’s the almost inevitability of England retaining the Ashes against a desperately weak Australia. Over the last 12 months my appetite for football dropped significantly – it looks like that will be the case during the coming season as well. The Prima Donna-ing, the lack of respect for officials, the yobbishness of fans – it all seemed to be a world away from London 2012.

This weekend sees three days of competition at the Olympic Stadium, inside what has been rebranded the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. To prove the British fans’ passion for the Olympics and Paralympics was no flash in the pan, tickets for the first two days of competition sold out within 75 minutes. I’m off there on Sunday to see the day of Paralympic competition. (As an aside, it was great to see the IPC World Championships in Lyon leading the sports bulletins on the BBC News this week.)

I can’t wait to go back to the Olympic Stadium for the last time before it is downsized, which will apparently include the removal of the superb triangular floodlights. It might almost be emotional, bringing back a whole lot of memories which are too numerous even to make a start at listing.

But it will also remind me just how wrong the various nay-sayers, who doubted whether London’s creaking infrastructure would cope, who feared the Games would be a washout, who were sceptical as to whether the British public would embrace the Olympics and Paralympics, were.

London gets one more dose of Games fever this weekend, which will prove once more the truth expressed by Lord Coe in his speech at the Olympic closing ceremony: “When our time came, Britain, we did it right.” Our time has gone, but the memories it provided will never leave.

Becky James makes her SPOTY bid

It would be nice to think this weekend has ensured a Welsh sports star will be on the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year shortlist in 10 months’ time.

Not anyone to do with Swansea City, who won their first major (English) trophy yesterday, nor a rugby player (though with a Lions tour coming up that’s not totally out of the question).

Becky James, from Abergavenny, picked up four medals – two gold and two bronze, exactly the same record as France – in last week’s 2013 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Belarus as Great Britain continued their dominance on two wheels (if not quite as comprehensively as during the Olympics).

James won two individual rainbow jerseys, in the sprint and keirin, an individual bronze in the 500m time trial and a further bronze alongside Victoria Williamson in the team sprint. GB finished with five golds, two silvers and two bronzes.

It’s great to see a young Welsh star (she is only 21) emerge as such a force on the world stage – and if you had any doubts as to the magnitude of her achievement, you only need to see the reaction of her track rivals, including Anna Meares, Victoria Pendleton’s long-time adversary (ignore the fact she’s forgotten some past champions):

JAMES! BECKY JAMES!!!!A handful in Delhi, now she isWORLD CHAMPION at 21. Congrats @becksjames Has Wales had a cycling World champ b4?

— Anna Meares (@AnnaMeares) February 24, 2013

DOUBLE WORLD CHAMPION!!!! Words can’t even describe how happy I am! 🙂 Thank you for all the support everyone! #whataweek x

— Becky James (@BecksJames) February 24, 2013

 

Wow! @becksjames double world champ! Incredible performance in Keirin. Becky, Wales salutes you #worldchampion #girlpower

— Laura McAllister (@LauraMcAllister) February 24, 2013

So happy for @becksjames ! What a girl!!DOUBLE WORLD CHAMPION!! #soproud #onfire #sorryaboutthat 😘😜 xx

— George North (@George_North) February 24, 2013

#SaveOlympicWrestling fails to get my support

OK, OK. This blog is meant to be sticking up for smaller sports. I’m usually quite thIn particular, those of us who believe the modern Games should be returned permanently to their original homeland (and stripped thereby of some of the grosser excrescences of contemporary commercialisation) would want to keep wrestling firmly at their core.e traditionalist.

But I seem to be just about the only person who hasn’t reacted with sheer outrage to wrestling losing its place among the Olympic core sports in times for the XXXII Olympiad in 2020. Everyone from John McCain to this guy (quote below) has been attacking the decision:

“In particular, those of us who believe the modern Games should be returned permanently to their original homeland (and stripped thereby of some of the grosser excrescences of contemporary commercialisation) would want to keep wrestling firmly at their core.”

Really bad decision by the #IOC to drop wrestling – one of the oldest sports, around since the ancient Greeks. #Olympics

— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) February 13, 2013

I understand wrestling’s traditional roots, its links with the Olympics of ancient Greece. Unfortunately, I just find it really boring. This could be because Great Britain is just a bit rubbish at wrestling – both freestyle and Greco-Roman – but then again, I enjoyed the archery. Scratch that – I loved the archery.

Maybe I’m being selfish in not caring wrestling will have to fight it out with baseball/softball, squash, karate, climbing, wakeboarding, wushu and roller sports to be a part of the 2020 Olympics. Just because I’m not a fan, shouldn’t I fight the good fight on behalf of wrestlers?

Well, no. I admit it would probably be a travesty if baseball/softball, climbing, wakeboarding or roller sports took its place at the Games. I’ve never heard of wushu, but a quick Wikipedia search tells me its nuances are too complex for me to give a proper judgement as to its Olympic merits.

I have heard of karate, obviously, and I’m yet to be told why it isn’t in the Olympics but taekwondo and judo are. And they were fun, unlike the wrestling!

No, if I was an IOC delegate in September casting a vote as to which sport to take to the Games in seven years’ time, I’d vote – I assume it’s as straightforward as that – for squash. Good sport, a darn side more international than wushu and, I daresay, wrestling.

And if, as reports suggest, it was one of wrestling, taekwondo or modern pentathlon which would be ditched, the choice, for me, turns into a total no-brainer.

The Harbaughs: the latest great sporting siblings

The Baltimore Ravens’ upset win over the New England Patriots in Massachusetts on Sunday night not only allowed Baltimore head coach John Harbaugh to exact revenge for a painful loss there at the same stage last season.

Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh. Photo: Flickr, Keith Allison

San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh. Photo: Flickr, Football Schedule

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It also meant he would take his side to arguably the biggest game in sport – the Super Bowl. Their opponents? The San Francisco 49ers, coached by a certain Jim Harbaugh.

For the Harbaugh brothers’ parents (continuing the alliterative theme, their names are Jack and Jackie), this squabble, in what has already been dubbed the “HarBowl”, could be hard to contain.

But it is hardly the first time siblings have lined up against each other on the biggest stage of all:

Venus and Serena Williams

It must be hard to be upstaged by your younger sibling, but that is what Venus, herself a legend of the sport, has had to endure. Serena, younger by a year and three months, has won 15 grand slams to her sister’s seven, and has triumphed in six of their eight encounters in grand slam finals. But they get on well enough as perhaps the most successful doubles pairing of all time, adding a third Olympic gold to their collection at London 2012.

Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee

The sight of the Yorkshire brothers sharing the top step of the London 2012 triathlon podium warmed the hearts of Team GB fans, after a hard-fought triathlon in which Alistair, the elder brother, won gold, with Jonathan claiming bronze (after collapsing at the finish, much to his brother’s obvious dismay) behind Javier Gomez of Spain.

Jonny was then crowned world triathlon champion in New Zealand in October, although Ali was unable to take part.

Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko

When Wladimir, the younger by nearly five years, beat Britain’s David Haye in July 2011, it ensured the Ukrainian brothers held all four major belts – those of the IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO – between them. Vitali is often regarded as a better fighter than Wladimir, but the theories will not be substantiated: the brothers have vowed never to fight one another.

Others

To be honest, these were pretty much the first three pairs of siblings who came into my head when thinking about sporting success. Since, I’ve thought of a few more who might deserve a paragraph or two of their own:

Steve and Mark Waugh

Michael and Ralf Schumacher

Peyton and Eli Manning

Bobby and Jack Charlton

Rory and Tony Underwood

Mauro and Mirco Bergamasco?

Gavin and Scott Hastings??

What is football coming to?

It’s not as if I am the first person to ask this, but what is happening to football? Why does it insist on shooting itself in the foot every week?

John Brooks, the linesman who told Manchester City players to go and applaud fans who had forked out the preposterous sum of £62 for a single ticket to the Emirates Stadium as City visited Arsenal on Sunday, was dropped from yesterday’s FA Cup replay he had been due to officiate in.

The incident has highlighted football’s abysmal efforts at public relations. It is a sport still reeling from a whole series of unsavoury episodes which have put a whole host of fans off it (well, me, at least).

It has also brought the issue of ticket prices to further prominence. Is there a football league ground which an adult can attend for less than £20? Not that it’s just football. Try and get tickets for the Millennium Stadium or Twickenham if you’re not made of money. Even my ticket for the terraces at Welford Road to watch the Leicester Tigers take on Toulouse in the Heineken Cup costs £22.

I’m planning two trips abroad to watch sport in the coming months. One is to the Stade de France in Paris for Wales’s Six Nations game. The face value of my ticket is £30 – not dirt cheap, but much less than the equivalent over here.

The Stade de France’s ticket prices are much cheaper than the Millennium Stadium or Twickenham

The other trip is to this summer’s World Athletics Championships in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium. For a weekend pass, prices start at 450 rubles (£9.27).

Bayern Munich, and the Bundesliga more generally, is often held up as an example of what English football should strive to be like. FC Bayern has sold out all home tickets until mid-March, and even with authorised ticket re-sellers – whose prices are almost always inflated – prices start at just £12.

Finally, a sports game I can look forward to watching

This blog likes to support lesser sports, grassroots competition and those teams who don’t always find their way into the public eye. In other words, sport at its most pure. But at the same time it is impossible not to be swept up into the frenzy which elite sport brings with it.

The only problem is that I have gone right off football since the summer: I think it was mainly because there was a void after the Olympics and Paralympics which the ref-abusing, foul-mouthed, diving, pampered footballers (who are nevertheless worshipped by the likes of Sky Sports News) just couldn’t fill.

Since October, I have watched just one football match for more than about half an hour – MK Dons v AFC Wimbledon in the FA Cup, and that was only because I was interested in the back story more than the game itself.

The new Mile High stadium, home of the Denver Broncos. Photo: Flickr, rphelan

By contrast, I have watched club rugby on a greater scale than before. It helps that I now live in a rugby-supporting part of England, and have easy access to watch Northampton Saints and Leicester Tigers home games. I enjoy cheering for the Saints and whoever the Tigers are playing, but I still can’t get fully into it because I’m still an outsider here (I don’t wear tweed to the rugby and I have no idea why Northampton are called the “Jimmies”).

And being a Welsh rugby fan has not been easy this season: whitewashed in the autumn internationals, pessimism ahead of the Six Nations and a club game which is haemorrhaging players to richer clubs and which has continued to recede in Europe.

So for the first time in months, I am properly excited about watching a elite sports match tonight. It’s in the NFL, as the Baltimore Ravens take on the Denver Broncos (my team since a chance encounter with the squad at Denver International Airport in December 2005) in Colorado.

I hear what people say about American football being rugby for people who need full-body pads and a break every 20 seconds, but it is more than that: it is an intricate, complicated game which requires great nous; it is not just fat men pushing each other (you might be thinking of sumo wrestling).

Nearly 80,000 spectators will pack into the Sports Authority Field at Mile High for the game this evening. It will be snowing, it will be -12C, it will be exciting and I cannot wait.