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Olympic embarrassment

It's funny how we can be embarrassed remotely. I mean, why would or should I be embarrassed for Australia, given that I am such a tiny part of the nation? But I have cringed over the past three weeks whenever I've heard "the latest" on Australia's medal count. Our fixation, even if it might be just our media's fixation, with the number of medals Australia won at the Olympics did cause me discomfort.

It's the silliness of it. But it's also the more disturbing nationalism, the notion of superiority, the suggestion that those nations not within cooee are not a great sporting nation like Australia.

If we must have an Olympics medal table let's have a table measuring medals against gross national product per capita. Better still, let's measure medals against the amount of public money spent developing Olympic athletes. Australia spends more than $1 billion preparing Olympic competitors for national glory - so much against many nations' so little that we are effectively buying medals. A professor of exercise science at the University of South Australia, Kevin Norton, estimates that each of our gold medals at the Beijing Olympics cost Australia at least $50 million!

If the Olympics are about peace and friendliness and acceptance and inclusion, what are we doing there?

I'm over Australia's version of participation in the Olympics. There's nothing in it but jingoistic entertainment and lost opportunity to be part of the real world rather than just the world of medal-count nations.

Are you brimming with pride or have you too felt the flush of embarrassment?

Posted By: Jeff Corbett on 25/08/2008 5:10:24 PM | Comments (17)

Comments

Date: Newest first | Oldest first

Jeff, mate, people seem to get embarrassed so easy these days. Just like everything else, the Olympics have lost their original meaning. Its not about sporting superiority and nothing about the feel good crap that it used to be about. I'm not embarrassed by Australias performance. Australians are known around the world to be fantastic swimmers and sports people. I think, with the amount of sacrifice these athletes went through pretty much all their life to achieve an Olympic attendance let alone and Olympic medal deserves our respect if anything.

Posted by Nafe on 26/08/2008 11:55:23 AM

Better stick to standard topics for whingeing, like women drivers, Jeff - you're on thin ice here. You can probably be extradited to Antarctica for suggesting that the national religion has become the Great Australian Sport Heist!

Posted by Fruitfly on 26/08/2008 12:45:05 PM

Jeff, i am sure the upcoming paralympics will have us all brimming with pride. People from all nations will inspire and motivate us with their efforts and medal counts will be insignificant. Like champion aussie cyclist Michael Milton, whose courage and conviction we can all appreciate.

Posted by chaff and oats on 26/08/2008 1:35:05 PM

Can't agree more. The amount of tax money spent on sport for so few people is amazing. Why should I have to pay for sport related training for the olympics & sporting fixtures that neither I nor my family will use or benefit from! (Newcastle stadium). My local soccer club , which serves many people, cannot even get proper basic facilities. Why is $50 million being spent for only 30,000 people? What about the other 500,000 people in Newcastle?

Posted by Elsid on 26/08/2008 1:45:40 PM

Did bicycles of the 1920s have pedals that free wheeled or did they continue to rotate and thump your heels continually if your feet came away? thought you may know.

Posted by chaff and oats on 26/08/2008 2:06:57 PM

I don't know, chaff and oats, although I do know that track bikes today, which you saw in some Olympic cycling events, are what is called fixed wheel. I do recall that some bikes about when I was a lad were fixed wheel and prone to injuring young riders.

Posted by Jeff Corbett on 26/08/2008 6:10:08 PM

It is estimated that it cost around $10 million to train up Michael Rogers for the cycling road race. He finished sixth, which is a good result. But, with all due respect to Rogers and his team, was it worth the money? Imagine, we could have built a cycleway competely around Lake Macquarie for that and even finished the Fernleigh Track too. The money could also have been better spent on local sporting faciltiies for all ages. The way our money is spent benefits a select number of talented athletes in the name of national pride. I call it national codswallop.

Posted by maitland on 26/08/2008 2:40:56 PM

Why don't some of the athletes who go on to earn millions from sponsorship and endorsements pay back the public money that has been spent on them? I am still paying back my HECS which is for my university education. Surely this is fair?

Posted by Jessica on 26/08/2008 5:46:03 PM

That's a very good point Jessica.

Posted by Jeff Corbett on 26/08/2008 6:08:33 PM

I propose that we ditch the Australian Institute of Sport and instead establish an Australian Institute of Science with a similar, but more productive goal. The new AIS can be used to train up the most promising young engineers and scientists in order to create a new generation of entrepreneurs and inventors. Surely this would be a better use of our money than training professional swimmers and walkers. I'm sure most people would agree to trade a few gold medals for a chance to have the next "Microsoft" or "Apple" be an Australian company.

Posted by Jim on 26/08/2008 7:15:14 PM

It's great that there are still some journalists who continue to show a strong capacity for deep and independent thinking! Long may you remain an independent thinker, Jeff.

Posted by AussieOzborn on 26/08/2008 7:45:59 PM

I am very pleased for the olympians who train so hard just to get to the olympics. Whether they win gold doesn't make Australia a better country. However, I would rather see Australians winning prestigious awards for curing cancer, poverty, stopping global warming etc. I would rather see all that money spent on programs that improve everyone's lives. And I would rather see local sports groups get the funding, so more Australians can access sport. Didn't Olympians decades ago pay their own way? And didn't we win medals then? And i'm with you Jessica - I will be paying my HECS for many years to come.

Posted by leahkf on 27/08/2008 8:53:56 AM

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