The games of the 30th Olympiad in 2012 are awarded to…Paris
so Jacques Rogge didn’t say in Singapore in 2005.
At the time of the announcement to award the games to London I was absolutely delighted. I remember watching it on the big screen in Victoria Square, Birmingham.
I wouldn’t go as far as saying I wish we hadn’t got the games but there are certain consequences of being host nation that do concern me, aside from the ticketing debacle.
Most of the issues stem from the ‘need’ to enter athletes and teams in sports as host nation. This seems to have led to a plethora of inconsistencies about selection.
As I understand it the BOA seem to have insisted we take up places in most sports, thus we have a scratch Handball team and the ongoing farce over the ‘GB’ (i.e. England U 23′s cum not good enough to play internationals) football team.
Contrast these nebulous Olympic participants with the experience of the GB Rhythmic Gymnastics team who I saw compete at the Gymnastics ‘London Prepares’ test event at the O2, Greenwich this week. This group of girls has self funded themselves over the last couple of years. British Gymnnastics set a self – imposed Olympic qualifying benchmark which the team failed to meet by just 0.273 of a mark in the group all-round competition at the gymnastics test event on Tuesday, only to beat the score 24 hours later.
‘You can’t go to the Olympics’ say British Gymnastics, yet sport is littered with governing bodies who allow athletes months to reach qualifying standards. It seems so arbitrary not to allow this group of committed young women to compete, given they have in fact achieved what was asked of them, albeit a day after the event targeted.
So we have the unedifying prospect of multi millionaire David Beckham being an Olympian whereas a group of young people, prepared to make huge sacrifices to be in London won’t be allowed to. Well done the sporting authorities; you must be very proud.
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