The radio is off, I am listening to Billy Joel. I’m
listening to Piano Man and it’s booming, and yes I am singing at the top of my
voice.
I had to turn the radio, TV and the news websites off as I have
been disheartened by commentary over the Olympics. Sorry to my friends in the
media, this is a broad statement and not targeted at anyone specific.
When I was young I can vaguely recall the closing ceremony
of the Moscow Olympics, the crying bear as it said farewell. Unfortunately that
is how I am feeling toward the coverage and commentary over the last few days.
Where do I start, my head is full of such disappointment,
anger with what is being said.
We as parents are told to teach our children to be good
sports and be resilient to deal with disappointment however the media at the
moment seem to be acting like a petulant child as the swimming team hasn’t
achieved what THEY the media was expecting. They have even resorted to using
the word “Failure” as we have only achieved 1 Gold Medal as yet (in the LA Olympics
that was the same number of swimming golds we achieved (Jon Sieben 100m fly).
There used to be a
joke said by the NZ team in the LA Olympics that went, What does Australia and
Carl Lewis havein common? 4 Gold medals. Yes we only achieved 4 gold medals in
total at LA with only one in the pool.
To give you a little back ground, for about 7 years I was a
swimmer, swimming for Nunawading Swimming club in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne where I rubbed shoulders with some
of the best swimmers in Australia (Not name dripping, that’s not the point). At
the time, our head coach was Leigh Nugent (affectionately known as Nugget),
then the National breastroke coach and now Australias’ Head coach.
Ok I was never at that level, I did strive for the Olympics,
but eventually I was happy with my achievements as a Butterfly/Backstroker. I
was fortunate to train with some swimmers who were to achieve the heights that
I could only dream of. I remember those 4:30 wakeups 5 times a week plus 2 gym
sessions, it’s a hard slog and I never made the progression to our national
team, but sport was more about being healthy, having a club which was more like
a family away from home.
As someone who looked at possibly representing Australia, I
saw the Olympics as this mystical event where only the BEST in the word competed,
it was at the time an amateur event, where
athletes performed their best, that’s all you can really ask of them. Medals
were a bonus not to mention Gold, to represent your country was the pinnacle of
the sport.
Our golden age of swimming in the 90’sand ‘00’s where the likes
of Thorp, Hackett, Perkins, Klim, etc. seems to have lifted the expectations in
the Media, where so many good swimmers came through at the same time, we “owned”
the 1500m freestyle not to mention may events.
Every event has to be recontested, it’s not like a
battlefield where the winner from the previous games hold the high ground, the
term “defending” always seems a little amiss, as it doesn’t respect that there
are 4 years between, it’s a young person’s sport. Obscure people last Olympics
can win, as they have set their goals higher for this Olympics, they could have
flown under the radar, especially when they come from countries that don’t
regularly compete outside their region.
To say our guys are losing implies that the opposition aren’t
trying to win, they are the default winners because our guys aren’t trying hard
enough which I feel is disingenuous.
All we can ask is our swimmers do their best on the day,
swimmers don’t just turn up to swim, much planning is involved in the lead up
to any swimming championship, they need
to be tapered properly not to mention their health and their mental state. The Olympics
is a totally different scene to any other event, there’s so much expectation
placed on the athletes shoulders. The swimmers are likely to have swum in many
events representing their club and then other international events where the
media shoes scant interest, perhaps at the commonwealth games where the
atmosphere is more close to the Olympics, but there is only one event that
Counts.
Has this event become too commercial? It would appear not to
be about athletes’ personal best times, it’s like the medal tally is being
treated like a Profit and Loss Statement for the Olympic team. There seems to
be a great sense of entitlement , I don’t know where that came from.
All I ask is to see it from the athletes perspective, sure
it may be disappointing, but for THEM, not YOU. It is THEIR event after all,
not YOURS.
Remember how Shane Gould gave up at such a young age, sure
it was a different circumstance but if you want sportsmen and women to get to such
a high level, devoting every day to their swimming goals, please encourage them
otherwise we may lose them before their prime and it’ll all go back to Montreal
where we won no gold at all.
When dealing with Football teams it is understood that teams
need to rebuild after marquis players leave, Similarly our swimming team is
rebuilding, and if you look at the results, we are still close, they are
achieving medals just not the colour the media are wanting.
Is this the age of opinion over facts?
Perhaps we need a challenge, those who criticise the team
should have a swim off, let’s see how well those commentators do.
