No. It’s hard to take all this seriously

What was I doing as a 16-year-old? Not gushing over the feats of other 16-yearolds, for starters. I don’t even know what events New Zealand’s teenagers du jour, Zoi Sadowski-Synnott and Nico Porteous, recently won Olympic medals in.

On the rare occasions I looked up from my terminal at work, to see what all the noise was about, it appeared as if some of that X-Games stuff was on TV. Given I’d close the curtains if that were on in my backyard, the fact some New Zealanders were participating in this televised event didn’t suddenly make me curious.

The Olympics – be they the winter or summer variety – leave me cold. All that lobbying for hosting rights, the nationalism, the cheating; that’s not for me.

The fact that some children from New Zealand won medals in childish-looking events doesn’t change that.

I make the bulk of my living from writing about rugby. But that doesn’t mean I have any interest in first XV footy or chart New Zealand’s successes at under-20 tournaments. It’s merely kids’ sport too.

I’m told the youth of Porteous and Sadowski-Synnott made their achievement all the more remarkable. Quite the contrary.

It merely underlined how Mickey Mouse the Olympics have become. What next? Medals for video games?

Social media has a lot to answer for. There was a time when events simply occurred and you were entitled to decide for yourself if they interested you.

Now every other person seems to use their social platform to demand that you care about what they care about. It’s not enough for teams and athletes to compete or succeed; their efforts must be lauded by all.

If someone from another code makes a healthy living, these similarly heroic figures must be paid the same.

All because you watched them on TV – having never known they even existed – and laughed and cried and clapped and luxuriated in the fact that they’re from New Zealand and so are you.

I’m not here to decry the effort of Porteous and Sadowski-Synnott. They deserve to feel ecstatically happy at their medal-winning deeds and immensely satisfied.

You can only compete in the events the International Olympic Committee offer and against the other athletes they put in front of you.

Some great New Zealand sportspeople – such as Barry Magee, John Davies, Rod Dixon, Dave Rodger, Anthony Mosse, Paul Kingsman, Chris White and Lorraine Moller – ‘‘only’’ ever won Olympic bronze medals. Those moments were the pinnacle of storied careers and are remembered many years on.

Time will tell if these recent deeds in PyeongChang are mentioned in the same breath or even how Sadowski-Synnott and Porteous regard the achievement in the decades to come.

Will their events – whatever they were – even be on the Olympic programme in 20 years’ time?