Olympic legacy need not go downhill

The curtain came down on the 2018 Winter Olympics in typically spectacular style following weeks of competition which have excited, frustrated and enthralled.

The UK enjoyed its best-ever winter games, winning five medals.

Sadly, the curling teams fell short with the women, under Blair Atholl’s Eve Muirhead, losing in a medal play-off and the men, including Perthshire brothers Kyle and Cammy Smith, unfortunate not to win through to the semi-finals.

Despite the relative success, the debate in the UK has already turned to how much investment was made in Team GB and whether it could have been better spent elsewhere.

Almost £30 million was spent on winter sports in the four-year lead-up to Pyeongchang.

The value of an Olympics is not in the number of medals won but in its legacy.

Few will be inspired to take up skeleton in the hope of becoming the next Lizzie Yarnold, the UK’s solitary gold medal winner.

However, they may see her remarkable achievements and strive for excellence in another field.

It is, thus, short-sighted to discount such sports as elitist and irrelevant to the majority.

Equally, without investment in basic sporting facilities and equipment, in schools and local authority centres, any hope of an Olympic legacy will be wasted.