WHAT OLYMPIC LEGACY EXACTLY?

SPORT ENGLAND claim that time spent on PE in schools is declining, from 8.4 per cent of the school day in 2013 to 7.7 per cent now. Labour councillors have written to the Government claiming they are ‘failing to support our Olympic legacy’.

What Olympic legacy? Watching someone do something on television is very different from going out and doing it. Just as creating facilities for two weeks of Olympic action is very different from preserving and investing in school playing fields. One can become an elite folly unless expertly handled, the other a lasting bequest.

And Olympic sports are hard. Watching Tom Daley in Tokyo is likely to promote more of an upturn in knitting than diving, once enthusiasts discover how it feels to hit the water like that.

NORTON-ON-DERWENT in North Yorkshire has a skateboarding half pipe, one of the few outside urban centres in the north of England. It has fallen into disrepair but a group of local activists have raised the money for restoration. So far, Norton’s councillors have voted against this. So there you have it. Ultimately, a young person can be inspired by Sky Brown or any of the other skaters seen on their Olympic screens, but without the facilities that positivity goes nowhere. And it is far easier to throw money at a young girl from Miyazaki, Japan, wrap her in the Union Jack and pretend it’s our triumph, than to invest in and support the ambitions of young Britons who wish to follow.