An Olympian effort during a pandemic
Not since London hosted the first post-war Olympics in 1948 has an international sporting event taken place under such difficult circumstances. The tournament that ended in Tokyo on Sunday should have been held last year (and will still forever be known as the 2020 games) and in the eyes of many Japanese should never have been held at all.
That it proved to be such a triumph in the middle of a pandemic was a vindication of the decision of the International Olympic Committee and the Japanese government to go ahead in the teeth of strong opposition. The absence of spectators made for a uniquely constrained atmosphere but it did not seem to hamper the athletes.
World, Olympic and national records were broken in many sports, which was remarkable given the problems faced by competitors over the past 18 months. Their training regimes were disrupted, opportunities to compete restricted, if not removed altogether, and travel curtailed.
The games were especially satisfying from our perspective because the team from Great Britain and Northern Ireland performed exceptionally well. They matched the 65 medals won in London in 2012 and were just two short of the record haul at Rio de Janeiro at the previous Olympiad. With 22 golds, Team GB was fourth in the table, behind only China, the USA and the host nation.
It was fitting that the last two golds were won by athletes who personify the spirit and resilience of the team. Jason Kenny became the most decorated British Olympian, winning his seventh gold in the cycling. His sport has benefited from the injection of money from the National Lottery, which has transformed the prospects of UK international competitiveness since it came on stream. At the 1996 games in Atlanta, before lottery funding, Team GB won one gold medal and 16 in total, finishing 36th in the medal table. That performance was considered a national disgrace yet is now but a distant memory.
The second final-day gold medallist was Lauren Price, the Welsh boxer who has represented her country at football and has also been a world kickboxing champion. Brought up by her grandparents, she had nurtured dreams of success since she was eight years old. At every tournament she contested she would be cheered on by her grandparents, who sacrificed much to help her travel and train. “Without them I would have achieved nothing,” she said.
These were familiar stories among all the competitors – the commitment and support of families were as essential as the funding. The determination to do well for oneself, for family and for country is often mocked as jingoistic, elitist or selfish and yet it is a perfectly natural characteristic that should be nurtured.
These Olympics were also marked out by the extraordinary levels of emotionalism on show and the willingness of athletes to talk in a way they have not before about the pressures and the weight of expectation. Some observers found this excessive, but it was another product of living with a pandemic that served to heighten the emotional investment made by competitors. Their predecessors doubtless grappled with similar anxieties but simply kept quiet, bottling up feelings that we now see expressed before our eyes.
Does it matter whether countries do well at sport? When the UK was performing poorly it was easy to dismiss the success of others as the product of overt professionalism or, as in the case of the Russians (banned but still allowed to compete at Tokyo), suspected cheating.
But sporting prowess is also an extension of economic power, so the UK should perform well. It is no coincidence that the top 10 countries are among the world wealthiest nations.
Moreover, the UK team won more medals in more sports than any other, from dressage and kayaking to taekwondo and skateboarding, demonstrating the remarkable ability of the various sporting bodies to identify potential stars and train them to win.
This was an Olympics unlike any other. Even the “Austerity Games” in London in 1948 had crowds to cheer on the athletes even if no venues were built, unlike in Tokyo where new state-of-the-art stadiums stood largely empty for the fortnight. But the world was able to look on through television and marvel at what the Japanese were able to achieve even amid such adversity.