Ever since I
was a wee zygote, I have had zero interest in sport. Soccer? Swimming?
Table-tennis? Nah. It’s only during
the Olympics, when the coverage is so overwhelming that I become aware of
what’s going on in the world of running and jumping. And indeed, when I look
back, I see that in spite of my indifference I actually have numerous memories
of Games past.
Take the
Moscow Olympics of 1980 for instance. I was five years old and a girl from my small
Scottish town was doing something over there. Our teachers told us all about it.
Anyway, she didn’t win a medal, but they did name a street in a rubbish suburb in
her honor fifteen years later, so her glory is undiminished, although I can’t
actually remember her name.
Then came
1984 and the LA Olympics, which made a big impact on me because I was really
enjoying “V”, a TV series about alien lizards disguised as humans, and they
kept broadcasting athletics instead, which was annoying. I actually remember a
few things about the actual sport- the UK had several excellent runners at the
time, all of whose names began with “S” and we also had a man called Daley
Thompson, who I thought was superhuman since he was a gold medal decathlete and
thus good at everything.
But what I really
remember about LA was the bit when a man flew about the stadium on a jet pack. Wow, I thought, soon, we’ll all be flying to school on jet packs! Of course, nothing
of the sort has happened, and the way the world economy is going we are more
likely to end up riding about in carts hitched to the backs of donkeys,
Cuban-style.
Seoul was next, I think, and who knows
what happened there? I presume North
Korea boycotted it. And I think Ben Johnson
got disqualified after failing a drug test, making Carl Lewis the winner of the
100 meters by default. Who cares? The point is: there were no jet packs.
Next I get
really confused. At some point Athens, Barcelona,
Sydney and Atlanta
all hosted the games. I believe Athens
got a nice new subway system out of it, but they still haven’t paid for it, and
never will. Barcelona,
the weather was nice and sunny. The Sydney
games I have completely forgotten. Atlanta,
well, I remember thinking it was unfair that the US got to host the games again so
soon after LA, and why were there no jet packs? Then came the closing ceremony-
Stevie Wonder was performing “Happy Birthday”, but his microphone had gone AWOL
and nobody could hear him as he grasped at the air. A voice over the PA shouted
“Somebody help Stevie” and a man ran on stage, pushing the mic in the Motown
legend’s face.
2008 was a
good year for the Olympics, or at least that the Chinese put on an impressive
opening ceremony, which was the only bit I watched. I remember the March of Ethnic
Minorities, all of whom were later revealed to have been majority Han Chinese
in fancy dress. Allegations of child cruelty were made. And then there was
Michael Phelps, enjoying his bong.
And that
brings us to 2012, and London,
but not before a detour. Some of my most vivid memories of the Olympics are
from Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s doomed campaign to host the 2012 games. He’d
stuck posters and banners all over town, and whenever the rotten folks from the
IOC flew in he’d close huge palaces and parks to the public and treat the
Masters of the Olympics like actual gods from Mount Olympus.
I imagined all kinds of decadence taking place, and smiled at the thought of
the usually arrogant Luzhkov playing the unctuous boot licker.
The Russian
media was awash with reports that Moscow
was a shoo-in for victory, though a cursory glance at the foreign press made it
clear that the city wasn’t even in the top three candidates. Luzhkov actually organized
a victory rally on Red Square as the final selection announcement was being made
live via video link… only for London
to win. Massive disappointment followed, and the confused crowd staggered home,
not quite sure what had just happened. I went for a walk on Red
Square later that day, gathering abandoned pendants and flags for
souvenirs, which I pinned to the walls of my toilet.
And now the
London Olympics are underway, and in spite of the preliminary fiascos, things
appear to be going quite well. I didn’t watch Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony,
though from what I saw afterwards, it looked like the usual post-modern dribble
that flows from the slack jaws of the UK’s cultural establishment. Was it
amusing to see Queen coming down from the ceiling with James Bond? Not really.
It would have been better if she had landed on a dinosaur, ridden it around the
stadium, and then gotten it to bite Mr. Bean’s head off. Now that would have
been very good, and could only have been improved if she had flown away on a
jet pack.
1/8/2012