Oxford's oldest student newspaper

Independent since 1920

Debate: Are we excited about the Olympics?

Proposition:

I love sport. I love the camaraderie of a steamy changing room after a big win with the boys. I love the rush of blood to the head after a good bout of exercise. I love the endless conversation fodder it provides for meals, drinks and long journeys. Sport gives meaning to individual lives, sport unites teams and builds nations. The Olympics are coming to London this summer and I can’t wait.

The Olympics, with its momentous significance, will give meaning to parts of England that are often overlooked in global affairs. When else would you see something as culturally significant in Needham, Chippenham or Leighton Buzzard? The Olympic Torch is blazing through Britain’s banal countryside, placing for one transcendental moment the A420 on the same historical stage as the great wonders of our world. The torch represents more than just the mark of the Olympics, its journey is a cultural crusade of historical significance. It is sport’s most recognisable symbol, uniting place and people in its wake.

The Olympics also focus the gaze of the watching world on one particular event. It is perhaps for this reason that the Olympics have been the scene of hugely significant political moments and indications of widespread social movements, all of which have become indelibly marked on the wider historical script. Jesse Owens’s four medals at Munich in 1936 showed in glorious fashion the ridiculous falsehoods of the Nazi ethos of Aryan supremacy, while in Mexico city in 1968 Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two African American 200 metre sprinters who finished on the podium, gave the black power salute during the American national anthem. At London 2012, at a time of deep rooted social frustration in the capital, will we see similar moments of cultural significance? Perhaps the ‘Occupy’ campaign will move to rowing headquarters at Eton Dorney to set up camp, a floating reminder of the moral bankruptcy of capitalism. Or perhaps Tom Daley will step up his anti-bullying campaign on the diving board, wearing a glittery thong in an attempt to neutralise gender discrimination in sport.

Aside from these significant arguments in favour of the Olympics, there is a myriad of other opportunities the games provide: handing out medals gives work to minor royals, while Elbow’s finances go through the roof every time the BBC use ‘Day Like This’ in a montage. The travel industry booms as Londoners get as far away from events in their home town as possible, while the BBC coverage keeps Sue Barker in work, at least for the summer. Hosting London 2012 may have cost the taxpayer over nine billion pounds, but it’s worth every last penny.

Barney White

 

Opposition:

It’s taken four years, but our elaborate scheme to trick swathes of foreigners into going to East London is almost complete. The Olympics are coming to UK. It will, argue its proponents, leave a sporting legacy that will outweigh its considerable costs. But, undermining all the games’ lofty ideals is one fatal flaw: sport is rubbish.

We are promised a lasting legacy, that the four week gridlock and monetary loss shall be trivial by comparison. But, most of this legacy will arrive in the form of a surplus of sporting facilities for inner-city youths. The assumption is that training up athletes and inspiring exercise is a good thing. Well, out of a deep dedication to hands-on journalism, I did a peculiar thing last Wednesday: I went for a run. It was horrible. Within minutes my legs had turned to jelly and I was choking on my own sweat. Small children were left in floods of tears, traumatised by the sight of my turquoise short shorts. Everything hurt. Clearly it would be grossly irresponsible to encourage such activity.

In fact, the ‘healthy mind, healthy body’ glorification of exercise is almost as ubiquitous as it is lacking actual empirical evidence. For the sake of science I would like you to conduct an experiment: if you can pull your eyes away from this page for a second please look up and observe those around you. Look at their pale, oily faces, those lank, chubby, sausage limbs – they betray an aversion to exercise that has gotten these people into the best university in the world. If you are alone, consider that the social ineptitude causing this probably results from social exclusion in early childhood due to your own sporting failures. But the hours studying alone in your bedroom, whilst those happier, prettier, sportier children played outside, are what brought you into this wonderful city. Furthermore, the notion that team sport builds character is fatally undermined considering most professional footballers seem to possess the moral fortitude of a particularly dishonest can of special brew.

And let’s not forget: it’s hopelessly dull to watch. The athletics particularly so. It’s just people moving quickly. Why not save the hundreds of millions the UK taxpayer currently spends on athletics training and simply film me and my pals running a hundred metres then play it at double speed? Same result. More bizarre is the gymnastics which is, essentially, just people moving from one place to another in an absurdly inefficient manner. Readers, sport is not virtuous, it is painful and embarrassing. It turns the fans into louts, the participants into sweaty wrecks and puts everyone else to sleep. Why we chose to take on this costly circus is a mystery.

Ben Deaner

Check out our other content

Most Popular Articles