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Olympics 2008…what’s can we expect?

With the opening ceremony on the 8th August in the brand new National Stadium (nicknamed the ‘birdcage’) drawing closer the spotlight shall soon move from Euro 2008 to China and the Olympic games. Whilst it isn’t quite finished yet the landscapers have moved in and the 10,000 nature photos that will decorate the inside have been chosen.

All of us know by now that every 4 years the world’s greatest athletes gather to compete in all kinds of sports just as the ancient Greeks did millennia ago. The number of sports competed at this level has proliferated over the lat few decades with activities such as Taekwondo, BMXing, Softball and Beach Volleyball being but a selection of those outside the traditional events. All 302 finals of the various categories will be finished by 24th August giving us 16 days of pure sporting action. Hopefully more of a good willed event than the passing of the torch through the west, it is a very nice torch too I don’t know why everyone hated it so much.

Whatever people think about China’s regime should not influence the Olympics being held, indeed the negative attention being given to China is helping to reinforce some of the population’s deep misgivings about us in the West. Before denouncing another nation we should make sure that we are not going to be hypocrites. Enough politics back to the sport; the venues and facilities that have been built for the event are fantastic, if we can do something similar for 2012 I will be very impressed and surprised too. Boris had better start working on it now.

With every small part of the event being managed to perfection by the organisers everything should go off without a hitch. If you are going to watch the games at all the opening and closing ceremonies are a must, the promise of the best ever come about every time but still they are spectacular. The torch may not have completed its journey yet but everywhere it goes within China there is great support and a real enthusiasm to make it a great competition.

I will be watching to see who will come out dominant between China, USA and Russia, just the sheer size of their populations allows these 3 to be at the top of the medal charts. It would be nice if we could grab a couple gold medals in there but I don’t really mind where someone comes from in sport, I just like to see athletes at the peak of their ability. Perhaps a few new world records would help matters, though being told that someone ran 1/100th of a second quicker than the previous holder doesn’t quicken my heart rate a great deal.

Either way I know I couldn’t perform anywhere near as well as any Olympian and as such they deserve my respect and I shall watch them slightly in awe.

The best part of the Olympics is that we get to see how far a human body can be pushed and made to perform, and right at the height of summer when everyone is heading down to the beach. It gives the added impetus to try and get a bit fitter given how bad we look in comparison, we don’t need to be Olympian standard ourselves but we should try and aim to not be light years away from them.

I suppose I’m expected to give you a few tips for who should win events and who is no.1 in the world right now, but given how random sport can be and how the day shall matter far more than the run up I’m going to save myself the possibility of a prediction coming back to haunt me. Enjoy what shall be the best athletics event for at least 4 years.

Comments

• I went for an hour and a half jog today, and I thought that was worthy of Olympic standard! Seriously though, the kind of pain that top athletes put themselves through and the level of fitness they keep themselves at is mind-boggling, for the average person at least.

  By comment-editor on 20.6.2023

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