Today I watched my first Olympic event - one of many over the next couple of weeks, I'm sure. This was the women's road race, which I'd heard about from the BBC coverage yesterday. They made some lame pun about whether the race would be 'cooking' (why won't sports people stick to their day jobs?) because Nicole Cooke was racing. She won Gold, of course, probably because she's a genius on a bike. And you can tell she just loves competing in her sport.
But this brings me to my point... why do some countries get so invested in sport? Sport is great to keep you fit if you're doing it yourself - agreed. It can also be pretty spectacular to watch the best athletes competing in an arena like the Olympics - again, agreed. Watching the end of a race like Cooke's today (awesome finish, Nicole!), the tension can be thrilling. But, when sport starts getting political, what's the point? Aren't we just losing the whole spirit of sport?
Eight years ago, China launched Project 119, in a bid for sporting global domination. They've spent the last 7 years running intensive training schemes in the areas of sport they deem to have been weak thus far. (Can we see any parallels with other nations in the past?) And here's my problem - can the Chinese athletes really be enjoying their sport with that amount of pressure on them?
The Olympic motto says "faster, higher, stronger", it's a perfect comment on what sport should be. Let's forget all this 'we just have to be the best' crap and enjoy sport for what it is, a true reflection of the human need to continue to evolve and improve.
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