Opinion | Columnists
You never forget a gold medal or a Red Boris
All the Games have been different. They have showcased, in one way or another, the best of the host cities
- By Lord Sebastian Coe, The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2008.
- Published: 23:59 August 7, 2008
- Image Credit:
Looking forward to the opening of the Beijing Olympics today, I find myself also looking back to my campaigns as a competitor. I was very lucky. The deities from Olympus smiled upon me and I won gold medals in two of the world's great cities - in Moscow in 1980 and in Los Angeles in 1984 (if they smiled on me, they must have fallen in love with Steve Redgrave, who won five golds in consecutive Games).
Every Olympian has special memories. British competitors in Moscow and Los Angeles could not have been at two more contrasting Games: from state control to Prometheus unbound. In Moscow we were met by more news reporters than sports reporters - the US was leading a boycott in protest at the Soviet war in Afghanistan and Margaret Thatcher had decreed that we shouldn't really be there.
Having argued for months that international sport should stand tall and free from political interference, I received a sharp jab to my political prejudices when my half-read copy of The Spectator was confiscated in the customs hall of Moscow airport. I will never forget Boris, a rather laconic "liaison'' officer attached to the British team, who, when not tuning in to our conversations in the rather sparse recreation area, spent much of his time buried in a paperback, which was scruffily smothered in brown paper. Eventually I plucked up the courage to ask what he was reading. With the controlled sleight of hand of a card sharp, he slid the wrapping from the book to reveal Graham Greene's The Human Factor.
"Where's the nearest nightclub?'' he was asked by one of the swimmers. Without lifting his eyes from the page, he replied: "Helsinki.''
Then there was the BBC technical team who, convinced their hotel rooms were bugged, set about a clinical sweep. Up came the carpets. Light fittings, telephones, wall sockets were laid bare - nothing. They moved on to the TV, but before the back had been fully removed, the phone rang. The gist of the message was clear: "Will you please stop messing around with the television.''
Los Angeles, four years later, was a lot more relaxed. Partly, I suppose, because I had an Olympic title under my belt, though also because it lacked the political frisson of Moscow. Los Angeles changed the Games more profoundly than any other to date: it was entirely funded by corporate sponsorship, and set a template for the way organising committees go about their business.
In truth, all the Games have been different. They have showcased, in one way or another, the best of the host cities - using the occasion to emphasise modernity and change. Tokyo in 1964 and Munich in 1972 marked the full return to the international fold of countries with a difficult recent history. Berlin in 1936 had been intended to drive the Nazi agenda and demonstrate Arian supremacy - a concept happily exposed as risible by the ethereal talents of Jesse Owens. Sydney hosted the world's largest birthday party for the millennium Games, but used them to underpin indigenous reconciliation. Barcelona's commercial fortunes were forever changed after hosting the 1992 Games. And in Moscow, I have little doubt that I witnessed the infancy of change - if only because, for the first time, the Soviet regime had to open its doors to the world.
That is why the decision to go to Beijing - taken, symbolically enough, in Moscow in 2001 - was the right decision then and remains the right decision now. There is, of course, one thing that is uniform to all modern Games since the first in Athens in 1896. The eve of an opening ceremony is a nervy, scratchy experience for even the most seasoned of competitors, as they contemplate the campaign and the unyielding spotlight that is about to be shone on their efforts, which will be played out before billions of viewers. This is a world without ifs and buts, in which 10,500 athletes and 4,000 paralympians, many of whom have devoted well over half their young lives to reaching this moment, test themselves. It is now that they must harvest all the hard years that have led them to the Olympic arena. Of course, every athlete also faces a specific individual challenge. The experienced Paula Radcliffe, for example, must prepare for the heat and humidity that will challenge physiology and psychology. But what is exercising her every waking hour is the race against time to recover from a stress fracture. And it will go to the wire.
Talented
For Tom Daley, the precociously talented, 14-year-old diver, it will be his first taste of both Olympic village and pool - but not his ultimate test. That comes in London in 2012. And when he does get to London our task is to provide him with everything that allows him to realise his dream of gold.
On Sunday I flew to Beijing to join our team from the London organising committee. We will soak up all we can, and deliver an outstanding Games in four years' time.
Lord Sebastian Coe is chairman of the London 2012 Olympic organising committee. He won the 1,500 metres gold medal at the Moscow and Los Angeles Olympic Games. He was also an MP.
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