Greatest show on earth must deliver

1:55pm Friday 8th August 2008

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She was good at everything: running, jumping, chucking things a long way. You know the type.

It must have been nearly 20 years ago (and that does age me) when I was sent to cover the Hampshire junior athletic championships.

Yeah, I know, it hardly ranks up there with the Olympics, but you’ve got to start somewhere.

And there, dominating every event she entered, was this skinny 14-year-old from the Isle of Wight.

Now at 31, Kelly Sotherton is in Beijing as one of Britain’s main medal hopes in the women’s heptathlon.

And every time she appears on the TV, I can bore the kids like a senile old dodderer with constant mentions of “I remember her when …”

It’s as good a reason as any to tune in to the Games; especially after spotting those pictures of her in a glossy Sunday magazine covered in gold body paint.

That’s another story, though.

But I don’t really know whether I’m excited about the Olympics or not.

The sight of America’s cycling team heading out of the airport in masks to beat the smog was hardly the advert the Chinese organisers wanted to see whizzing round the world.

All the build-up has focused on the supposedly filthy air; the politics surrounding Tibet; the tight controls and surveillance that foreign visitors will be under.

But other than the customary Eastern Europe doping scandal, there seems to have been very little about the events themselves.

These concerns are obviously all genuine but I wonder if we’re pushing it just a little harder to cast London 2012 into a better light.

Our own Gerry Sutcliffe is over there, lucky so and so, and has left the British team in little doubt what he is demanding. He wants value for money to justify all the lottery cash splashed out and has laid down the gauntlet of winning 41 medals.

The message is clear that any underperforming sport will find themselves under-funded come the next Games. We don’t want to be throwing money at lost causes.

If only that long-overdue policy of not rewarding failure with our hard-earned cash could be extended to other areas of life. But again, that’s another story.

Team GB are aiming for fourth place in the medal table when we are the hosts four years from now. They have finished tenth for the past two Games – Sutcliffe’s 41 should lift them into the top six.

Some sports can provide rich pickings. As a fan of both, I’m pleased to see that cycling and boxing carry some of our strongest hopes.

The rapid improvement in British cycling has justified the financial outlay.

Mark Cavendish’s four stage victories in the Tour de France were proof that Britain can excel in a sport that has traditionally been the domain of mainland Europe.

Now performance director Dave Brailsford is confident of establishing a national team to tackle Le Tour from 2010.

Amateur boxing, too, has come on leaps and bounds. Last time in Athens it was Amir Khan or nothing but this year there are several genuine hopefuls, although the loss of Commonwealth medalist and favourite Frankie Gavin is a major blow.

But contrast that with swimming, which has proved a barren waste ground since the heyday of Duncan Goodhew, Adrian Moorhouse and Sharron Davies. Veteran Mark Foster was given the honour of carrying the flag at yesterday’s opening ceremony – the only time he is likely to lead anything in the next few weeks.

Athletic hopes will again firmly be pinned on the tiny frame of Paula Radcliffe after her recent scare with a spider bite. And, of course, our Kel trying to emulate Denise Lewis, providing her javelin – traditionally the weakest of the seven disciplines – doesn’t go too awry.

They call it the greatest show on earth and I hope it lives up to the grand billing. But I fear the talk about pollution, human rights and steroid-enhanced performances will linger as long as the constant smog.