In these days of cynicism and gloom it’s nice to see an event which produces the such positive emotions. The even I’m talking about is The Olympics. Finely tuned athletes compete against the best in their fields of excellence. I particularly admire the great British team as they have little to no funding from the British government. Whereas every other country seems to support their athletes the British government seem to desert their athletes.
The Olympics which is being held in Chinese Capital Beijing started off today with a major firework display at the Opening ceremony. The games are a great opportunity for athletes from less known countries to put themselves and their country on the athletics map. All in all there are 76 different countries taking part in the games. Even tiny territories such as the Cook Islands have a team at the games.
It’s amazing that athletes from places without properly facilities can make it all the way to one of the biggest sporting events in the world. It’s also a great event for the underdog. Athletes from small countries can run against superpowers like the United States and win. The modern Olympic Games were established in 1896 by a Frenchman called Pierre De Coubertin. The first games were held in Greece and Greek Spiridon Louis won the marathon.
Although I’ve been talking about the positives of the games already there has been more talk of positives. That’s positive drug tests unfortunately. Two athletes have already tested positive for drugs. This is a modern curse of the Olympics athletes taking performance enhancing drugs. It seems nowadays athletes will do anything to get that extra edge even if that is illegal.
An interesting thing to think about in the future is the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Great Britain is willing to submit an Olympic football team for the first team ever due to it being on home soil. The English Football association are willing to put a team together even with the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish FA participation. The Olympic rules would permit Great Britain to submit a team solely comprised of players from England.
The other nations believe that if they agree to submit a Great Britain team for The Olympics that they will have to submit a combined team for other major tournaments such as World Cups and European Championships. So it appears that the other Associations have closed the door on their involvement.