Citizen Chris: Bad winners

Aug 26 2008 By Chris Donkin

While our athletes in Beijing were turning us into a nation of winners, over here, fans have been turning us into a nation of total losers.

As I have a job, I've had to be pretty choosy which bits of the Olympic coverage I saw - beach volleyball was obviously my main priority followed by anything Britain may win at. This time, that actually covered quite a lot of sports.

I happily cheered on our boys and girls for the first few golds then I began to notice a very disturbing trend amongst us Brits - we are very, very bad winners. The athletes are as graceful as ever, but the sports fans I know have suddenly turned into the USA sprint relay team, yelling things like "yeah, have a bit of that you dirty Aussies".

Friendly rivalry this may be, but we seem to have turned the thing we hated most in the days when we were rubbish: gloating gloryhunters. In short... we've become American. No longer is a silver medal any good for us. Don't get me wrong, it's great to see us doing well in the games, I just wish the fans would be a bit more gracious with it.

I know of several cringeworthy incidents where London-based Aussies, Kiwi's etc... have been mocked by everyone they know because Britain is above their native land in the medals table, this success will not last forever and I'm sure they'll be the first ones complaining about gloating Australians when we lose the Ashes (again) in 2009.

Many of these patriotic souls have no doubt spent the last fourteen years complaining about lottery good cause money being 'wasted' on sport - they aren't so vocal about the cash injection now we have some shiny medals to show off.

On the upside, at least the current Team GB euphoria may stop the incessant whinging about the London Games. Yes it's expensive but it will regenerate the area, give the economy a boost and bring in the tourists. Plus, we'll get a few venues we can use afterwards, hopefully for things a little more enriching than those at the Mobile Phone Company Rip Off Pop Concerts Arena we all paid to build in Greenwich.   

I have no idea what the ticketing system will be for the games, but it would be nice if all the council tax payers who've bankrolled it would get to see some for free, not necessarily the big events, but how much cash will they make out of selling tickets for Greco-Roman wrestling anyway?

A free pass to the Beach Volleyball might stop the complaints and capitalise on the sudden Team GB mania we are currently enjoying/enduring (delete as appropriate).