haggis supper

Find an Australian, so I can talk about sport
Simon Barnes, Chief Sports Writer

Excuse me, but this is Britain we're talking about, isn't it? As in Plucky Brit gets fourth. As in Plucky Brit says it was my dream just to be here. As in Plucky Brit says making the final was my gold medal. Britain, a country in which we are used to quarter-final exits on penalties, Ashes whitewashes, lost and bewildered rugby champions, and the annual Day 1 round-up of the Wimbledon wild cards who have bitten the dust.

Yes, that Britain. The one that the Australians laugh at, the one Americans hold in contempt. Well, you're talking about the country that won eight gold medals in the course of an epic weekend of Olympic sport. While Rafael Benítez thrillingly decides that he's not leaving Liverpool and Frank Lampard even more thrillingly decides he's not leaving Chelsea, out in the real world of sport, it's been one British victory after another, eight golds over the weekend. It's like waking up to find yourself an East German.

The British have been brilliant, superb, unrelenting, unflinching, unforgiving. They have not been remotely lucky. Everything has been the result of hard training and masterful seizing of the opportunity. Even more amazingly, everything has been done by Brits who had the courage to win, the courage to make their opponents lose. They left choking to the other nations.

Already, Britain have 11 gold medals at these Olympic Games, the same number that they had in Sydney, two more than in Athens. What's more, there are still seven days of competition to go.


One more gold would be the highest total since Antwerp in 1928; 16 would be the highest since the London Olympics of 1908. Find me an Australian, quick, I have an urgent need to talk about sport.

The velodrome has become a killing ground. Cycling has become a template, not just for the British but for the world, if you want to know how best to translate funding into gold. Three of the weekend's medals came here, the last of them from Rebecca Romero in the individual pursuit. She is a rower turned dry bob, an athlete of black despair and golden elation and last night, her victory whoops lifted the roof of the Laoshan velodrome.

When anybody else in the world is intense, Chris Hoy gets royalties. He is an unsated Redgrave of the wooden O, and he picked up one gold by leading the men's team sprint. Hoy is unbeatable in the men's one-kilometre time-trial, so they took it out of the Olympic programme and replaced it with the keirin, the rather curious event in which you have to chase a moped. So Hoy won that instead; and Bradley Wiggins took his tattoos and his haircut to victory in the individual pursuit.

Rebecca Adlington won her second gold in the 800 metres freestyle, and kept talking about all the Jimmy Choo shoes she's going to get as a reward. She may be a great swimmer, but she's terrified of the sea: “I don't do fish.”

Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter won the men's lightweight double sculls. “The last ten years came down to six minutes of hell,” Purchase said. Meanwhile, the foppish Andrew Triggs Hodge stroked the men's four to victory, overhauling the Australians in the last few metres. “I always knew we had another gear,” he said; one hell of a time to find it.

Over at the sailing, Ben Ainslie in the Finn class and the women in the Yngling both went into the final race knowing who they had to beat. In these head-to-head circumstances, each forced the opponent to bottle it. Not British, you think? Ainslie is a glutton for competition, and is utterly fearsome mano-a-mano.

The three blondes in a boat from Athens have had a change of cast and swapped one blonde for another. Shirley Robertson left after a bitch-fight, but they won without her. And that makes eight; or, if you prefer, 11 and counting. Sorry, I haven't mentioned the minor medals, but I simply don't have the space.

It was an utterly extraordinary weekend of sport, and that's without counting the greatest swimmer that ever drew breath, as Michael Phelps, of the United States, beat Mark Spitz's record to win eight gold medals: if he was a large developed country, he wouldn't be looking too shabby in he medals table. Oh, and we also had the fastest man in history in the most sensational 100metres final since, say, 1936.

But let us be parochial. It's not often we have a chance to gloat, but the thing to realise is that this isn't a one-off; this isn't a fluke.

This is a sporting renaissance, and it has been going on since the lottery began. The dark days when England got a single gold medal at the Atlanta Games of 1996 can be forgotten. It's not just the money, it's also because money is related to performance. Use it or lose it.
Excellence is being pursued with a dedication that can be genuinely alarming when you see it close, too. British Olympic yachting, rowing and cycling frighten the world. They have established a way that is hard, ruthless and unforgiving. Just like modern sport.

So let us, for a while, leave off moaning about the national teams in the traditional ball sports. Britain has a new sporting culture, and it is to be found in the heartland Olympic sports.

So let us not blame national character when the football team fail, the cricket team collapse and the rugby team blow hot and cold. No, send the soft-centred buggers down to the velodrome to learn what it takes.

Pollyana

Do we have a source publication for this article?

Vash the Stampede

I'd probably be writing a vacuous, self-absorbed puff piece too, if my country had just won her first gymnastics medal since the 1920s.

DrWho

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/spo...cle4553879.ece

soapy©

do we really need one?

rabsody

We must be taking a leaf out of the Aussies' book in talking ourselves up for a change (or should that be just plain nationalistic boasting and gloating at every opportunity).

moneypenny20

Whatever you chose to call it, I say it's about flaming time that the money and coaching is finally getting through to the athletes and that they are finally getting results in more than a couple of sports. Long may it last.

I've had a few true blue Aussies come up and say it's great to see the Brits doing well for a change. One asked if that meant that the powers that be had finally realised that you have to put money in to get great athletes out.

Fly Away

I heard a comic on TV say something so very true,

"Britain are only good at sports that the Africans can't afford to compete in."

TiddlyPom

Ooooh, get you! Scratch those eyes out!

Grayling

I see the Aussie teddy throwing team is starting to warm up

G

St.Georges Girl

You'd no doubt get it published along with the rest of the crap they spout relentlessly here too.

Well said F.

TiddlyPom

I quite like this too.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/ma...lympics119.xml

St.Georges Girl

Thanks for putting that up A, I enjoyed that.

Nu-Shooz

Oh come on, thumbs up where deserved

rabsody

Just demonstrating the much observed Aussie sour grapes really eh?