Opinion: Fair-weather Olympic fans only interested in winners

If you win you’re a national hero, lose and we turn our collective backs and put the scarfs and beanies back in the drawer, writes Mike O’Connor.

If you were to pick the one defining trait of your average Aussie, it would have to be their love of a winner.

We are not, however, all that crazy about losers, as the Matildas discovered when they lost their Olympic match against Germany.

Once the idols of the masses, suddenly they were accused of being overconfident, unprepared, under trained and generally being “up themselves”. If they’d won they’d have been national heroes, but lose a match and we turn our collective backs and put the scarfs and beanies back in the drawer until they start winning again.

Forget the Matildas. They’re losers. It’s the swimmers who are now the object of our adulation and the focus of our national pride, until they lose a few races or fail to perform to expectation as they have in previous Olympic contests, in which case our attention immediately switches elsewhere.

Years of mental and physical torture, endless training, determination and discipline all dismissed unless they win a gold medal. Winners? “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie,” while the losers are left to shuffle off into the darkness, bearing the burden of their nation’s displeasure.

Don’t they realise that we are a nation of sporting heroes, of bronzed gods and goddesses whose spare time is spent in the pursuit of physical and athletic perfection, and that in failing to win gold, they have cast a shadow on our international image?

Germany delivered Australia a reality check in the women’s football. Picture: Christophe Simon/AFP

The reality of course is that as a nation we are unfit, lazy and overweight and getting lazier and more obese by the day. Most of us would be hard pressed to run around the block without stopping for a cup of coffee and an egg-and-bacon roll.

The Games, however, provide a distraction from the reality of our existence. Our political leaders hope that if our athletes are winning lots of gold medals, then people might be conned into believing that the government isn’t doing such a bad job and that life in dear old Oz is pretty good.

This is why you may have noticed that your average politician would run barefoot across a paddock full of broken stubbies to be photographed beside a gold-medal-winning athlete in the hope that by basking in their reflected glory, they will be seen as representing the gold standard in governance.

They are not so keen, however, to be seen with those who have fought the good fight and run the good race but failed to win.

Viewed from afar, the Games might represent a world in which all countries come together in a celebration of excellence and fraternity, but the reality is that it’s a dog-eat-dog contest which only those who exist in a cocoon of naivete believe do not harbour state-sponsored drug cheats in high-profile sports.

The sooner the Games slide into irrelevance, the better it will be. There will be a welter of self-congratulation when our teams return home, but when the cheering is finally stilled, far too many Australians will be looking for somewhere to live and struggling to feed their families.

Swimming golden girls such as Ariarne Titmus have had more success. Picture: Sarah Stier/Getty Images

They’re the losers, the ones who failed to win gold.

There is no shortage of issues confronting the country. Inflation fuelled in part by profligate government spending has created a society in which the gap between the haves and have-nots continues to widen.

Health services are breaking down and private health insurance is now beyond the reach of many.

Our cities are becoming overcrowded and multiculturalism has given way to tribalism driven by religion and ethnicity, and increasingly you get the feeling that we are not all in this together while the ugly face of anti-Semitism is being seen on our streets and on our university campuses.

Our defence force is understrength and underequipped and no one seems particularly interested in changing this while billions are being wasted by handing out federal government subsidies to any business that promises to help us to achieve the completely unachievable goal of net-zero emissions.

The national energy policy is driven by ideology and guaranteed to drive prices up and productivity and reliability down, immigration laws have become unforgeable while new industrial relations laws which will come into effect next month will massively increase the control unions have over the workplace and drive many small businesses to the wall.

Good luck to our athletes but while cheering the winners you might look around and see how we are in danger of becoming a nation of economic and social losers.