Olympics showcases best of Aussie spirit

The 20th anniversary of the Sydney Olympics has been remembered this week with a breakfast held on the site of the Games. The usual subjects were all in attendance. They did not look quite as sprightly as 20 years ago. The hair was greyer and most of them looked like they had found a good paddock in which to graze. Brisbane will get its chance to show off its jewels in a few years times and I know that I will have to make this journey north at that time just to soak up the atmosphere that only the Olympics can bring. It is the ultimate sporting contest. When you win Olympic gold no one doubts that you are the strongest, most skilled or quickest person on the planet.

Normal ratings surveys cease while the Olympics are on because almost every television set is tuned into the one channel. The cost of buying the rights to broadcast the Olympics has blown out to the tune of billions. Those stations which don’t have the Olympics may as well show the test pattern. It would make little difference to their ratings because there really is only one game in town. The sponsors milk it for all they can. Australia has punched well above its weight in the Olympic movement with both John Coates and Kevin Gosper getting right into the inner circle.

One thing that does stand out is the number of athletes Australia sends. We always have one of the biggest contingents and that is quite a feat considering we are a nation of just 25 million. We compete in everything from fencing to beach volleyball and football to Graeco-Roman wrestling. Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) was an Olympic champion before he went on to become a living legend. Sadly Ali did not know when to quit. Simon and Garfunkel’s song The Boxer said it all: “And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down or cut him ‘til he cried out in his anger and his shame ‘I am leaving, I am leaving’ but the fighter still remains.” Paul Simon remains one of the great poets of our time as ably demonstrated by that son’s words: “I am just a poor boy though my story’s seldom told. I have squandered my resistance to a pocketful of mumbles. Such are promises – all lies and jest but a man hears what he wants to hear but disregards the rest”. To think of Ali, supreme athlete of his time, taking on bums in ten round bouts in Cuba at the end of his career still saddens me.

My good friend Mark Bosnich signed a soccer ball for my son D’Arcy with the words “Be the Best”. Mark believed in that phrase and was regarded at one stage as the best goal keeper in the world. Every Olympic athlete has to think that way. In the Olympics there are prizes for those who don’t win. Silver and Bronze. These medals are rightly cherished by those who won them. The truth is though that no one remembers who comes in second. The winner takes it all.