The Olympics and Team GB’s performance has nothing – nothing at all – to do with Brexit. There is no read across whatsoever. When I tweeted that observation, as a public service tweet, some in the world of social media on both sides of the Brexit divide invoked the medal haul as conformation that they were right about Brexit. It was either proof of the narrow-mindedness of Brexiteers or proof that we had taken back control. My friend Tim Montgomerie didn’t entirely agree with my sceptical view and thought Team GB’s glorious success was another reminder of the extraordinary things that Britain can achieve.
Perhaps, but personally I think there are no political implications whatsoever. It’s sport and the viewers know it. Brexit is entirely irrelevant either way in this regard. I say this as someone who wrote a Spectator cover story at the peak of the excitement of 2012 saying that Team GB’s success would help sweep the pro-Union forces to victory in the Scottish independence referendum. I cringe at the memory.
Now, on to other matters related to the Olympics, in particular the BBC’s coverage. I cannot stand it any longer.
First, there is a reason I don’t write about sport. When I tried it once, as a young reporter, at full-time at Parkhead my then colleague the great Tom English, now with BBC Scotland, had to help me out with some extra words phoned in to the newspaper’s copytakers to fill the white space where my words should have been. I had been given the wrong word length or filed short. Whatever. Despite trying, I just couldn’t find enough words to describe the game and related events. A person from another team had scored a goal, and the Celtic fans had booed the Celtic board on the basis that… oh I don’t remember.
Writing about sport, or commentating on it coherently, is a real gift. The elements of the craft can be taught, but when it is done well there’s flair and insight involved in capturing the intensity of the battle between competitors. Mercifully, British newspapers do seem to have got over that terrible phase in which too many young football writers thought they were Martin Amis or Hemingway.
If only one could say the same about large chunks of the BBC’s Olympics coverage from Rio 2016. It has gone downhill rapidly. Compared to some of the over the top on-screen analysis and child-like wild descriptions from Rio, quite a few of those football writers of 20 years ago were as good as Amis or Hemingway.
One caveat. There are terrific BBC commentators at the Olympics, people who know what they are talking about and who add to the viewer experience. Chris Hoy on cycling has combined being the perfect gentleman with useful insights.
But others on BBC Sport came close to ruining what was a wonderful weekend for Team GB. Perhaps the excitement got too much. In mitigation, much of what has gone wrong – the techniques, the approach – is a legacy of London 2012, a home games, when national pride understandably spilled over.
Whatever the reason, it has all come together in recent days to produce a festival of smuggery and bad “banter”. After Rio 2016 the BBC needs to have a quiet rethink and dial down the tone of its coverage of these events. Just show the sport and describe it.
For a start, scale back Eddie Butler’s celebratory montages. They have their place but the formula is now suffering from over-use. Butler must have something on someone senior at the BBC, or someone senior has become convinced that the country wants everything given the Butler “poetic” montage treatment. It goes a bit like this:
“Mo (shot of Mo Farah slowed right down). Go Mo. No go slow Mo. (Farah running at full pelt). The rush of the race. The roar of the crowd in Rio (shot of empty stadium). Go Mo Go. (Back to footage of Mo running.) Momentum. (Farah crosses the line, screen fades to dark before returning focussed on a single bead of Farah’s sweat). Mo. Momentous.”
The other major problem is the rise of on-screen BBC Sport “banter.” Banter more broadly is one of the curses of modern Britain, a post-1990s replacement for conversation in which the protagonists trade alleged witticisms and personal put-downs, while smirking. When anyone objects the participants say it is “just banter” . Television in the 1990s helped pioneer this jocular, mocking, irritating style of communication, and then parodied it brilliantly in the Gervais/Merchant original of The Office. That first series may have permanently altered British speech patterns, although millions of Britons are fighting back by having proper conversations.
On the BBC Olympic couch in Rio, banter has now reached epidemic levels.
When it is all over, make everyone involved study the BBC pundit Michael Johnson, the retired American sprinter and the epitome of adult intelligence, style and poise.
More Olympic news tomorrow, possibly.
