The TC Chronicle: Recovering from Olympic Flu

I was ten. I gurgled to the end of a 25m pool during a 50m race and, after weighing up the embarrassment of aborting the race against the shame of dying from exhaustion in front of the whole school, I heaved myself out and sauntered to the spectators as though it were beneath my dignity to swim more than half the race.

The rich storehouse in my subconscious of hapless exercise experiences has made me somewhat grumpy about sport. Every semester, a fat “C” for Physical Education would mar the otherwise perfect row of A’s on my report card. My halcyon high school memories were tainted by hurdle mishaps and high-velocity volleyball assaults on my face.

So, when the Olympics loom every few years, I wonder why everyone gets excited about watching people run quickly (either on their own or after balls), jump high, swim fast or toss ribbons in the air while wearing a shimmering leotard.

But it became hard maintain my anti-sport stance when I started dating someone whose family albums featured as many basketballs as my photographs featured t-shirts tucked into tracksuit pants (the sartorial preference of new migrants). In the early days, when I still trying to impress, I sat in the state basketball stadium pretending not to be scandalised by the flesh-baring cheerleaders shaking their pompoms (and other things). The players were tall as Ents and even I, uninitiated as I was, saw that they were skilled – they could run without becoming entangled in their elongated limbs and repeatedly swished the ball through the hoops with cavalier wrist flicks.

When the new boyfriend started coaching a team of teenage boys, I went to the games as a show of gratitude for the times he had endured subtitled art-house films and my impromptu readings of Philip Larkin poems in the car. I learned the guys’ names and cheered with their parents. If a boy made a shot after a hailstorm of air balls, I found myself infused with pride and laughing at his own surprise. During a game at a stadium in the Kalamunda hills, I spoke to a woman who fostered five children from a remote community up north. As she peeled a banana for a 6-year-old boy in footy shorts and striped socks, she told me that sport had taught her kids discipline and given them focus and a sense of belonging and achievement. She was happy to fritter away weekends chauffeuring kids to games and training because they loved it and it kept them out of trouble.

Although I’m still appalled by cost of the London Olympics ($37,000,000,000, according to an independent study – it’s a number with so many zeros that I don’t know how to say it), disgusted by the misogynistic antics of the cretins on The Footy Show and bored by continuous footage of swimmers doing tumble turns, I’ve realised that my blanket aversion to sport is unfair.

Watching the Olympics brings the pleasure of witnessing someone doing what they do best, which I understand. I feel thrilled watching a barrister entangle a witness with deft questions; a bartender balancing six espresso martinis on his tray; the redheaded vet speaking gently to my trembling dog. I’m sure there were days of agonising, scratched out words, scrunched up paper and bottles of Scotch before Byron wrote, “She walks in beauty, like the night”. Similarly, behind every slam-dunk, there are chauffeuring parents, hours of lonely shots at a backyard hoop and team managers who fill countless water bottles.