We/me/you/I/media have put all these athletes on pedestals over the past 18 days and will continue to do so for a long time. Why? Because they can run, jump, cycle and shag better than the rest of us? People assume that athletes do not earn decent money and whilst this is true for a number of participants i.e Hamadou Djibo Issake who had never stepped in an Olympic standard boat until he arrived in London! The same can't be said for Ennis and co. Ennis for example earned an estimated 700k last year and that's before the Olympics. This year she's expected to make 1 million pounds before doubling that the year after! I saw a tweet that said should our bankers be like our Olympians, initially I said no but if they can double their earnings year after year then maybe they should be. Maybe they already are more similar than we think.
This time round the British athletes have handled themselves well, but why should we be surprised by this. We're surprised by the fact that these adults can behave themselves and act responsibly. We shouldn't really be comparing them to footballers as it is not a fair comparison for either athlete.
Now don't get me wrong I have enjoyed the Olympics. I have watched copious amounts of sports, some which I have never seen before and will in all honesty not see for another 4 years but the atmosphere has been great. Around London and the Olympic park the atmosphere has been great and hopefully it will continue.
So with all these Olympians becoming house hold names have an ever increasing reputation as well as bank balance what about the Paralympians. How many of us could name of these athletes that have had to come through adversity to succeed. One name springs to mind and I assume you have heard of him - Oscar Pistorius. 'The Blade Runner' is doing well to make these athletes better known and more watched but what about British athletes? How many of us know who Chris Holmes is? He has a whole paragraph on Wikipedia. This is an athlete who is one of Britain's most successful Olympians winning 9 golds, 5 silvers and a bronze. Now he is an MBE but Chris Hoy has been knighted for winning 7 medals. Add to this the number of sponsorship deals and general funding and the able body Olympians are in a much better position. Whilst researching this blog, yes I do research, I have found out that the Royal Mail wont be commissioning stamps for the athletes that get gold. Now if this is true and remains in place this is a joke. In fact reading this has made me furious. Its a disgrace and actually makes a point of separating the two events. It's bad enough that many coaches and athletes receive very little funding, if any, often having to self-fund. They have had to over come many setbacks and difficulties to perform at these games and im not sure they are getting the best deal from them. In an ideal world there would be no Olympics and Paralympics. For me it would be just the Olympics. The schedule would read the Men's 100m sprint and then, Men's 100m parallel sprint. This is a logistic difficulty, apparently but I think this would allow disabled Olympians the chance to perform in front of 80,000 fans as well as being part of the actual Olympics. And it would be almost impossible to exclude the disabled athletes from stamps and presumably post boxes and having to be covered by channel 4.
Whilst this is not going to happen any time soon we can revel in the fact that this Paralympics is going to be the biggest and most watched ever. This is what I believe should be the Olympic legacy. If we can inspire a generation to take part and watch the parallel games then the last few weeks would have been a success and give us as a nation something to aim towards. Maybe even a more inclusive event.
