Wally the Fly

While there’s always plenty of chat about what games should be given the royal boot from the Olympics what’s interesting this time round are the lobbies to get some new sports into the Games.

The lobby to get Twenty20 cricket into the Games has already begun. This is shortest, simplest form of cricket, a fledgling format that still has that new car smell. It was created with dollars in mind not athleticism, for the big hits rather than the long stubborn innings. A game which is about having less cricket and more of the ‘fun stuff’ to get non-cricket people to watch it. This is the form they want in the Olympics.

A recent report has called on the IRB to try and get Rugby Sevens into the 2016 Games. Apparently when this was attempted last time it got fewer votes than roller sports.

Both campaigns have their points. Sevens rugby have a global circuit, a world cup that from next year will have a women’s competition with strong teams from Fiji, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, Australia and the ‘home nations.’ Similarly cricket has strong teams from around the world; from Oceania, Africa, Europe (well England), the Caribbean and the subcontinent.

But do we really want to see Rugby 7s and Twenty20 cricket in the Games?

The Olympics give the smaller sports their day in the sun and the athletes that compete in them to extend the cliché, their 15 minutes of fame. Two weeks out of every four years we’ll switch on and watch judo, diving, archery, track and field. Even for sports with a higher profile in Australia like swimming, it is still the event for those athletes.

The rest of the time we can think about our footy, tennis, cricket or golf.

Cricket and rugby stars play in front of big crowds and are house hold names already, they have their competitions and most of them have plenty of money.

One of the requisite for gaining Olympic entry must be that the Olympics will be the pinnacle for that sport.

By this definition football and tennis wouldn’t be in the Games - they should be booted out.

The majority of athletes in the majority of Olympic sports try their guts out just to have the right to go to the games. So when multimillionaire tennis stars decide whether they can fit the Olympics in their schedule and what impact it’ll have on their preparation for the next major it creates a huge imbalance.

What does it say when Harry Kewell says he wants to play at the Olympics but decides against it because he joined a new Turkish club and that’s the priority?

The amateur games may be over and the Olympics may be getting overly political and marred by drugs and other scandals. But the Olympics are still a magical sporting event with athletes from basically every nation, who for that very brief time, have the eyes of the world upon them. Why take that away? Why take that away by adding already well-followed sports like rugby and cricket?

It’s the time where suddenly the water cooler conversation turns from footy to women’s basketball and the Hockyroos.

It’s the time where we’ll suspend belief that Equestrian is actually a sport because Australia has a shot at gold.

Where nobody mentions the non-PC-ness or non-athelitisim of shooting because we want Michael Diamond to repeat his Sydney exploits.

Despite this we’ll be talking about why Synchronised Swimming shouldn’t be in the Games… and it has nothing to do with the fact Australia never wins it, thank you very much.

Ditto ping pong and European handball.

It’s the time where hot-blooded males have can justify watching beach vollyball to their spouses/partners. Just ask the 43rd President of the United States.

It’s a time where standards change; where we expect nothing less than gold in the pool but a podium finish in a barely heard of sport by an even more unheard of athlete is triumphed.

It’s the two weeks where one of our greastest sporting exports Lauren Jackson, gets the attention she deserves and where Australia’s world beating hockey players get a bit of cred for their efforts year around.

It’s when our swimmers get out and shake up a can of whoop-arse launch it like a genade. These guys of course, must only be referred to on a first name basis.

We’re all dissapointed Libby changed her name but we’ll recover. We’ll watch 14 and a bit minutes of blokes going up and down in a pool because Grant has a chance to become one of the greats of world swimming in one of the toughest swimming events.

The next fortnight we’re allowed to get worked up, jump up and down and perhaps even shed a concealed tear over sports that that never appear on our television screens.

The next fortnight the ‘tv-must-be-turned-off-at-dinner’ rule is replaced with the ‘don’t-change-it-from-channel7-on-pain-of-death’ rule.

And we wouldn’t have it any other way