In 2012 as a family we had a huge Olympic Odyssey in London. You can read about it here if you want.
I thought it was only fit and proper that I should just review my experiences of Rio 2016, both positive and negative. Firstly we planned to go but when we looked at the cost of tickets for a family of five (without air fares) where we had access to three events (from different categories, so not chosen by us) and including accommodation the total cost was £20,000. Yes, read that again... £20,000 to go to Rio for four days for five people without flights.
Did you wonder why the stadiums were empty while an Irish IOC official was hoarding £3million worth of tickets in his hotel room?
Perhaps the most disappointing part of the Rio Olympics were the empty seat. Perhaps the most disappointing part of the Paralympics will be the cancellation of events.
There may be many things wrong with the UK but our love of sport, and in August of 2012 our appreciation of disability sport was quite an incredible thing to watch.
This will not be the same for the rest of the world and Rio.
That said, money spent by UK sport (mostly from the lottery) over this Olympic cycle - £270million-odd i'm told in my book was money well spent.
Sport is an enormous positive influence on our society and is something we should cherish. The introduction of sport to people across all aspects of society should be one that we encourage and enhance and the Olympics is perhaps the best vehicle for doing this.
Many of our Gold medal winners will return from the Olympics back to relative obscurity with reasonable jobs funded by UK sport in either their chosen sporting profession or in coaching but few of them will become famous and wealthy. They don't participate in something like the Olympic games to become famous and wealthy - only the very, very top of the tree get this but they do become healthy, they do become happy and they're usually able to secure a lifetime doing something they love. Compare this against football where almost everybody wants to be famous and much, much more money is injected for much less return for society as a whole (in my opinion)
The legacy of the Rio Olympics may be 5,000 people pushed out of their houses to make room for stadiums that nobody sat in and it's easy to see in four years times venues which will be decrepit and it will seem like money wasted and that may well be true. But for the British athletes that return to the UK and the huge success that they had in return for the hard work they put in over the last four years I am very proud. It has inspired me to continue on my quest to improve at sport and it's certainly inspired my children. For my money, it was £270million well spent.
Blog Post Number: 1055
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