How to watch the Olympics

It’s just like footy I guess:  flop in front of telly with a bag of chocolate medals.  Only without Premiership broadcasting monopolies, couch athletes can surf the BBC’s dizzying array of online options. 

Whichever you choose, here’s a tip:  get my dad to bring his library copy of ‘How To Watch The Olympics’ –helpful if you think handball is a foul and Keirin must be Chelsea's latest expensive overseas flop. 

Let’s be clear:  football is the only truly world sport; the World Cup is the greatest show on earth.  But in between times the Olympics is a nice celebration of minor pastimes, and a useful distraction from another ignominious exit from the Euros.

But now we're told football is part of the Olympics – how is that meant to work?  I headed to Wembley to investigate…

So what did I learn at the spiritual home of football?  Blearly-eyed at an unsporting 8am kick-off, I first found myself in the neighbouring arena, enjoying the global sensation which is… badminton.  It certainly woke me up:  three matches play simultaneously, so it’s a bit like watching online - we focused on intricate doubles whilst flitting to singles at their climax.  As the feisty Chinese and Koreans smashed their way through I mused that it would take more than attaching feathers to the ball to slow a van Persie screamer.  But wouldn’t it be great to see some overpaid peacocks disqualified for ‘not trying hard enough’ - maybe football could learn a thing of two from its amateur cousins? 

With the real sport not scheduled until the evening, we took in some off-beat photos of local athletes in the National Portrait Gallery and a great Olympic exhibition, slightly incongruously, in the Royal Opera House (think Nessun Dorma).  Highlights were the development of designs over the hundred years of the modern games, exemplified through torches (from the sleek banana of Athens to Barcelona's sex-toy to the London cheesegrater), and medals (Paris had square medals for 1900 and later beautiful art nouveau designs for 1924, the same understated beauty of the Jules Rimet trophy).

By evening we were back at Wembley for the real thing:  football.  But I was confused by the GB men’s team:  playing in a suspiciously Scottish-looking kit, led largely by Welshmen with a supporting cast of under 23 rising stars, we huffed and puffed to overcome those footballing giants of, er, the United Arab Emirates.  The crowd was large but lacked passion – not helped by the perplexing question ‘what to sing?’  (This was less of a problem in the preceeding match where we devised numerous ways to rile the universally despised Suarez as he failed to help Uruguay overcome the spirited Senegalese). 

Undeterred, I took my niece to watch the GB women’s team two days later – this was more like it!  75,000 joyful fans (smashing the national attendance record for a women’s match), no age restrictions – and a victory over Brazil!  I hope my niece was inspired – I was.

But the Olympics are really for minor sports.  Early morning hockey in the Olympic park was, fortunately, rather like the beautiful game – similar pitch, goals, timings, and also tactics – the Dutch bamboozled Korea with their version of total football while the physical Aussies outmuscled a disappointing Pakistan team.  It will never match our national game, but could we see throw-ins taken to yourself, offside scrapped, rolling substitutions or even just a bit of respect for the officials in the Premier League once normal service is resumed this autumn?

Next was women’s basketball – faster, taller and snazzier than hockey, and more closely fought – Russia pipped Turkey in the last minute, and France came back from ten points down to beat the unlucky Czechs.  I remain suspicious of any game where you can see over 100 points scored, but I won’t object to cheerleaders and slow-motion Mexican waves at Old Trafford and the Emirates next season…

Surprisingly, my highlight was handball.  Often jokingly dismissed as an Olympic oddity in the league of synchronized swimming, oily wresting or that funny walking thing, it was actually exciting, passionate and skillful – it had the pace and intensity of basketball, along with the physicality and goalkeeping dimension of hockey.  According to my dad’s book the game has attracted the equivalent of football hooligans in parts of Eastern Europe!

Team GB scooped an impressive haul of golds, and as a nation we lead the world in talking a good game.  And so my highlight of the whole thing was probably meeting up with my mates Nick and Matt to share some overpriced branded alcohol products whilst reflecting on the swimming events they had seen and the fantastic athletics performances to come. 

A beer in the sun with your mates – I could almost forget it wasn’t footy we were discussing:  that, unquestionably, is the way to watch the Olympics!