I note that the winter Olympics is about to start. I love curling, so I shall not be watching.  The purpose of the International Olympic Committee is to isolate the elite from the merely excellent, and sell them to the entertainment industry.  This has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with sport. The only sanction I seem to have against this egregious organisation is not watching.

This is more than a little disappointing.  One of the competitors in the so-called “British” team is a former team mate, whose appearance at the pinnacle of sport I expected when she was 14. Once a teammate, always a teammate.

Almost sixty years since I learned the game at Crossmyloof in Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city has no ice rink. Curling is in a perilous state in Scotland, yet we will be encouraged to wave our Union Jacks as “Britain” almost certainly medals in curling, and we will be told that this is a measure of success, which is supposed to sustain us for the next four years.  

To my old-fashioned way of thinking, success in sport is measured by how many people enjoy taking part at the highest level they can. When I was a young man more than one hundred teams entered the Scottish Men’s curling championship, all of us thinking we might just win – this year the figure is five. As far as I can tell two of those are junior teams, already in “the program” entered for experience and to make the competition seem relevant. It is not. The winner of the national championships does not automatically qualify for the world championships as was the case for sixty years, selectors choose who will represent Scotland. Shocking. In simpler times, you had to take two Fridays off your work to become champion, now that figure is a week. The level of support given to the very few professional curlers, a category that did not exist until we joined the ranks of Olympic sports, is such that an amateur team could not win now. Why take a week off work to get hammered by the pros, for no reward?

We are told, regularly, that Olympic exposure on television encourages people to take up the sport. I call this the “Torvill and Dean” effect. How is that working out, Ice Dancing? It is certainly true that now there are Olympic Medals available, dozens of countries have taken up the sport and created jobs for nutritionists, physiotherapists, sports psychologists and a few professional athletes. 

For fifty years I competed at national level in all the age groups from school boy to pensioner.  Best I ever did was second. And all of us went back to our job on Monday, enriched for a lifetime by the experience. There was no “us” and “them”, as there is now, it was just all of us.  

Winter Olympics? 1.7 billion Euros, to sell more Coca Cola, and no ice rink in Glasgow. But enough, grumpy old man will stop now. But not before wishing Rebecca, good curling!