London 2012: a triumph of obscure sporting excellence

Guest post by Redbrick Sport editor Sam Price 

Peter Wilson literally shot to fame in an instant

 

For people that don’t like sport, the Olympics can generally be explained away as a series of trivial sporting pursuits contested in a far-flung region for a couple of weeks every four years. Not this time. As London continues to impress audiences worldwide with the staging of a thus far spectacularly successful Olympic Games, the British public consciousness is being increasingly pervaded by the same obscure sports that people wouldn’t usually bat an eyelid towards. The presence of British medal challengers in sports such as archery, diving and equestrianism has boosted domestic interest levels significantly, raising the profile of these sports and their participants to an incomparable high.

Take shooting, for example. The majority of Brits, myself included, who tuned into BBC One’s coverage of Thursday’s men’s double trap final would have never watched a shooting event in their life. But those who did would have found themselves captivated by a tense climax to a sport which they were quickly able to gain an understanding of, bringing celebration when nerves of steel from British finalist Peter Wilson earned the man from Dorset a treasured Olympic gold medal. The 25-year-old went from a relative nobody to talk of the town (or rather, the nation) in a matter of minutes, for shooting clay targets more accurately than anybody else in the world. You can’t get more obscure than that. 

Or can you? On the same day Gemma Gibbons beat the odds to win an unprecedented silver medal in Judo, a sport which, to the untrained eye, looks no more than a good old game of rough and tumble. But some brief swotting up on the sport and a basic understanding of the rules enables you to appreciate the skill of Gibbons’ manoeuvre in the semi-final, where she performed an ippon throw in the highly pressurised golden score situation to beat World and European Champion Audrey Tcheumeo, guaranteeing the Brit a medal. Gibbons’ twitter following has since skyrocketed from around 600 to over 20,000; always a good barometer of the modern sportsperson’s fame.

Sailing enjoys its fair share of the limelight during the Olympics

The host factor has certainly contributed to a better understanding and appreciation of the skill, dedication and achievement of the Olympians of 2012, for ticket-holders, armchair viewers and journalists alike. I’ve been involved with the BBC’s excellent coverage of the Olympics, a role which has seen me asked to cover sports such as sailing and fencing, the rubrics of which I had no idea beforehand. However, after some prior research and attention to detail while watching them, I feel in a much more privileged position to appreciate and enjoy the ferocious competitiveness of British sailor Ben Ainslie, who is pursuing a fourth consecutive Olympic gold, and the devastating skill of the Italian fencing team, who completed a clean sweep of medals in the women’s foil discipline. 

A more nuanced understanding of a sport cannot illuminate the countless hours of practice and self-improvement away from the television cameras that have gone into these Olympians’ moments of reckoning, but it can leave us better placed to enjoy and appreciate their endeavours. In some ways this is the beauty of the Olympics. For two weeks the spotlight in Britain is being shone brightly onto obscure sports to which competitors have dedicated their life to, a theme which the British public have resoundingly bought into. From the Opening Ceremony onwards, a genuine ‘feel-good factor’ seems to have engulfed the nation, creating an atmosphere which has turned the scarcely known into heroes, and has ensured that the Olympian’s mastery over their chosen sport has received full, rewarding recognition by a wider, more conscious audience.

The Search for Excellence hopes you enjoyed this excellent guest post by the talented writer that is Sam Price. You can follow Sam on Twitter @Sam_Price19 and don't forget to follow James on @TSFE2012 . James will be back with another blog tomorrow, after he attends the men's football quarter-final between Senegal and Mexico and the women's marathon in the morning.