Athletics must fight to keep No.1 status
ASK people to list their favourite Olympic memories and the vast majority will inevitably include athletics. Daley Thompson, Kelly Holmes, Bob Beamon, Cathy Freeman, Coe and Ovett – track and field moments dominate the proceedings.
For how much longer, though? Athletics has always been the No.1 Olympic sport, but in the eyes of the British sporting public the traditional hierarchy could be turned on its head if the GB athletics team fail to deliver in Beijing.
Britons in other sports have come out firing on all cylinders during the first few days of the Games. As I write this, Nicole Cooke has become Britain’s first “gold pedallist” of 2008 and her team-mates in the GB cycling squad are expected to continue the medal rush this weekend when the action in the velodrome begins.
Elsewhere, in the pool earlier this week Rebecca Adlington became Britain’s first Olympic women’s swimming champion for almost half a century. British cyclists, swimmers, rowers, sailors, triathletes and boxers will only be stronger in 2012, too.
So the message is clear to British track and field athletes this coming week. You’d better get winning, or athletics’ status as the premier Olympic sport will be under serious jeopardy.
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