It's all in the games

The summers of our childhood did - to quote the Groover From Vancouver, Bryan Adams - seem to last forever

Peter Edgerton

Friday, 9 August 2024, 17:13

There can be no doubt that time accelerates as we get older. In fact, there's an official physics formula for this very phenomenon: 6WSHBT ... = 1WYFAN (six weeks school holiday back then is equal to one whole year faffing about now). The summers of our childhood did - to quote the Groover From Vancouver, Bryan Adams - seem to last forever.

My favourite memory of those times were the back garden olympic games we invented. Broom handles, tennis balls , cardboard boxes, ladders plus sundry other objects including watering cans and small siblings, who had no choice in the matter, were all incorporated and combined to form an elaborate series of obstacles and tests designed to bring out the athletic best in the many and varied spotty-faced competitors.

Our daily routine was simple: get up, watch the Banana Splits on TV while chomping on pieces of Weetabix smothered in butter and jam, then head out to the house of whoever's dad had the most stuff in his garage, build the olympic course and compete in the games until some of the mothers began to call the athletes in for a bath/dad wanted his Flymo back/somebody over-enthusiastic broke a window. As far as I know, none of the children involved went on to any great sporting achievement but, boy, we trained long and hard. The space hopper high jump was a particular highlight.

All of which brings me to the 2024 Olympics currently taking place in France. After an opening ceremony that was, rather eerily, reminiscent of an episode of the Banana Splits (look for the show on Google images and you'll see what I mean), the best sports men and women on the planet have set about providing us somewhat lazier specimens with a grand spectacle of unparallaled endeavour, achievement and drama. In the vast majority of cases, years of dedication and sacrifice are whittled down to just a few seconds where the slightest error (or a simple case of bad luck) can reduce everything to nothing. That's why we watch.

When the men's 100m final took place this week every single person in the pub stopped whatever they were doing/saying in order to stare at the TV screen for ten seconds to see who would be the fastest person on the planet. Nobody on the face of the earth was, at that moment, running at the speed of the winner, American Noah Lyles, except maybe for a regular customer of ours who came dashing sharply out of the bathroom, thinking he was going to miss the race.

The Olympics are in full swing as I write and will continue until 11 August. There are those who say that the games contain everything any spectator could wish for and maybe they're right, although I can't help thinking that the introduction of a spacehopper high jump event next time might add a little extra spice.

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