Recent Sport Articles

An Olympics legacy? How about something meaningful?

contribution by Rachel Coldwater

In their unseemly rush for column inches, Boris and Dave have floated the idea of two hours mandatory PE per day, for children.

It seems absurd to make compulsory a thing which a child is either naturally gifted at, or not.

For the sake of the success of the top 1% of the top 1% (sic), we appear to be about to set up an “Olympic legacy” that makes the bottom 10% wretchedly unhappy.
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Why the Olympics are anti-Capitalist in spirit

It's sometimes said that sport is a mirror of society. Watching the Olympics, though, makes me think the opposite is the case, as Olympians represent values which are disappearing from society.

I'm thinking of Macintyre's distinction between external goods (such as power, wealth and fame) versus the internal good of excellence at a particular practice. Olympians pursue the latter.

Yes, money and fame can follow from gold medals, but only as a by-product. There are surely countless easier ways for Anna Watkins to get rich than by getting up at stupid o'clock to torture herself.
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Please Tories, revive the Big Society – I beg you

Politically speaking, not much would bring me more joy than the government reviving their Big Society idea.

The public neither understand it nor care for it, and it looks absurdly vacuous at a time they should be focused on fixing the economy.

So it is with much joy that I greet the news of people urging a revival of the Big Society.
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Even more Olympics hand-wringing questions answered

contribution by RedPesto

As the Olympics nears its end, LibCon’s specially commissioned Olympic agony aunt, Ms Olympia, is still on hand to help with more of those last-gasp efforts by each leftie to wrestle their conscience into submission.

It’s a ‘big ask’, as they say in sport, and the competition to achieve the perfect political result is intense.

Yet like a good coach, Ms Olympia is here to help anxious lefties peak at precisely the right moment and execute whatever game plan they had in mind.
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More of your lefty hand-wringing Olympics dilemmas answered

contribution by RedPesto

For all the fun and games of London 2012, it’s clear that for some left-wingers it is also an event where their politics and loyalties are stretched to the very limit.

Four years of campaigning, protesting and relentless blogging regimes have led to this moment. Yet they still need that last-minute advice as they enter the home straight of the second week of the Games.

LibCon has specially commissioned its very own agony aunt, Ms Olympia, to help answer all those tricky Olympic questions.
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Left guide to Olympics hand-wringing: ‘Is their private education a problem?’

contribution by Tim Wigmore

Sport is meant to level in a way other fields do not. Compared to talent and hard work, upbringing matters little.

Well, that was the idea anyway. In reality, 25% of British Olympians come from the 7% of the population that attend private schools. Unsurprisingly, sport is not immune from the innate advantages that those attending private schools receive.
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The left guide to Olympics hand-wringing: ‘Is it ok to leer at athletes?’

contribution by Vanessa Pelz-Sharpe

Liberal Conspiracy is running a light-hearted series on Olympics-related topics that may or may not prompt some hand-wringing.

There is a part of me a pulsating, engorged part of me, that feels wonderfully at home with leering at athletes.

Each one of them is in peak physical condition. Their bodies are taut, smooth, rippling odes to physical perfection. When I listen to Ryan Lochte speak, I am reminded why I adore him most when he glides through the water, a sleek machine of brute strength.

For most of the year my crushes are more esoteric: James Deen, Ryan Adams, Paz de la Huerta. These people are beautiful, sure, but they are simply a refinement of your average person. That guy you’d meet at the pub, plus five points.
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How do we challenge a culture of homophobia in football?

contribution by Matt Zarb

As the country recovers from Euro 2012 fever, one of England’s opponents yesterday recently did his best to remind us that the culture of football is insulated from any progress on tackling homophobia in society.

Responding to an Italian TV personality’s claim that there are two gay players in the current Italy squad, Antonio Cassano said: “If they’re queer, that’s their problem. I hope there aren’t any queers in the national team.”

Under pressure from gay rights groups, he later apologized for his comments. But by then it was too late. The damage had already been done.
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Oi Daily Mail – who you calling a “Plastic” Brit?

Just who is a “Plastic Brit”? That question is provoked by the Daily Mail’s sustained campaign against some of the athletes who will be competing for Britain in the Olympic Games this summer.

The newspaper today rails against the choice of Tiffany Porter as athletics captain.

It also offers a handy montage of its previous headlines against “Plastic Brits”, such as “Team GB have ended up with a bunch of foreign wrestlers. I wish they would all SHOVE OFF!”

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Leftwing disruption of sporting events: a proud tradition

Emily Wilding Davison famously threw herself under the King’s horse at the 1913 Derby, in order to publicise the suffragette cause. She died in hospital a few days later. I truly hope her bravery will be suitably commemorated on its centenary next year.

But even at this distance in time, her name lives on, Emily’s List – the New Labour women’s network that helped around a dozen shoulder padded Blairites make it to Westminster – chose the appellation at least in part in Ms Davison’s honour.

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