The 100-Year Life Health Education and Government
The Olympic flame hasn’t even been lit and the first scandal is already burning up the airwaves. An old video of Britain’s triple-gold-medal-winning dressage rider Charlotte Dujardin has emerged: she’s using a lunge-whip not for lunging but for smiting: 24 smites in total, quite enough, in all conscience. A sporting scandal always has resonance: multiply that by ten at the Olympic Games. Like vicars, we expect athletes to have higher moral standards than the rest of us: ten times higher if they’re Olympians. But Olympic athletes have dedicated their lives to the pursuit of victory and excellence, and they have just a few minutes in four years – or a lifetime – to fulfil their lives. Most fail. A small number succeed… and a few cheat. The Olympic Games is about human beings in the most intense competition of their lives. Don’t expect a new age of love and peace over the next couple of weeks.
The award-winning journalist Simon Barnes will write for Tortoise throughout the Olympics. Read him in the Sensemaker, on our website or on the Tortoise app.
