Olympic Year

So, it’s 2012. As the old year counted down the BBC flashed images of the high and low spots of 2011. A lot has happened in the last year. Then onwards to the future. The BBC flashed images of impending highlights. It managed just the two. The Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics. A year to look forward to then.

We were at a relative’s house and just an hour before midnight as we anticipated the Olympic Year there was a tangled discussion about sport. The BBC Sports Personality of the Year fiasco came up and there were scoffs from one relative about how women had not excelled in any proper sports this past year. When I objected he asked me to name one. I mentioned a female swimming champion, but no male swimmer had been nominated either, he said. I have no idea about sport really, but I was prepared to argue the toss, having grabbed the last minutes of the BBC programme and felt thoroughly depressed. I didn’t in fact know most of the top five people. “Who is this winner bloke then?” I asked. “How comes I have never heard of him?” [possibly because I am asleep by the time the news gets to the sports segment and sport does not feature heavily on the Eastenders omnibus edition]. My partner commented that he only won one leg of the Tour de France which apparently is not too impressive to Spanish people. My counterpart in the argument reeled off a list of top male sportsmen of the year. One of them was a “top” golfer. “I don’t consider golf to be a sport,” I said. “It is merely a pastime for ex-footballers.” “What do you consider a sport?” I was asked. “Netball,” I replied.

I must endeavour to become more interested in sport, though, so I can be a better role model to my children. Currently, I do no sport whatsoever. I did suggest during the conversation about Sports Personality of the Year that the school run could be turned into an Olympic sport. I reckon I could get a gold medal for that. It would involve getting up as late as possible and then seeing how quickly you could get four or more children out the door and to school on time with added hurdles being added, such as forgetting the lunch box en route to school and having to go back and get it.

The problem is I have no time for either doing or watching conventional sport. Cricket, for instance, goes on for days. The whole house would fall apart if I took time out for that. It’s already looking a bit shell-shocked after a week of Christmas havoc. I need instead to work sport into my everyday activities, such as speed nappy changing or the 100m sprint after a toddler.

During this past week, the whole issue of role models has been much on my mind. Workingmums ran a poll about whether mums considered themselves good role models as working parents. Some 50% said no. I wonder if the same percentage of stay at home mums would think they were good role models. Is it just a woman thing that we still think we are somehow not good enough whatever we do?