When it comes to sports commentating, who is worth listening to?
As everyone knows, there is an unavoidable hypocrisy involved in sports writing. We pick apart performances we could never hope to emulate. We talk of contenders being "mentally weak", when some of us struggle to file a short report by the deadline and the thought of travelling anywhere without wifi leaves us gibbering wrecks. Only one thing can justify our place beside - or rather, somewhere beneath - the athletic convoy we follow: articulacy. That is all we can, to use managerspeak, bring to the party.
In this situation, professional wordsmiths and broadcasters are supposed to abjure those former sportsmen who take up media work as a retirement plan and threaten our niche. But - and here I risk being branded a heretic - I have been thoroughly grateful to the expert pundits in the first week's coverage of the Olympics. Nowhere have we had better-informed commentary than at the Water Cube, where Sharron Davies, Andy Jameson, Anita Lonsbrough and Adrian Moorhouse were providing a powerhouse of poolside experience.
After all, there is nothing worse than feeling that a commentator is watching a sport for the first time along with the rest of us.
Take the quad sculls heat in which the British women fended off a tough challenge from their German rivals: the TV commentator could do nothing except tell us that the race was tight (even though the boats being so close together gave it away) and repeat the names of the women in the boat, in a strangled voice that betrayed how tightly he was gripping his notes. This was not, however, as cringeworthy as the live television commentary on Nicole Cooke's gutsy road-race victory, which included the immortal question "Is she bottling in the closing stages?" as we watched Cooke time her break perfectly to power home for gold.
In these circumstances, there is much to be said for the insights of someone who actually knows the sport they are talking about, whether or not their critical vocabulary is on the limited side.
It was particularly revealing to watch the instant reaction to Tom Daley and Blake Aldridge's last place in their diving finals. Leon Taylor - the British diver forced into retirement in May - did a great job talking us through the men's 10m synchronised event for the BBC. But as a mentor to the GB team, he was always going to see the sunny side (his most often used adjective was "outstanding") and although he admitted that the pair had not dived as well as they could, he gave no particular insight into why.
On the blogs, the Telegraph was calling their performance a "respectable display" and said the two had shown "no signs of being overawed". The Guardian, conversely, said that "six months of hype and media exposure . . . told on Daley". No one noted the now-infamous spat that had occurred between the pair mid-competition, or - more to the point - that it significantly affected their final dive.
Beijing is a watershed for 24/7 sports reporting; it is interesting that one of the first things to disappear has been the consensus we have come to expect from next-day newspaper reports. Unlike theatre critics, who scrupulously avoid conversation about a play until after their review has been published, sports writers have always enjoyed the opportunity to form and sharpen their opinions through press-box chatter.
I suspect, however, that in the fast-moving culture of blogging, the views of professional commentators are going to be challenged as never before. That is, of course, only an opinion.
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
