Amy Williams’ Gold; and what it says about the Olympics, and the world

Congratulations to Amy Williams for winning the Gold in the skeleton. An outstanding performance, by Amy, more so than for other gold medal winners. Nobody had her down as a favourite, and her training track in Bath is concrete, not ice. But it is even more amazing as she established two track records to do it. She obliterated the rest of the field, beating them by over half a second. That may not sound much, but it means she was 15-20 metres ahead of everyone else.

Whatever happens now in her life, she can look back on this with immense pride, as she has entered into an elite group of people, Olympians, and Gold Medallists.
What was also interesting was what it says about the Olympics. Now, it is very rare for GB to win Gold at the Winter games, which again emphasises even more Amy’s immense achievement. A quick montage from the BBC showed all the GB Gold medals throughout Olympic history, and the differences from earlier times stand in stark contrast to today.

If you watch behind the athletes today, cameras, fans, cheering, screams are now an almost pavlovian response to victory. A quick look at past gold medals could not be more different. The only ones that seemed to be cheering when GB won Gold in the Ice Hockey in 1936, were the team themselves. And to our Canadian cousins, their eyes are not deceiving them, GB did win in 1936.

Now, with cheaper air travel and increased leisure time, thanks to our ever increasingly globalised world, fans can travel to almost any location. For sure the track in Vancouver will have mainly been Canadian, but spectator participation and support has increased at the Olympics, despite the current economic crisis. Within living memory, (let’s say the 1970s and 1980s) it would have been almost unheard of for members of an athlete’s family to have been at an event and to share the experience with them. But Amy William’s mother and father were both on hand to share in the celebrations.

What has not changed is the great experience the Olympics is for the athletes. If anything, increased numbers of fans can only enhance it. Let’s hope London 2012 can be supported as enthusiastically.