Forget the feelgood factor. The warm glow generated by Team GB winning gold for three-day eventing or the modern pentathlon will quickly fade. Anybody who thinks sporting success will prompt a mini-economic boom is deluded.
That, though, doesn’t mean the Tokyo Olympics have no bearing on the economy and its performance. There are important lessons to be learned from how and why Great Britain’s athletes have gone from serial under-performers to globally competitive in the past 25 years.
More than half a century ago the athlete-turned-journalist Chris Brasher wrote an account of the 1968 Mexico games, an event that mixed the political – the black power podium protests by US athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos – with some memorable performances. It was also the Olympics where Dick Fosbury revolutionised the high jump with his flop technique.
Brasher’s book provides clues as to how the economy would change in the next half a century and insights into what would be needed to achieve success.
Turn to the list of medal winners at the back of the book and two things stand out. Firstly, China is nowhere to be seen in the medal table because it didn’t take part. Secondly, the participation of women was far more limited. There would have been no medals for an earlier Laura Kenny because there was no women’s cycling; in athletics it was thought women couldn’t cope with any distance above 800 metres. Rowing, sailing, boxing, hockey and football were men-only events. The past 53 years have seen China emerge as an economic superpower and more women join the paid labour force. Both trends were evident in Tokyo.
Teams now approach the games in a far more professional manner. Brasher tells the story of a 19-year-old runner, John Davies, who could not make it to the start of his 800 metres heat because no member of the British medical team was expert enough to treat his leg injury and by the time he got help from another team it was too late. Such amateurism would be unthinkable today, with elite athletes having the best backup staff to look after their physical and mental needs. The way in which some companies treat – or rather mistreat – their staff today suggests sport has plenty to teach business when it comes to managing human capital.
Mexico City was a controversial choice to host the games because most of the events took place 7,000 feet above sea level, where the thin air was perfect for the sprinters but brutal on middle and long-distance runners unless they lived at high altitude or trained there for long periods.
It didn’t take long before other countries were seeking to emulate the success of the Kenyans and the Ethiopians, and those that could afford it paid for their elite athletes to train at high-altitude training camps. Closing the gap meant learning from the successful, a lesson that applies to companies as well as athletes.
Read More: Team GB’s successes can give us insight into the country’s economy | Larry