Opening ceremony shows how professionalism has changed sport

Wanting a look at how professionalism has changed sport? Possibly not, I hear you say. But, for those that do it was there in the Opening Ceremony march past. In times gone followed a near-Stalinist style. The flag bearer had the pole in a harness. The athletes did their best to imitate an army, in neat lines, facing forward, and respecting the Games.

 

My dollar says that wasn't about the games at all. It was old administrators in a last attempt to control the young.

 

All Access. All in one subscription. From $2 per week

Subscribe now

All Access Weekly

From $2 per week

Pay just

$15.75

$2

per week ongoing

Subscribe now

BEST VALUE

All Access Annual

Pay just

$449

$49

per year ongoing

Subscribe now

Learn more

30

The march past said, booming loud, that it’s gone the way of the two-dollar note, cheap petrol, and getting into a National Party conference with a tape recorder.

 

These days' athletes let the joy show. They photograph the crowd. They literally jump with excitement. Or, in the case of some solemn female flag bearers, mostly from Africa, they don’t.

 

Either way, it’s their choice.

 

That’s what professionalism did, acknowledge the power and the money should be shared around, with agents and negotiators to make sure it happens.

 

Good.

 

Almost all of those youngsters, and a few not so young, in that March past either won’t win medals, or know they don’t have a realistic shot at anything.

 

It’ll quickly make the village a vale of disappointment. So, for a little while, enjoy it while they can. It makes great television. Having the countries arriving in an order dictated by the Mandarin language also made a subtle point about the Games, and about the world beyond it.

 

Three teams, one after the other, who have massive impacts on the Games, or on China, came in to a roaring wonderful reception.

 

The Israelis had their nautical-type blue and white tee shirts. The Japanese, slickly coiffed and styled to perfection in black, red, and white followed. Then, the best response was for Chinese Taipei, the breakaway province variously known as Formosa, and Taiwan, and now in warming relations with Beijing.

 

For the time I watched, and I conked out at around 3.00am, the best received countries were ones whose people had suffered the most; Palestine, Iraq, and Rwanda. It was noticeable the cameras lingered on them slightly longer.

 

There might not be equality in sport, but television delivered that subtle moment of real fairness.