MICHAEL USHER: Spare a thought for the Olympic superstars who don’t get a medal

There’s always a nauseating level of nerves before any Olympics. Not just in the bellies of anxious athletes, but also in the minds of organisers hoping their host city is ready to successfully and safely stage the best games ever.

I love covering the Olympics and have had the great career fortune of being there in Atlanta, Sydney, Athens and Beijing.

Having never been a sports reporter, I’ve always pinched myself that I was dispatched to cover the world’s best sporting events and relished every minute of it.

There are few greater stories to cover than the Olympics. The absolute highs and sometimes crushing lows of an athlete’s performance. The surprise wins, the even more surprising stumbles, and the hard-working honest team players who are just stoked to wear the green and gold.

But at this point, barely two weeks from the start of the Paris Olympics, I’m always mindful of the Olympic superstars who don’t get a medal but have put in the hard work making sure our best get a chance to represent their country.

I’m talking about the parents, the grandparents, the volunteers and the community groups who burn through hours at hideous times of the day supporting our aspiring Olympians.

They’re the parents before dawn driving the kids to the pool. The volunteers making sure the pool or track is open and ready.

The grandparents making sure the training routine stays on track when busy parents juggle work and the community groups rattling the can to raise the money to help all our underfunded sports allow young athletes to chase dreams.

There’s always deep consternation about whether a host city will be ready.

Sydney 2000 was going to be an expensive disaster; London 2012 was going to be a traffic disaster; Athens 2002 was going to be a construction disaster and just not ready; Beijing 2008 was going to be a political disaster. Tokyo 2020, a COVID disaster with no spectators.

None of these things happened, and every games shine — at least in the two weeks of competition.

There is reasonable argument that after the Olympics some of those cities made major mistakes of over-spending and poor planning, but when the games are on they’re superb.

As a side note to that point, I think it’s a broken and arrogant model of the International Olympic Committee to impose its multi-billion-dollar games on one city.

Why can’t it be a host country with the events spread around?

Take Brisbane 2032 for example. Why can’t the swimming events be on the Gold Coast, or beach volleyball in Noosa?

A shared, spread-out Olympics could be an inspired event for all the young spectators in various communities outside one major city.

My guess is that a host country and athletes spread far afield would diminish the IOC’s showcase opening ceremony.

That one grand show with all the world’s athletes, and VIPs I should add, in the one stadium.

But even now, our swim team never or rarely marches in that opening ceremony because their competition is straight up the next day, and this year in Paris all competitors are being flown home immediately after the competition to save money and ease security concerns.

But I digress from the point about pre-Olympics nerves of the athletes and their supporting families.

I just can’t imagine managing the anxiety of being at peak fitness and performance for such a narrow window of time after years and years of gruelling training.

Especially in these post-pandemic times. Imagine getting to this point and losing a few days or an excruciating week due to COVID. Or pulling the smallest of muscles that throws out a training schedule.

Imagine also then, the knock-on anxiety through families and coaches.

It’s happened, and it’s happened to the best of athletes. Sometimes they withdraw through tears, sometimes we don’t know there’s even been a problem until after competition and that gold medal seems even more remarkable.

What I do know is that the distraction of the Olympics couldn’t be more timely.

We can sometimes put a bit too much pressure on our green and gold athletes, or footy teams, or world-class competitors of any sport, but watching our Olympians against the world’s best might just give us all a chance to distract from all the politics and anger and cost-of-living pressures for a short few weeks.

And I bet the politicians will be happy to have us all look the other way at the moment.

But let’s not weigh our Olympians down with any more expectations other than giving their absolute best.

We’ll scream and cheer as they go for gold.

Their nerves will become our nerves, and for a short few weeks, we’ll live vicariously through the performances of incredible athletes, and be grateful for the amazing people who helped them get there.