PARALYMPICS CHEATING : WHAT A SURPRISE !

I have never had any time for the notion of 'disability sports' and particularly for the ludicrous nonsense that is the 'Paralympics', though without ever decrying the efforts of those who have suffered from either birth defects or accidental and life changing injuries. Now, it seems, the principle reason for my scepticism is to be considered by Members of Parliament.

An investigation by the BBC (of all organisations !) has 'discovered' that there could be systematic cheating by manipulating the classification process that is involved in determining which athletes get to compete against which other athletes. A House of Commons committee is to discuss these claims and it's been suggested that the evidence they will hear will be 'explosive'.

There are times when I wonder just how stupid some people can be. Of course the classification system is open to abuse and is abused; any such system will always be abused by cheats in exactly the same way as many take illicit drugs to enhance their performances. Cheating is endemic in much modern sport because winning is all; the days of amateurism are long gone and winning is now all about vast prestige, wealth and honours that can be gained.

Footballers 'dive' to win penalties, cricketers claim catches falsely and what goes on in a rugby scrum is nobody's business. Only in sports which are closely monitored by television cameras is cheating not an issue; golfers and snooker players in televised tournaments rarely, if ever, come up short; major rugby union matches, with replays of every doubtful incident, are so well policed that players know they cannot get away with very much.

But how do you police a classification system which attempts to match competitors with differing disabilities ? Quite simply, the whole notion is ridiculous, shockingly open to abuse and largely pointless. By all means, encourage those with disabilities to enjoy full lives and, where they wish, to engage in sports to the best of their abilities, but for heaven's sake stop this nonsense of the 'Paralympics' and all that goes with it.

A QUESTION OF SPORT.

Whatever happened to "A Question of Sport" ?

Years ago, this was a genuinely good and interesting sporting quiz, albeit compered by some right idiots in David Coleman and David Vine, surely 2 of the worst sports presenters in television history. However, the teams were good with a degree of intelligence thrown in alongside the occasional knockabout humour. In recent times, all this has changed.

Since the introduction of team captains such as Ally McCoist, Matt Dawson and, most notably Phil Tufnell, the programme has descended into puerile farce though, despite its puerile nature, it's also been scheduled later and later, possibly due to the doubtful nature of much of its content. Team members now seem to be chosen more on the basis of their connection to the BBC or on grounds of political correctness rather than anything else. The boringly regular inanity of the chit-chat allied to the general stupidity exhibited by the current captains has made this programme, once unmissable, now one to be avoided at all costs.

No doubt the BBC would say that all they've done is to 'update' the programme's format to meet the expectations of a modern audience. Well, if that's so, then one despairs for the 'modern audience'.  For this viewer, all they've done is to drive him far, far away.

TIME TO BE RID OF POINTLESS FEMALE SPORTS' REPORTERS.

Very often, the sports' news on BBC television is presented by a woman; why, is a mystery.

 

It seems that BBC news has now devolved almost all of its sports reporting to women regardless of their knowledge of the games they're reporting on or their relevance to them. This is a clear example of BBC political correctness gone mad.

 

I have no problem with women reporting on female sports, unisex sports or indeed any sport if they are knowledgeable and relevant. However, top class football is an almost entirely male preserve, so why do we have a woman reporting the results when she clearly knows nothing about them ? In fact, the longest item in the bulletin was something to do with Beckham, who no longer plays, and a few of his mates who are similarly unemployed; what has this to do with sports' news ?

 

Sue Barker was a fine tennis player and is a good presenter for tennis, as is Sue Smith; Hazel Irvine is similarly well placed having been an international player and so are the likes of Denise Lewis in athletics and others in golf, cycling, rowing and gymnastics, but why do we have irrelevant and unnecessary women commentating or reporting on male rugby, football or cricket matches ? They don't belong there; it's a ridiculous sop to political correctness.

 

Why do we have to have female nonentities in the studio reading out reams of prepared scripts of which they have no understanding ? It's time that the BBC, and the rest, dispensed with 'PC' and returned to employing knowledgeable people to report on sports, just as they do with every other subject. Gender has nothing to do with it and a misguided attempt to introduce an utterly specious gender balance is farcical.

 

It's time for men to reassert themselves.