... the sun has long set over South Korea and the echoes of the starting pistol at the recently concluded Daegu World Track and Field Championships reverberates no more ... in replac
ement there is the slipstream of Caribbean athleticism and a drooling anticipation for the 2012 Olympiad, set to usher London into a bright new future ... maybe ...
... cynics will posit that Olympic gloss has dulled in modern times, given public distrust of relationships between high-performance humans, multi-syllabic pharmaceuticals, sponsorship-driven agendas and all-powerful quasi-governmental bodies along the lines of football's FIFA or the United Nations itself ... such organisations can be topheavy with empowered officials who carry weight when it comes to direction and decision-making ... career diplo-politicos sit at the UN, FIFA chiefs are ultimate footballing backroomers and International Olympic Committees are headed by the likes of the late Juan Antonio Samaranch and Jacques Rogge, names largely unknown outside of their specific circles ... the face of the 2012 London Olympic Organising Committee (LOCOG) however, is a premier athlete of modern Olympic lore ...
... legendary British middle-distance runner Sebastian Coe was transcendent on the track in his day, and true to form, has been doggedly aspirational since ... Coe is a household name in his homeland, having won gold medals, owned world records, entered politics and been granted peerage, titular membership in that most exclusive club of the realm, the preserve of Lords and Ladies ... his enduring and uncommonly close(ted?) link to former Conservative Party leader and "elder statesman" William Hague, Britain's current Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, has kept the newly-divorced Lord Coe in the UK public's voracious imagination ...
... an uncharacteristic false start and the subsequent automatic disqualification of Usain Bolt in Daegu's 100 metre sprint final sent shock waves through the sport ... that split-second, of a less-than-ten-second event, stunned observers and provoked comment from the terminally staid when Coe decreed there would be no rule change in London for Bolt, whose status as marquee king might otherwise have forced one ...
... in 1988, a similarly rejected call for exception meant 8oo metre world-record holder Coe missed the Olympics ... his ties to the not-so-distant corners of the British Empire might have seen him win glory for India, by virtue of his Punjabi maternal grandfather, since ill-health caused his failure to qualify at the British trials ... if that was a disappointment in Seoul it would undoubtably be topped in London where no-one but the competition (and the odd bookie) wants to see another major final with an empty block where Bolt should be ...
... currently, Jamaican athletes in particular are in a rich vein of dominance, just in time for 2012 - which is also the landmark 50th Anniversary of Independence from British rule ...
... celebrations will be in full swing by the opening ceremonies and contemporary demographic realities suggest there will be as much black, green and gold in evidence as red,
white and blue ... think Princess Beatrice one-upping her wedding hat with a voluminous Rasta tam or Pippa skanking with Roots Manuva at a street-party ... just keep the dreadlocks wig away from Prince Harry ...
ement there is the slipstream of Caribbean athleticism and a drooling anticipation for the 2012 Olympiad, set to usher London into a bright new future ... maybe ...... cynics will posit that Olympic gloss has dulled in modern times, given public distrust of relationships between high-performance humans, multi-syllabic pharmaceuticals, sponsorship-driven agendas and all-powerful quasi-governmental bodies along the lines of football's FIFA or the United Nations itself ... such organisations can be topheavy with empowered officials who carry weight when it comes to direction and decision-making ... career diplo-politicos sit at the UN, FIFA chiefs are ultimate footballing backroomers and International Olympic Committees are headed by the likes of the late Juan Antonio Samaranch and Jacques Rogge, names largely unknown outside of their specific circles ... the face of the 2012 London Olympic Organising Committee (LOCOG) however, is a premier athlete of modern Olympic lore ...
... legendary British middle-distance runner Sebastian Coe was transcendent on the track in his day, and true to form, has been doggedly aspirational since ... Coe is a household name in his homeland, having won gold medals, owned world records, entered politics and been granted peerage, titular membership in that most exclusive club of the realm, the preserve of Lords and Ladies ... his enduring and uncommonly close(ted?) link to former Conservative Party leader and "elder statesman" William Hague, Britain's current Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, has kept the newly-divorced Lord Coe in the UK public's voracious imagination ...... an uncharacteristic false start and the subsequent automatic disqualification of Usain Bolt in Daegu's 100 metre sprint final sent shock waves through the sport ... that split-second, of a less-than-ten-second event, stunned observers and provoked comment from the terminally staid when Coe decreed there would be no rule change in London for Bolt, whose status as marquee king might otherwise have forced one ...
... in 1988, a similarly rejected call for exception meant 8oo metre world-record holder Coe missed the Olympics ... his ties to the not-so-distant corners of the British Empire might have seen him win glory for India, by virtue of his Punjabi maternal grandfather, since ill-health caused his failure to qualify at the British trials ... if that was a disappointment in Seoul it would undoubtably be topped in London where no-one but the competition (and the odd bookie) wants to see another major final with an empty block where Bolt should be ...
... so, the poignant drama of a sporting pinnacle is built into the fabric of Olympian battle - at every level, exposing cynicism as merely that ... every four years the universal spectacle of The Summer Games brings geo-politics into the cocktail-mix for the world to imbibe ... (even more than the Winter incarnation, which has a shallower history and intrinsic need for snow, ice, sang froid and thermal underwear) ...
... London, seat of a culture that once claimed proprietorship over so many world cultures, now becomes the focal showroom for retributive contest (dare I say reparation?), a forum for moral redress and assertive statement, in a conflict where the subordinated are wounded in pride only and human casualties are not counted by lives lost ...
... London, seat of a culture that once claimed proprietorship over so many world cultures, now becomes the focal showroom for retributive contest (dare I say reparation?), a forum for moral redress and assertive statement, in a conflict where the subordinated are wounded in pride only and human casualties are not counted by lives lost ...
... meanwhile, back in the boardroom, Lord Coe will be brushing up on his "jive" (referring to a comment he once made about Jamaican-born, British sprint star Linford Christie's speech patterns), betraying attitudinal distinctions implicit in the relationship between landed gentry and the hoi polloi ... Coe's recent genealogical quest for his aristocratic lineage led to roots in the sugar 
plantocracy of Jamaica, a revelation that exposed family ownership of hundreds of slaves and inter-mixture of bloodlines ...
... ground-zero in this particular plantation pot-pourri was Trelawny, the same north-western parish of Jamaica that Usain Bolt hails from ...
plantocracy of Jamaica, a revelation that exposed family ownership of hundreds of slaves and inter-mixture of bloodlines ... ... ground-zero in this particular plantation pot-pourri was Trelawny, the same north-western parish of Jamaica that Usain Bolt hails from ...
... period maps of the region, and others like it, survive to shine light on the ancestry of those who are descended from the principals of the lucrative industry-of-the-age, and most of the Caribbean cast of competitors will relish the opportunity to overtake Rule Britannia on the track and in the field ...
... certainly it's compelling to study the little ironies of intertwined legacies ... to wit, George Hyde Clarke, Coe's ancestor, shares a surname with the bloodline of Bustamante and Manley, scions of modern Jamaica, cousins, National Heroes and founders of both major political parties ... there's plenty reason to salivate at the thought of strands of history sharing a distilled moment of clarity in the still evolving post-colonial landscape ... it may even spawn a new dance ...
... currently, Jamaican athletes in particular are in a rich vein of dominance, just in time for 2012 - which is also the landmark 50th Anniversary of Independence from British rule ...
... celebrations will be in full swing by the opening ceremonies and contemporary demographic realities suggest there will be as much black, green and gold in evidence as red,
white and blue ... think Princess Beatrice one-upping her wedding hat with a voluminous Rasta tam or Pippa skanking with Roots Manuva at a street-party ... just keep the dreadlocks wig away from Prince Harry ...
the very people historian David Starkey pointed to before invoking lurking memories of Enoch Powell's 1968 "rivers of blood" speech ... his statements read like cliche formula, race equals riots, but the big picture is more instructive, beginning with the historical veracity of expansion into lands considered claimable ... occupants therein deemed inferior and taught, indeed bred, behaviors of subservience, in deference to a lust for sweet lucre ...
by in the fast lane and I was left wondering if there was a theme convention somewhere downline...
