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Thirteen years ago, the Beijing Olympics started a revolution in British sport. In 2008, British sportsmen and women won 51 medals, including 19 golds. In three Olympic Games since then

Britain has won more than 60 medals each time. To put this in perspective, Britain only won more than 30 medals in one Olympic Games between 1948-2004. Best of all has been the range of

sports in which Britain has done so well, from boxing, rowing and swimming to cycling, equestrian events and athletics. The Tokyo Olympics 2020 was wonderful to watch. There was one problem,

however: the BBC’s coverage. First, there was the nationalism. There was so much to admire in the sporting achievements we have seen over the past fortnight. Jason Kenny’s victory in the

men’s keirin final – his seventh Olympic gold medal – was astonishing, watching Laura Muir overtake Sifan Hassan in the women’s 1,500 metres was one of the highlights of track and field,

Adam Peaty won Britain’s first gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics when he won the 100m breaststroke and Britain has never before won both Modern Pentathlon golds. There was much, much more.

Twenty-two gold medals in all. But should sporting success lead to the kind of nationalist hysteria that we have heard on the BBC?  After all, there was so much else to admire. In athletics

alone, there was India’s first ever gold medal, Sifan Hassan won two gold medals and a bronze in the 1,500, 5,000 and 1,000 metres, two astonishing gold medals and a world record for Norway,

_five _gold medals for Italy, an extraordinary rush of medals for the Netherlands and Elaine Thompson-Herah from Jamaica retained both her 100m and 200m titles. Forty-one countries won a

medal in athletics. As Jonathan Liew wrote in an excellent column in _The New Statesman_, “The real lesson of the Games is that greatness comes from everywhere.” The second problem with the

BBC’s coverage, especially in the athletics, was the gushing sentimentality. Of course, it was desperately sad to see Katarina Johnson-Thompson pull up injured in the 200m of the Heptathlon,

Dina Asher-Smith unable to compete in the 200m and Adam Gemili having to drop out of the 200m. All three are world-class athletes. But at times it seemed as if the BBC was more interested

in human interest stories than in sports coverage. They needed someone like Roy Keane to give the analysis a bit of edge. At times, Michael Johnson was the only studio analyst who seemed

prepared to talk about the sport. This leads to a third key issue, the serious lack of analysis in some of the coverage. Why have Jamaican sprinters become so dominant in the last decade or

more? Since 2008, Jamaican runners have won the men’s 100m and 2,000m and women’s 100m (except for the men’s race this year) and won the women’s 200 metres the last four times out of five.

In 2012 Jamaica came first, second and third in the men’s 200 metres. Why have Italy, Norway and the Netherlands suddenly become such successful countries in athletics? Whatever happened to

German athletics? In Munich, in 1972, East Germany alone won six golds, four silvers and three bronzes just in the women’s track and field events. Why were there so many world records on the

track and only one in field events?   Then there are the absences. There have been four revolutions in athletics at the Olympics. In the LA Olympics in 1932 every single athletics gold

medal was won by a White athlete. After the war, Black Americans and then other Black athletes regularly won the sprint events.  In the 1968 Mexico City Olympics came the second revolution.

Athletes from north and east Africa, or of African descent, started to dominate the middle and long distance events. First the men. In 1968 African athletes won the 1,500m, came first,

second and third in the 5,000 and 10,000m, came first and second in the 3,000m steeplechase and won the Marathon.  Then came the third revolution, when African women started to dominate the

middle and long-distance events. By London 2012 African women athletes won every middle and long-distance event and had clean sweeps in the 3,000m Steeplechase, the 5,000 and 10,000m and

came first and second in the Marathon.  Since 2012 we have seen the beginning of the fourth revolution. In London and then in Rio in 2016, Caster Semenya, a South African athlete won gold

medals in the women’s 800 metres. Semenya is an intersex woman, assigned female at birth, with XY chromosomes and naturally elevated testosterone levels. In 2018, the IAAF announced new

rules that required athletes who have certain disorders of sex development that cause heightened testosterone levels to take medication to lower their testosterone levels in order to compete

in the female classification. These changes only applied to athletes competing in the 400m, 800m, and 1500m.  Then in Tokyo, Christine Mboma, a Namibian sprinter who was barred from her

favoured 400m two weeks before the Games on account of her naturally high testosterone levels, took silver. She was one of two Namibian sprinters with DSD (Differences in Sex Development) to

reach the 200m final. The IAAF argued that the DSD Regulations are necessary “to ensure fair and meaningful competition within the female classification, for the benefit of the broad class

of female athletes”. Current IAAF rules only apply to 400m, 800m and 1,500m which is why these athletes were allowed to compete in the 200m. There was some discussion about Mboma in the

BBC’s coverage, but in general the commentators and pundits backed off, not wanting to cause controversy.  Nationalism, sentimentality and a worrying lack of hard-headed analysis spoiled the

BBC’s coverage. Instead of backslapping, the BBC should hold an urgent internal inquiry, especially into its coverage of athletics. They have just three years to sort this all out before

the Paris Olympics in 2024.   A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed

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