uncleduck

February 1984... I remember returning home from school to watch all sort of sports that I had little clue about. Why, for example did the Swiss have to ring cowbells during the bobsleigh, making it sound like an episode of Heidi? Why did the Canadian fans hold up large signs saying “Canada #1” even when their team were not in first-position. I was a simple child. The sound I remember hearing a lot of was the USSR national anthem.

The Soviet anthem was gone from the summer games. The athletes met up in Los Angeles, I wore an LA '84 T-shirt that came cheap from somewhere and it seemed the whole world wanted to be Americans. We had learnt about “Truth, Justice and the American Way” from Superman movies and this was the year when everyone seemed to be singing “Born in the USA”. We had seen Ronnie Regan portrayed as some kind of Western saviour, facing down the Commies with his faithful bulldog Maggie, announcing the gospel of the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. We all watched as the rocket-man from the Bond movies flew in just before Ronnie-the-Saviour declared the games of the XXIII Olympiad open for business.

The Russians didn't show – not that we minded as all their women were really men in disguise and they were all on drugs, so we believed. No, these games were western and honest and free. Some guy called Steve Redgrave won a medal for rowing but we didn't care – no, my friends and I ran round the park pretending to be Seb Coe, Daley Thomson and such like. Meanwhile, the Russians were being spied on by their own ruthless, dishonest government who even tapped their phone calls and opened their post.  

24 years later and the Games of the XXIX Olympiad are about to get under way. Ronnie is no longer our Saviour and George Dubya isn't in favour of a Land of the Free, anywhere. Bulldog Maggie is tottering on her last legs and the thought that only the Russians spy on their own people would be funny if it wasn't so close to home. We no longer sing about being born in the USA and don't really expect these games to be a drug-free paradise. Indeed, if the smog clears long enough for us to see the other side of the stadium to know which junkie is in the lead, we'll be glad.

Yet when I watch the opening ceremony I'll briefly remember being an innocent 8 year old who knew that all the bad guys were far away, that drugs were things sold by American chemists, that life was good and that when I pretended to be Seb Coe I was actually quite fast.