The bits in between sport on TV – the stuff I wish they’d drop

The TV coverage of the Olympics has been pretty damned fabulous here, all in all. When they're dishing out knighthoods and gongs to Britain's sporting heroes after the games, they should probably bung a few awards in the direction of Hazel irvine and Calrlare Balding, who are gold medal class when it comments to presenting and commentating. But there's an awful lot of icky stuff I wish the broadcasters would cut out (but I know I'm probably in a tiny minority). Here's my list of coverage I could do without:

Interviewing athletes who’ve just lost and are still covered in sweat and panting and sometimes crying. This is cruel and depressing and intrusive and utterly unnecessary. What are they expected to say? I’m a worthless scum-sucking pig? I want to crawl off and die? The winner takes steroids?

Interviewing the parents of athletes before and after the event, win or lose. I know TV folk are convinced we’ll invest more in an athlete in emotional terms if we hear their parents assuring us that their kids are just plain folks who help with the washing-up at home despite all their success, or that their kids are still the apple of their eye despite having fallen to pieces in front of a billion TV viewers – and I expect they’re right. But I just find it all horribly embarrassing and inappropriate.

A horrible tradition has crept into tennis of interviewing the players just as they’re about to step onto court. What’s the point? What are they expected to say? Yeah, I’m feeling really bad about this and I expect he’ll destroy me today? Actually, I don’t deserve to be here and I couldn’t give a crap whether I win or lose? (Andy Roddick is particularly adept at investing anodyne answers with another meaning altogether: “Yes” becomes Yes, I’d like to rip that stupid microphone out of your clammy little hand and ram it three feet down your throat, you dumbass mother.)

Interviewing the children of athletes. I know this is meant to make us go all icky inside, but it often leads to unfortunate speculation as to how such a superbly athletic, good-looking and charming parent managed to produce such an ugly, fat, obnoxious brat. (I name no names.)

Interviewing athletes’ spouses/girlfriends/civil partners etc. This tends to leave one wondering whether the athlete’s fame might have allowed them to (as an American commented about me) “outkick their coverage” by a spectacular margin, or whether such a superb physical specimen couldn’t have done a lot better for themselves.  

Interviewing athletes’ coaches. I mean, do we seriously expect them to tell the truth? She’s a miserable, surly, lazy, ungrateful cow who doesn’t listen to a word I say, or
He’s doing so well because I put him on a new course of kick-ass steroids which are turning him into a woman, but who cares?

Interviewing fans. You’ll occasionally pick a charming, articulate one – otherwise, they generally leave me groping for the mute button with my eyes closed and going lalala! very loudly. Interviewing fans watching the event on a TV screen in their local pub is particularly offensive.

Interviewing any Liverpudlian who has anything whatsoever to do with the athlete. 

Interviewing politicians leaching off someone else’s triumph, or publishing any congratulatory texts or statements politicians have issued about an athlete’s success. I mean, even that ghastly twerp Nick Clegg tried to get in on the act last week. (The only exceptions to this rule should be Boris Johnson, because he’s almost invariably funny - and American presidents, because they’re sort of temporary pseudo-monarchs, and there’s no one else to fill that sort of Head of the Nation role where they come from.)

The people who are genuinely worth interviewing are former top-level athletes - they know stuff, have no reason to dissemble, and many of them are highly articulate.

I know I’m spitting in the wind on this one – and if being embarrassed every quarter of an hour or so is the price we have to pay for the cornucopia of British sporting success we’re currently enjoying, hell, I’ll live with it.