Mike's Minute: This was the best Olympics ever

The Mike Hosking Breakfast

The best Olympics ever.

Sadly it wasn’t in our timezone, which doesn’t help the communal buzz of a nation gathered together.

But we won more golds and, in my book, that is really what the Olympics is about.

They have tried to make it about new, weird sports and participation, but for the purest it is about being the best. That’s why you sacrifice and give up your life for singular moments that make it all worthwhile.

I have decided that gold is disproportionate to silver and bronze. It's not a step up - it's several steps.

I have also decided, as shown through the tears of Lydia Ko, that although there are sports you could argue don’t really belong at the Olympics, even for the most elite of athletes used to winning regularly elsewhere on a global stage, representing your country clearly still counts for a lot.

Then you get to the weird business of human nature. As remarkable as Lisa Carrington is, the trouble with being a recidivist winner is you are expected to simply carry on. That’s why being number one at anything is relentless and largely thankless, because it's expected.

Which is why the Hamish Kerr gold is the one you remember, because it wasn’t expected. Was he a prospect? Yes. Was he going to win it all? I didn’t hear anyone say that.

But what about gold in the canoe slalom? It's an odd, invented sport with no small measure of luck. So does an invented sport gold beat a classic high jump gold? Not in my book.

But here is the real gold on the gold - we don’t historically win a lot of them.

It was seven last time and that was an outlier. We won eight in Los Angeles a long time ago. But apart from those two, most games produce one or two or three at most.

Ten golds is a couple of weeks to remember and reminds us that for a country of five million, there are an outsized group of people who strive, work and are determined to live a dream and be the very best of the best.

And for all their stories, we can be grateful for the joy they bring.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.