Tim Almond

Boris Johnson on Olympic Wins

Roughly 58 per cent of the contestants we sent to Athens in 2004 were educated at independent schools - schools of a type that educate only seven per cent of the general population; and, in the past three Olympics, the independent sector has walked off with 45 per cent of the medals.

Now there will be some who find that a sad fact, a depressing commentary on the relative lack of investment in time and sporting facilities in our schools. But let us look on the bright side. What that statistic tells me is that there is a huge untapped reservoir of potential athletic genius in the maintained sector.

Imagine if we ensured that children had better access to the facilities they need. Imagine if we stamped out the last vestige of the politically correct nonsense that for so long dominated the educational establishment, and militated against competitive sport, and its indispensable concepts of winning and losing.

How come the premiership is chock-full of comprehensive boys, Boris? Why are there so few privately educated boys playing cricket?

This thing about state schools being anti-competitive is a bit of a myth. Many of the high profile examples of schools banning competitive sport are normally at primary level, and even there, are thankfully rare. But the bigger point here, why we have so many people winning medals from the independent sector is not about the effect of private education, but a correlation.

It is not that the independent sector is producing a staggering number of talented athletes (although it does produce more proportionately), but instead that we are winning at niche sports that are frequently enjoyed by wealthy people who also happen to send their kids to private schools. To demonstrate your talent at 400m, you need a pair of trainers and some gym kit. To demonstrate your talent at yngling, you’ll need access to a £20,000 boat. And whilst gold at 400m will earn you a lucrative contract with Nike and a career on the european circuit, the rewards simply don’t exist in sailing and instead rely heavily on the spending of individuals or lottery funding.

This leads to a situation where there are 4 competitive yngling boats in GB, and 100 worldwide. Compared with athletics, there are 30 athletics clubs in the British Athletics League, and there is competition to represent each of those clubs (and 10 of the 13 medals in athletics from the last 3 games were won by people educated in state schools).

We can determine nothing from dominating in a few minor sports about either the state of British sport or education. We can perhaps determine that the people running lottery funding are carefully pushing money at just hitting targets of medal table succes, regardless of whether it has any useful effects.

Tags: Politics, Sport, Education //