The Unexpected Outcome of the Summer of Sport

Back in June I discussed the upcoming summer of sport and how it would be an interesting test of work-life balance.

I have to admit, I took advantage of being my own boss to enjoy a lot of it. Peak viewing was during the Tokyo Olympics, when, rising early due to the small bladder of our new puppy, the TV was on by 6am and rarely turned off before mid-afternoon.

On several occasions my TV did that thing where it’s been on one channel for so long, it thinks you’ve gone to bed, so says it will switch off unless you press a button. I believe I set a Personal Best of 14 hours of sports viewing on Saturday 7th August.

There were many extraordinary highlights: everything about Emma Raducanu, Joe Root’s sublime batting, Kate French and Joe Choong shooting accurately after running 800 metres (4 TIMES!), the Kenny’s doing their cycling thing, Luke Shaw putting England 1-0 up in the Euros Final and the Solheim Cup team’s amazing win.

What I do hope will be most enduring though was the belated mixing of male and female events. Mixed relays in athletics and swimming at The Olympics were brilliant ideas, especially as Team GB seemed to be so good at them. And having been highly doubtful about it as an overall concept, The Hundred’s men’s and women’s cricket formats proved to be entertaining viewing.

More of the same please from those sports still lagging behind. Combining the Solheim Cup and Ryder Cup into a mixed event would be a great next step.