I organised a debate on competitive sport in UK schools at the Battle of Ideas festival last year. It emerged that whilst many specialist sports schools, and independent schools provide excellent facilities and regular competitive sport, there are many others in which competition has been largely extinguished.

Competitive sport has declined for a variety of reasons, including a culture of risk aversion, and a lack of sporty teachers. The most significant factor though is unease about children winning and losing, and worry about damage to pupils’ self-esteem if they lose a race or competition or are pushed too hard. Personally, I think competitive sport is vital both to give young people a taste of competition in later life, and as an opportunity to excel in sport. In this spirit I would recommend the Manifesto for Competitive Sport, written by tennis coach Dan Travis.

I was disappointed to read Mark Reason and Olga Craig in The Sunday Telegraph using the Beijing Olympics as an opportunity to argue against too much competition for children who are training to become elite athletes. The authors start by fantasising about the dangers which could befall the young British diver Tom Daley

But what if Tom suffers the fate of so many youthful sports stars before him: what if he suffers serious injury, or burn-out puts an end to his sporting brilliance? Or, more worryingly, what if the emotional pressure to become the sporting hero Britain longs for becomes too much and Tom, as so many others have done, simply walks away from diving, ditching his dreams of becoming the best in the world and, with them, Britain’s Olympic dream?

Two weeks ago Tom was the golden boy, now everything he touches turns to dust. Only time will tell if he can cope with the pressures and reach his potential, although it might help now if people got off his case and let him concentrate on his diving.

Then they attack the Russians, Americans and especially the Chinese for pushing children too hard at too young an age. Various harrowing examples are given of serious injury suffered by child athletes. While there are serious injuries in many sports, these are usually seen as the tragic accidents that they are, lessons are learnt, and neither the sport itself or the age of the participant is called into question. If you take such an alarmist and precautionary approach, a number of sports including rugby and gymnastics would be banned altogether for fear of injury. The article continues, ‘On the winner’s podium the diminutive form of China’s synchronised diving champion, Chen Ruolin, 16, was dwarfed by the healthy-sized silver and bronze medallists who flanked her’. Beijing gymnasts are described as ‘swarms of tiny girls’ and ‘tumbling ants’.

Chen Ruolin and Wang Xin in action

In the 1970s people had a different view of things. The young and diminutive gymnasts Olga Korbett and Nadia Comaneci were hailed as fantastic Olympians. We saw these brilliant gymnasts, and celebrated their skill and artistry and wondered how they had been trained to be so good so young. They were icons of their age. These days we seem to play down the creative side of humanity, and focus on the dark side of human relations. We see the child who may have been abused by his or her coach, or worry about what the person has been through to reach success, but in doing this we ignore the skill and creativity it takes to win a gold medal. It is a sad indictment of our cynical times.

In many countries sport is one of the few routes to success when most other avenues are closed. I might not approve of the way some of these young athletes are treated all of the time, but the aspiration to succeed and win, from coaches, parents and the athletes themselves, is one we should applaud. The absence of that competitive drive from many areas of British life is certainly no reason to condemn others.

geoffkidder@instituteofideas.com

Read on: part six