Team GB, ITV’s big switch off and sport participation: TV Review – Telegraph.co.uk

Anyhow, ITV’s cute idea is an interesting morsel of a quite juicy problem: sports participation has, sorry to say, actually dropped since London 2012. We are a nation of sports lovers, and thanks to our targeted Lottery spend we are now a nation of sports winners as well (not you, football). Only, away from the elite level, we love to watch, talk and read about sport, as long as we don’t have to do it. It’s how foreigners think we are about sex as well, come to think of it.

Team GB won so many medals at the Olympics, and we as a nation spent so much money on those medals that perhaps the most realistic target is to forget about non-elite sport altogether and just work towards getting every single adult in the country competing for Team GB. And, if all goes well, medalling in Tokyo 2020. Other than that, the gap between our appetite for watching exercise and being healthy it is becoming a mystery that might cause even Jessica a sleepless night or two.