Mixing it up

MIKE ROWBOTTOM CHIEF FEATURE WRITER, INSIDETHEGAMES

Mixing it up

The International Olympic Committee is championing mixed-gender events at Tokyo 2020 but is this good for sport or just a box-ticking exercise? Mike Rowbottom knows which side of the fence he falls.

Mixed-gender events will be heavily promoted at Tokyo 2020. Photo: Getty Images

Nobody really needs Olympic mixed events - apart from the International Olympic Committee.

Having said that, maybe it’s me that’s wrong? After all, life itself is a mixed event. But in the Olympics? I mean, sorry, but what? Why?

“Gender equality, stupid. Haven’t you ever heard about Agenda 2020?”

Fine. Gender equality. Bring it on. Only why do we require a framework that’s the sporting equivalent of a fixed grin?

Asked recently if the Tokyo 2020 Olympics could go ahead during a nuclear war, sorry, state of emergency, IOC vicepresident and Coordination Commission chief John Coates responded: “Absolutely. Yes.”

But didn’t you notice how evasive he became when someone asked him if the Games could proceed without mixed events?

The die was cast in 2017 when the first mixedgender events were approved for Tokyo 2020.

The Games will include a 4x400 metres mixed relay in athletics and a 4x100m mixed medley relay in swimming.

Other additions include a mixed relay in triathlon and mixed doubles in table tennis.

IOC President Thomas Bach said the Games would be "more youthful, more urban and include more women".

By the by, I think it would be interesting if, at some point in the future, the Games could become more “urbane”. We could then look forward to some laconic performances.

Reacting to the introduction of mixed events at the time, Britain’s Rio 2016 champion swimmer Adam Peaty said: "It's something that would make things a little bit more fun.”

Peaty was surely just being polite. Since when have the Olympics been about fun?

Citius, Altius, Fortius, Jocosus? Well I prefer it to Bach’s “togetherness” motto but it’s still a non-starter.

Perhaps it’s just a hangover from watching Wimbledon tennis tournaments on the BBC back in the day.

At the point when all home interest in the singles competition is over - so we’re talking the first week - our attention was then directed to the areas where British participation was still a thing.

This meant the doubles, or, more likely, the mixed doubles.

John Lloyd and Wendy Turnbull won two mixed doubles titles on the trot in 1983 and 1984. Yay! In more recent years, Jamie Murray has teamed up victoriously with Jelena Janković of Serbia and Switzerland’s Martina Hingis. And it has been fine to watch. It is a less serious and, at times, dare one say it, more fun event.

Variants of mixed relays have been tried in athletics. They were part of the razzmatazz of Nitro Athletics which burst up and away like a single firework in Melbourne in 2017, with Usain Bolt helping to light the touchpaper.

At the 2019 European Games in Minsk, I sat through many hours of European Athletics’ tailor-made Dynamic New Athletics format, which was put together to give the event a presentable vehicle for a track and field competition following the lowly fare on offer at the inaugural Games in Baku four years earlier.

One of the high points on the opening day at Dinamo Stadium was the mixed 4x400m relay, where, after declaring their opening athlete ahead of the competition, team managers had the option of mixing up the order on the spot with regards to the male and female runners left.

On this occasion, Slovenia went against the flow and played their male runners early, hoping to create a lead onto which their two female runners could cling. So it was that Anita Horvat brought the baton home first, pursued by five straining males.

Nobody watching such a spectacle needs a rule book to understand it. It’s gripping, but it is a gripping novelty. "We have taken a really important step forward in terms of gender equality," said IOC sports director Kit McConnell on the mixed events.

Important, perhaps. But a wrong step.

If we are using words like “equality” in this context, surely there is a still a long way to go in mixed events. Yes, they tick the male/ female balance box but, beyond that, there is still a fundamental, perhaps unconscious, inequality within mixed events.

Almost invariably, in whatever sport, they are biased against those who aren’t very good.

How often do you see a real duffer picking up the baton on the track or touching in at the pool, all coughs and splutters? Isn’t the Olympics missing out on a trick here? The drama of a good runner passing over to a rubbish one? The tactics of when you run your racehorse and when you drop in your carthorse?

It could be like an Olympic X-Factor. You know there will be good operators out there, but you will have the guilty secret satisfaction of knowing there will also be others, perhaps even thinking they can run well, who are demonstrably and excruciatingly useless.

Finally, the Olympics really would be “together”. Actually, no. Just create more women’s events.