Dan Jones: Why Team GB's Olympics winners don't need honours list gongs

Medal gurus: Jason Kenny and fiancee Laura Trott proudly show off their track cycling golds
Bryn Lennon/Getty Images
Dan Jones23 August 2016

Once upon a time, during the long interregnum between the ancient Olympics and the modern — during the late 12th century to be precise — sporting prowess became a good way to grab the attention and the patronage of royalty.

Decent on a horse? Dab hand with a sword? Agile, fast, strong and dedicated? These were the qualities that medieval monarchs enjoyed and rewarded. Given a fair wind and a run of good tournaments, a young man might find himself kneeling before his king to accept the honour of knighthood.

A lot has changed since then — and not very much. During the middle ages baubles and titles were conferred on people like the self-proclaimed ‘greatest knight’ William Marshal, who was part of an all-conquering team that travelled to foreign lands and won mock battles.

Today, as Team GB return home to drink the acclaim for 67 medals won on the 21st century lists of Rio de Janeiro, a thoroughly medieval cry rings out: dub our heroes! Arise Sir Mo! Behold Dame Nicola!

Bookies have already started paying out on Mo Farah being given a knighthood in the New Year Honours list as a reward for his Olympic ‘double double’ of 5,000m and 10,000m golds in London 2012 and Rio 2016.

Farah says that would be “amazing” — and why not? The honours lists have got to be for something and I think on balance Mo has probably done more to deserve royal recognition than Samantha Cameron’s hairdresser did.

Farah may well be joined at the dubbing stool by the double gold-winning boxer Nicola Adams and the Team GB flag bearer (and another double gold winner) Andy Murray. Jason Kenny, Laura Trott and Charlotte Dujardin could quite justifiably be there, too.

Any of them would be fitting companions for other recently honoured British Olympians: Sir Bradley Wiggins, Dame Sarah Storey, Sir Chris Hoy, Sir Ben Ainslie, Dame Kelly Holmes, Sir Matthew Pinsent and Sir Steve Redgrave.

Personally, I would like to see a knighthood given to the gymnast Max Whitlock, if only to see if it would make Louis Smith cry again.

But that, I suppose, is uncharitable, and the sort of casual misuse of the honours list that Theresa May’s post-Brexit government seems to want to avoid.

All this said, however, if none of our Olympic delegation find themselves up before the Queen in January, I can’t say that I will be particularly bothered. And neither, I hope, would they. For whatever garlands are hung around their necks, or pinned to their breasts, or imprinted after their names, nothing will — or should — ever mean more than the thing they have already achieved.

It is a crusty old pub trope to argue that for a sport to be considered properly ‘Olympic’ the gold medal should be the pinnacle of achievement. I have some fundamental problems with this argument but will spare you them until Tokyo 2020. For now, let us accept the basic principle and say that each person who contributed to Team GB’s haul of 27 gold medals has crested their sporting summit.

In Pictures: Team GB's medal run at Rio 2016 Olympics

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The gold medal is both their achievement and their reward. That is what counts and not any amount of feting by a grateful establishment. A trip to the palace is grand. But like the insufferable BBC Sports Personality gong-giving, it is a perk and not an end in itself.

None of this is supposed to sound mealy mouthed. I salute each and every one of Team GB’s gold, silver and bronze medallists and do not begrudge them a millisecond of the happiness, satisfaction and sex appeal that they have earned.

But all this puff about knighthoods and damehoods? It is wonderful. But it is only medieval fancy dress; nothing more, nothing less.

Ryan Lochte ‘tale’ is a surefire hollywood hit

Matt Hazlett/Getty Images

Is someone, preferably Jonah Hill, writing up the Ryan Lochte Gets Non-Robbed At The Olympics story as a slapstick summer 2017 comedy movie? Like 22 Jump Street meets Happy Gilmore, but with swimming? Channing Tatum can star; maybe there’s a turn somewhere for Javier Bardem as a sort of generic Hispanic security guard who kicks off the screwball adventure by merely doing his job. It’s a tied-on hit. In fact, I’m volunteering my services to any Hollywood producers in the market.

Boxing bosses have only themselves to blame

Amateur boxing is a mess following a shambolic Olympics. The nadir was the awful decision that robbed bantamweight Michael Conlan of a medal, to which the Irishman responded with his notorious “f**king cheats” tirade. And now boxing is stuck. I thought Britain’s superheavyweight Joe Joyce narrowly lost a tricky fight in his gold medal match; the judges certainly saw it that way. Much of the boxing world, however, is now screaming ‘robbed’. And well they might. Boxing’s bosses are hoist by their own petard.

Manchester one-two is a worrying early sight

(Michael Regan/Getty Images)

I love looking at the Premier League table in August. Hull are third, Burnley eighth and defending champions Leicester scrap with Arsenal for 13th. But there is already an ominous sight, as Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho rest on maximum points: a Manchester one-two. We may well be looking at such a sight for the rest of the season. I hope for entertainment’s sake the rest can keep pace.

Nude protests have edge over snarky tweets

It’s all over now, of course, but of the many things we learned in Rio, the best was from the Mongolian wrestling coaches who showed the best way to protest incompetent officiating: start taking off your clothes and chucking them on the floor in rage. Forget snarky tweets or stony-faced interviews: I want to see this new protest brought to sports across the board.

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