Sports are funny things aren’t they? Ostensibly a means to stay healthy while engaging in competitive activity, since the Ancient Greeks the simple act of moving faster than the other bloke has achieved a significance way beyond the act itself. Naturally this is on my mind because the Winter Olympics are underway, the 2010 instalment of which is currently notable for its amazing administrative cock-ups and a tragic death. I imagine it’ll also be notable in this country for the fact that Finland once again wins naff-all.

There hasn’t been enough snow which has meant that thousands have received refunds when wet conditions have made spectator areas unsafe. Having lots of snow shipped in from elsewhere just shows what you can do with an essentially unlimited budget. Watching the Olympics on YLE also shows how desperate one country can be for any kind of vague recognition. It’s pretty weird. It’s not like Finland sucks at everything. We have many great cultural phenomena to show off to the world, and you know Nokia come from Finland, right? So why do we insist on pretending that skiing faster than someone else matters?

I have no idea what the budget of the Finnish Olympic Association is, but I can imagine that flying several dozen people to Vancouver to win nothing is expensive and a waste of money. Alright, as I write this most of the events where the Finns might win something haven’t taken place yet – we might get a medal in the downhill, it’s true, and so long as they don’t meet Sweden at any point in the proceedings the men’s and women’s ice hockey teams are in with a shout.

So far, however, we’ve failed to get on the podium. Mika Poutala missed a bronze medal in speed skating by 0.03 of a second, and while he looked pretty disappointed, for the rest of the nation it was business as usual. Since Matti Nykänen stopped jumping and became a sad tabloid celebrity we’ve hardly won anything, except curling gold years ago, and who gives a flying one about that anyway? It’s barely even a sport.

Anyway, my point here – and yes, I do have one, for once - is that since the next couple of weeks of telly are going to be saturated with Olympic coverage, you might as well not watch anything and go outside and do something yourself. Seriously. The attitude of the presenters and interviewers is beyond belief. When Poutala just missed out on his medal, Finnish telly crews ran up to him, thrust mics into his face and asked him, ‘how do you feel?’ He was almost in tears and felt crap, obviously. Why make him feel worse? Let him have more than 30 seconds to get used to the fact that he missed out on what he’s been training years for. It was sad seeing him, but no more sad than seeing the desperate idiocy of our national TV ‘professionals’.

Not only that, but winter sports are some of the more mind-numbingly dull to watch. I mean, have you ever sat down and watched a whole 15-km cross-country race? Then you have no life, my friend. Personally, I seriously hope that we don’t win anything, as I couldn’t cope with the inevitable chest-thumping national pride that comes from having some people do something slightly better than some other people. It’s so boring that I might have to take up skiing myself.

NICK BARLOW