Don’t kid yourself about what the medals mean

"If you want to promote health and fitness, you're almost certainly better off channelling funds directly to those whom you'd like to see get off their backsides, rather than to those who are already hardly ever on them. People say our Olympians inspire people to get out and do it themselves, but most sporting spectacles inspire people to do no more than order a pizza and sit in front of the telly. To mix my metaphors, for the trickle-down effect argument to hold any water, you'd need some evidence that sporting performance at the elite level has some relation to wider sporting participation."

This week's column in The Herald.