The Olympics can bring glory...but also pain, misery and failure

The sight of Britain’s Rhythmic Gymnasts falling agonisingly short in their Olympic quest is a poignant reminder that golden dreams can often end in misery.

Beyond recollections of recent glory lie memories of Shanaze Reade crashing out of the BMX, Frankie Gavin failing to make his Boxing weight limit and of course, Paula Radcliffe weeping by the roadside in Athens.

The Olympics can be the low-point as well the hallmark of a great career.

But while these names at least had the platform to achieve greatness, the anonymous failure of not even qualifying for London is an even more nightmarish scenario.

Boxing flyweight Khalid Yafai has won European and Commonwealth medals and reached the quarter-finals of the 2011 World Champs, but was still edged out in the qualification stakes by Welsh rival Andrew Selby.

In Taekwondo Michael Harvey is a World bronze medallist, but in a sport where a nation can compete in just two of the four divisions, his weight category has also been overlooked for selection.

Both men could have excelled in London but will be reduced to armchair spectators wondering what might have been.

Worst of all, Sailors Ed Wright and Giles Scott have won the last two World titles in the Finn Class but will both miss out in the selection battle due to the presence of superstar Ben Ainslie. 

Ainslie suffered a controversial World Championship disqualification, but after a dominant 2011 his choice cannot be disputed. Yet it remains outrageous that some sort of wildcard cannot be provided for two global champions.

Similar dilemmas exist for China in Table-tennis, Russia in Wrestling and Kenya in the Marathon.

In Rhythmic Gymnastics Britain are far from powerhouses, and have never before qualified for the Group event. But after relying on parental support six unfunded teenagers came a knotted ribbon away from doing exactly that.

They ultimately missed the British Gymnastics defined benchmark by 0.273 points, and despite bettering that mark the following day their dreams are over and, in a sport where adulthood effectively means retirement, are unlikely ever to be fulfilled.

Even qualification is no determinant of participation.

As of yet the worst injury suffered by Team GB has been to eventer William Fox-Pitt’s horse, Cool Mountain, but others will happen.

 Portuguese Triple-Jumper Nelson Evora is already ruled out and someone will inevitably inherit the agony of Jessica Ennis, one of Beijing’s injured absentees.

To these athletes, the Olympics are far more than a ‘friendly games.’ It is a way of life in a career where failure will often mean financial as well as emotional ruin.

After last year’s death of Marathon champion Sammy Wanjiru, another example of the Olympics dark side has been illustrated by Irish runner Martin Fagan, after he admitted taking the banned substance EPO.

Fagan is a cheat and that cannot be condoned, but his cheating was a consequence of depression and despondence with an ailing career.

Running had become simply a battle for survival, and after a spiral of injury and underachievement it had lost any sense of fun or enjoyment. As any readers of David Miller’s Racing through the Dark would find familiar, drugs became the next step - the final way to guarantee success.

In 2012 the Olympic can and will bring glory and glamour, but they will also bring despondence and despair.

Its oldest creed may be that “it’s not the winning but the taking part.” But to a world class athlete that is a purely mythical thought, and especially so for our many contenders who will fail to even “take part”  in the first place.