If sport's no fun, fat children won't play

Gordon Brown singled out the gold medallists, who flew back club class, while the losers sat in economy, their names dropped from our memories. It's not just China or Russia who treat their Olympians in do-or-die fashion.

The problem with trying to ensure that the 2012 Olympics leave a legacy beyond a £10 billion black hole and a stadium in Stratford is both a practical and a spiritual one. The Standard discovered that what most people want are good local swimming pools. But the spiritual issue is one that starts at school.

By 2012, England is forecast to have two million obese children. Apart from diet, the only thing that will save these children from their fatty fate is exercise. But schools — and the Olympics — don't breed a love of exercise. They foster a love of winning, and that is not the same thing.

My own sporting misery memoir started early. Humiliation in the egg-and-spoon quickly gave way to the bruises of missed hurdles, which was nothing compared to waiting not be picked by one's peers for hockey. By the time I was 15 I was only sent running as a punishment and allowed to play tennis with one other girl, who was severely myopic. If you weren't naturally talented at sport, there was no suggestion that it should be fun, let alone beneficial. It took me until I was 25 to realise that exercise was something I needed, but by then, my motivation and enjoyment were zero. So I just paid direct debits to gyms I never went to.

At five, my daughter has already had her first sports day. It was supremely tactful — ribbons for good sportsmanship to those who hadn't won anything, throwing games mixed with running ones so everyone could be good at something. But five days later, a small voice said, "Mummy, why did I come last in that running race?" and I could see how easily history might repeat itself.

Schools' competitive attitude conditions children out of taking exercise if they're not the best. And, for all we crow about medals, even if they are the best in their class, it's unlikely to get them anywhere. The odds are such that we might as well enter them in Britain's Got Talent.

Encouraging the "it could be you" attitude in children is just plain daft: focusing on finding "future Olympic stars" every four years isn't going to get those two million children off the sofa.