Summer is a great time for medals. Country shows, village fetes and even open days offer the opportunity to see some form of animal, (man, woman or otherwise), parade around with a cup, a ribbon or a sparkling disc. Now that the Olympics are over and winners are given \u2018hero\u2019 status, we can look forward to a raft of new faces opening next year\u2019s village fetes, children\u2019s nurseries and flower shows. Though many people claim we heap too much praise on our athletic \u2018heroes\u2019, a Warwick based philosopher contends that some top athletes fulfil a vital social function, as they can provide happiness, hope, inspiration, release from care and a sense of national identity. Dr Angie Hobbs from the University of Warwick, agrees the term \u2018hero\u2019 can be questioned, saying: \u201cA sportsperson cannot be a hero on the same scale as a D-Day veteran, yet a community\u2019s longing for heroes to cheer, motivate and unite them will still continue in peacetime. Sport provides the chance for peacetime heroes to emerge. And many sporting events – such as running, jumping, swimming, throwing and wrestling – celebrate skills which humans originally needed to hunt and fight – in short, to survive.\u201d
Whether winners or qualifiers, people like Paula Radcliffe, Kelly Holmes and Honiton\u2019s Jo Pavey can hold their heads high and open as many fetes as they wish – it takes physical and moral courage to produce their sporting achievements, and in a negative world, that offers welcome inspiration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summer is a great time for medals. Country shows, village fetes and even open days offer the opportunity to see some form of animal, (man, woman or otherwise), parade around with a cup, a ribbon or a sparkling disc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-editorials","tag-fergus-byrne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}