Olympians are not heroes. They’re just disciplined

NOT to be an Olympics curmudgeon, but can we all, please, stop misusing the words ‘hero’ and ‘heroine’?

Sportspeople are not heroic. They are fit, focused, talented, tenacious, physically super-peak, psychologically ice-cool, but they are not heroes. They have done nothing more heroic than train a lot and guzzle protein bars.

An exception could be made for that teenage Syrian swimmer, who saved a boat-load of fellow refugees from drowning (in the actual sea), by swimming for hours with her sister and pulling the boat full of non-swimmers to safety. Now THAT’S heroic. The ultimate antidote to the toxic machismo of the Lance Armstrongs, the Oscar Pistoriuses.