Reflecting the zeitgeist

Sponsorship in the Olympic Games reached a new turning point in ingenuity this week when McVitie’s were given the all-clear, for an undisclosed fee, to put their name to the latest event permitted by the IOC, namely the clumsily titled ‘Juggling the Five Olympic Rings whilst Posing on a Giant Floating Ginger Biscuit’ whilst zipped into a rather fetching luminous red onesie. It has raised even more eyebrows than the notorious event in the 1900 Games in Paris in which contestants had to shoot as many pigeons as possible in the allocated time (the winner killed 21 birds). The winner of the new event will be he or she or they who devises the most original rearrangement of the Olympic rings before sinking into the enormous dunked biscuit.

“If the spirit of the Olympic movement is to thrive and prosper, it is vital that we reflect the zeitgeist of the evolving times in which we all participate,” said Lord Coe, outgoing president of the International Association of Athletics Federations.