Team GB's Olympic success has failed to translate into a coherent policy to energise and exercise Britain's schoolchildren
You would have thought it would be ringed in red on the Downing Street calendar: '12 August, Olympics closing ceremony, make announcement placing sport at heart of health/education policy to capitalise on Games feelgood factor'.
But either David Cameron was too busy enjoying the sport in his Team GB polo shirt or he simply forgot. Maybe the last minute panic to plug gaps in Olympic security was a distraction. Or perhaps he never intended to use the Games to do so in the first place.
Either way, there is a certain irony in the fact that a big hole in the coalition's sports policy has been exposed by the triumph of London's Games and the heroic performances of British athletes.
When London won the right to host the Games in 2005 in Singapore, under the Labour government, those at the heart of the project proclaimed it was a once-in-a-generation corrective: an opportunity to place sport at the heart of health, education and social policy; to knit together a coherent plan so the £9.3bn cost of the Games would catalyse the estimated £1bn investment in sport, across elite funding, schools, the grassroots and local authorities; to cut down on duplication and bureaucracy; and to give sport a role at the heart of government rather than considering it a sideshow.
That didn't happen for the rest of Labour's tenure, although huge investment in school sport began to pay dividends and there was some (but not enough) progress in directing a proportion of the health budget to prevention rather than cure. And it certainly hasn't happened under the coalition, largely because the education secretary, Michael Gove, saw fit to dismantle a hugely effective school sports network on ideological grounds.
The School Sports Partnerships hobble on in reduced form, having had their funding slashed from £162m to £65m, but even that reduced funding runs out next year. Just as worryingly, the money to release specialist PE teachers to work in primary schools is also due to run out in the next academic year.
While the government has promised to continue funding the elite performance system that led to an avalanche of medals – not a difficult call in the wake of a record medal haul in return for £80m extra over two years – and there is at least a vaguely coherent plan in place for the grassroots (albeit with no increase in funding or guarantee it will work), the incoherence of the government's policy on school sport undermines that progress.
Sir Keith Mills, who played an instrumental role in winning the Games for London and delivered the successful International Inspiration overseas legacy programme, has called for a wholesale rethink of sports administration and a new national plan that is backed at the highest levels of government – one that can't be unpicked by future ministers.
And Lord Coe, the hero of the hour after helming a hugely successful Games, has called for a wide-ranging debate that recognises the need for a cross-party, cross-departmental long-term plan. The government would do well to listen to them.
Instead, we have had Cameron's ill-advised broadside against "Indian dancing", and a return to the tired debate of competitive sport versus exercise. It is a red herring because both have their place; instilling in children a love of exercise for its own sake and allowing them to get the most out of organised sport are entirely compatible.
But both need time, money and expertise at both primary and secondary level. While the Department of Culture, Media and Sport is busy investing in a new strategy to stop 14 to 25 year olds dropping out of sport, the Department for Education is undermining the chances of them getting into it in the first place.
Sports minister Hugh Robertson, who has spent eight years either in the role or its shadow, warned of the complexity of the debate and said it was no time for kneejerk reactions or policy on the hoof.
"It is deeply unhelpful. To see the school sport debate simply as a question of competitive sport versus participation is an over-simplification. There are a number of ingredients in this pile: the number of PE teachers and what they do, the role of after school clubs, the role of school club links, primary provision and all the rest of it. It's a complicated, bigger picture," he said on Tuesday.
"I have been tearing my hair out for the last three or four days because the terms in which this debate has been conducted have not been helpful to finding a solution. The last thing we want is a school sport initiative. We want to have a structured think about how to move forward."
Before the Games, culture secretary Jeremy Hunt seemed more concerned with whether there would be enough ponchos to go around if it rained or how to control the crowds expected to pour into central London. After it, he railed against a reporter who asked whether enough was being done to develop a cross-departmental strategy to maximise the Olympic legacy.
"I am absolutely astonished that you even dare to ask that question after the most stunningly successful example of joined-up government that any of us have ever seen, with 19 government departments working incredibly well to put on a wonderful Games," he said.
He would do well to instead listen to Coe – who has taken on the unpaid role of "legacy ambassador" – and his own sports minister.