Independent on Sunday, The: SPORT ON TV: When reality TV puts on a false front and brings tears

Just how real do we want our reality TV to be? There's a chap who's been popping up on our screens for the past week, for heaven's sake, claiming he will soon become the first to play Russian roulette live on television (although the rumour that Channel 4 have already signed him up for a second series has put paid to that particular scam).

Is there any end to the depths we will drive our fellow humans for our own voyeuristic enjoyment? For example, haven't we had enough of seeing starry-eyed teenagers breaking down as they're told they will never be the next Britney Spears? Well, obviously not, because last night the BBC began sport's very own version of Pop Idol, and now we lucky people can watch teenagers break down as they're told they will never be the next Wayne Rooney.

For no matter how hard the BBC try to portray Born To Win as something grander than just another tacky talent show, there is no hiding the fact that here is yet another drive up the schadenfreude autobahn. Their aim is not, as they claim, "to find tomorrow's champions", or even more laughably "to encourage young people to lead an active and healthy lifestyle" but, yes, "to find more viewers". And the best way to do that nowadays is to pump a bunch of naive wannabes full of dreams and then stand back as their bubbles explode.

So, way back in January, some 5,000 applied to join the trials, and a sure-fire winner was born. Never mind that the numbers were instantly whittled down to 2,000 by that fail-safe method of unrooting sporting talent known as "the questionnaire" - how many Gascoignes were passed over in that, then? - because by involving "a number of governing bodies" and calling it "a serious sports competition" they could do it under the mask of fulfilling the licence-payers' charter. One stone would never kill two birds so clinically in tellyland again...

Except, sorry lads, your idea is born to lose, because a) it's boring; b) it's boring; and c) it's boring. It just doesn't work. How can it when they are asking us to believe that from 20 finalists who are prolific in sports ranging from boxing to fell running, high- jumping to fencing, that they will be able to find the "champion of tomorrow"? How will they be able to tell that Sheldon the boxer is any better at what he does than Garth the rugby player? The answer is they won't; they will only find the boy and girl who are best at the huge variety of pursuits they put in front of them.

And guess who's leading after the first episode? Yep, the decathlete, who, lo and behold, happens to be pretty good at most things. The fencer, meanwhile, isn't. How's that for shock TV? Why, I would have fallen off my sofa if I'd have managed to stay awake that long.

Of course, the BBC didn't care about all that - they weren't in it for the authenticity of the competition but the authenticity of the tears cried in failure. But even here they fell sadly short, because, apart from the delightful young lady who revealed, "I don't think it's going to be my day, because I put my lucky knickers on this morning and bumped straight into the bog door", this lot were essentially dull. Like most young sportspeople today, they are programmed to say, "Oh well, I gave it my best shot", and, "I'll never ever give up" before trotting off on their far from merry way. But even they weren't as dull as the presenters. Sally Gunnell needs no introduction as the world's worst pundit, but it was painful to see Colin Jackson cast as the "bad cop" who tells the starlets as it really is. Alas, you will see badder cops on Heartbeat.

You will also see a lot more drama, despite Born To Win's pathetic attempt at a drum-roll finish. In a device shamelessly stolen straight from Fame Academy, they line up the three worst competitors and ask the judges (Jackson and Gunnell) to decide who goes home. Then, after advising each of these poor unfortunates how they could improve - which in Jackson's case amounted to: "You must focus on your focus" - they announce who is staying one by one. Before you know it, two of them are hugging each other for joy, while the one going home is left to cry on his own. There should really be a law against it.