The X Factor has been dealt a fatal blow by the Olympics and Paralympics

What instantly springs to mind when you hear the words 'The X Factor'?

Is it "singing competition”? "Simon Cowell"? "Saturday night entertainment"? "I’m off out to the pub"? Or, like me, does the phrase "Sob stories" pop into your head faster than Louis Walsh can utter the sentence: "It’s a million per cent yes from me."

There’s no getting away from them. As any of the judges would say, they’re what this show is all about.

But there’s a dark shadow looming over The X Factor right now.

What could possibly have happened over the summer to make people lose interest and switch off?

Ratings have fallen through the floor to a five-year low, viewers are deserting in their millions, and the programme’s very future has never been in greater doubt. So why the sudden change in the nation’s mood? What could possibly have happened over the summer to make people lose interest and switch off?

Two words: London 2012.

It began, of course, in the last week of July with the Olympics, which brought us all together like never before in peacetime. You only need to say the first names of the likes of Mo, Jess and Bradley to feel the excitement again of those glorious Games.

It was, then, a tough enough act for The X Factor to have to immediately follow Super Saturday and the extraordinary achievements of our new-found heroes. But it turns out that the able-bodied Games were the least of its worries.

Because the biggest and most gratifying surprise of this incredible summer has been the phenomenal success of the Paralympics and athletes including: Weir-wolf, Ellie, Storey, Aled, Whitehead and Bushell, to name a very few.

True grit, determination, triumph in the face of the harshest adversity. It’s had it all.

The X Factor should have taken one look and consigned its contestants’ “journeys” to the dustbin of television history. The contrast between the two is not only stark, it’s ludicrous to the point of being laughable.

Take Saturday night’s auditions episode which built to the final singer, nervous 34-year-old Christopher Maloney, who’d brought his nan with him, along with a dead-granddad sob story. He’s 34, for heaven’s sake. The odds of having four surviving grandparents by the time you reach that age are slim indeed.

He is but one of an inspirational team of disabled athletes who’ve exhibited such bravery and heroism over the last two weeks and, in so doing, rendered the tired old talent-show sob story irrelevant forever.

But the real point is this: Compare if you will what happened Sunday lunchtime, less than 18 hours later, over on Channel 4.

David Weir MBE, a 33-year-old born with a spinal-cord condition that left him without a lifetime’s use of his legs, completed the Paralympics marathon in his wheelchair in first place, his fourth gold of London 2012.

He is but one of an inspirational team of disabled athletes who’ve exhibited such bravery and heroism over the last two weeks and, in so doing, rendered the tired old talent-show sob story irrelevant forever.

Cowell’s ITV1 show needs to drop them right now. Otherwise, London 2012 will go down not only as the best Olympics and Paralympics of all time, but also the gun that accidentally shot down and killed off the X Factor.

Adam Postans (@couchpotatoadam) is a TV critic, journalist and self-confessed Couch Potato.

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