Well, that's that then, our summer of sport is all over. The European Cup seemed a long time ago but from June 8th to September 9th it has been pretty much non-stop sport.
The football was replaced by the tennis which gave way to the Olympics and it all ended up with the Paralympics and now it's back to normal telly in the evenings but a new series of Come Dine With Me just doesn't seem to cut it when we have been watching three months of the highs and lows of professional sportsmen and women.
I have to confess I was a bit nervous before the Olympic opening ceremony because i was sure that somehow we’d muck it up, especially as G4 discovered a few days before they didn't have the security staff needed and at the football a day earlier we had put up the South Korean flag which so angered the North Koreans who were playing that they walked off the pitch in a strop.
From what i can tell, it all went smoothly after that and apart from the annoying politicians keep popping up to try and get in on the act, it was a good summer of sport but apart from the booing of the Chancellor, i have two over-riding memories of the summer.
The first came in the Olympics when the German Robert Harting, on winning the Gold in the Discus, tore off his shirt and tore around the track, sending hurdles flying until his adrenalin finally dropped enough for him to realise that 18 stone men shouldn't be running and hurdling and collapsed on the floor in exhaustion.
The second came in the Paralympics when the Comoros swimmer, Hassani Djae, the countries only participant in his only event, false started in his 50m swim. He paused for a split second and then thought 'what the hell' and just carried on swimming anyway. To cap it off when he got out he had a microphone shoved in his face and asked about what he just did and answered in whatever language they speak in Comoros which caused the interviewer to reply 'I have no idea what you said but well done anyway'.
Great memories and we blew away the Aussies in both the Olympics and Paralympics medal tables so everyone's a winner, i just wish they would find a less painful way for the Paralympic swimmers with no arms to tap the wall at the end rather than have to crash headfirst into it and also that the Chinese athletes would smile sometimes.
4 comments:
Before the skiting begins re Andy Murray, a Scotsman, winning a Grandslam I present the following for your consideration:
WIMBLEDON:
Norman Brookes was the first Australian to win the men's singles crown at Wimbledon, winning his first title there in 1907. In doing so he became the first male outside of Britain to win the Championships. He was the first of 12 Australian men to take the Wimbledon singles title.
Lleyton Hewitt's victory in 2002 made him the most recent Australian Wimbledon champion. Other great Australian Wimbledon champions include:
Rod Laver (1961, 1962, 1968, 1969)
John Newcombe (1967, 1970, 1971)
Pat Cash (1987)
Margaret Smith Court (1963, 1965, 1970)
Evonne Goolagong Cawley (1971, 1980).
Margaret Smith Court was Australia's first woman to win at Wimbledon. Evonne Goolagong Cawley is the only other Australian woman to have won the coveted title.
US OPEN:
Australian players have also excelled on the hard court at the US Open with past champions including:
Ken Rosewall (1956)
Rod Laver (1962, 1969)
Margaret Smith Court (1962, 1969, 1970, 1973)
John Newcombe (1967)
Pat Rafter (1997, 1998)
Lleyton Hewitt (2001).
I haven't included the French or Australian Opens. You can't kick people when they are down, can you?
When did Britain have the last Grandslam winner? 1870 was it or in the 1930s, I can't remember?
P.S. Congrats to Andy who is one of many trying to divorce themselves from Britain. He beat an injured Novak!
I find it very moving watching an Australian get all misty-eyed and nostalgic for the days when they used to be quite good at some sport... (sniff, sniff)
The excuses, on the other hand are a bit more cringe-making and hard to watch... but I guess there's also fun to be had in the irony of the situation i.e. how ockers refer to 'whinging poms'... hahaha!
For a start, POM = Prisoner of Mother England... That's you, not us! And whinging? I think we've all seen who's been doing that all summer, haven't we? I've lost count of all your excuses for failure...
And no, I don't expect you to appreciate this irony... If there were gold medals handed out for lack of self-awareness, then you'd fly home my young lad...
It's worrying because i have never like Murray much, i was even rooting for Federer during the Wimbledon final but something changed during the Olympics and i found myself willing him on then and when i heard he was 2-0 up last night i came over all 'GO ON ANDY'. Not sure what's happened.
Murray polarised opinions right from the very start of his career, mainly because he's utterly unlike the usual vapid happy-clappy type of sportsman (the kind whose banal quotes virtually write themselves) and he doesn't really give a sh!t what people who he doesn't know think about him. A bit like Bradley Wiggins actually. And this is one of the reasons why I like them both.
Murray is also a survivor of the Dunblane massacre of course, which many people don't know because he's refused to trade on it. Another point in his favour.
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