WEEK TWO. THURSDAY
Usain Bolt won the 200 metres sprint and he’s been the star of these whole Olympics, but I kind of know why he won so easily – he didn’t over-accessorise. You see a lot of other sprinters wearing the latest in hi-tech, ultra-sleek running suits to make their bodies streamlined and speedy so they can run that extra hundredth-thousandth-millionth of a second faster. But if they go to all the trouble with the hi-tech, ultra-sleek running suits, then why are they also wearing big pimpy gold necklaces and great swinging 2-kilo crucifixes and huge plasma-screen digital watches and gallons of bracelets and bangles and beads? There was this guy running the 200 metres heats and he had so many chains and braids, he looked like L’il Yasmin, the Bling Bling Bratz.
Also, an important question in my final blog; if you win an Olympic event, you get rewarded with a gold medal – but I don’t think gold medals are appropriate anymore, because gold is no longer the most precious metal on earth. The person who wins an Olympic event should be rewarded with the most precious metal on earth – I’m talking about highly-enriched weapon-grade uranium. The good thing about enriched uranium is, it’s very radioactive, so you won’t keep getting the same old champions coming back every four years to win the same event. Enriched uranium gives other athletes a chance to compete for the uranium medal.
Last of all, let me sum up these Beijing Olympics by saying how wonderful it is to see a world competing in peace. How great it is that we can all respect each other no matter where we come from. And how good it feels when anyone beats the US in anything.
WEEK TWO. WEDNESDAY
Modern Pentathlon is about to start today and I did a bit of research and found out that it consists of FIVE events: each athlete must compete in shooting, fencing, swimming, riding and cross-country running – so we should all be very happy the pentathlon’s been modernised because apparently Ancient Pentathlon consisted of discus-throw, javelin, long-jump, sprinting, and hacking off the head of a Spartan with a blunt hatchet.
In the same way, I wonder if some time in the near future there’ll be an Ultra-Modern Pentathlon with brutal physical challenges that reflect our more contemporary times like “Queen-Sized Doona-Cover Changing” and “Unwrapping Those Triangular Portions of Laughing Cow Cheese” and the extreme sport of “Working A Drawstring Back Into A Pair Of Men’s Pyjama Pants After It’s Been Yanked Out (Without Coat-Hanger)”.
Also starting today is the event called the decathlon which I believe consists of TEN events, which just makes me wonder, why can't they just do two pentathlons?
WEEK TWO. TUESDAY
When you score a point in soccer, it’s called a “goal” – but I’m starting to thing “goal” is the wrong word. “Goal” sounds like something you aspire to do, not something you’ve already achieved. I think the soccer world should come up with a better word, something like a “success” or a “gratifying satisfaction”. I’d like to hear TV commentators screaming out, “It’s a long long kick… AND HE’S GOT IT, HE’S KICKED A UNMITIGATED FULFILMENT.”
The Olympic soccer is on TV and lots of soccer fans are very excited because every four years all the best soccer teams from around the planet come together to compete in the spirit of good sportsmanship and goodwill, and if they don’t win the gold medal they go back to their countries and get shot.
I’ve been really enjoying the soccer on SBS; I can’t get enough of watching a bunch of guys in baggy shorts kick a ball backward and forward for about 90 minutes and then they call it a draw. In fact, I love soccer so much, I’ve decided to give a few little soccer pointers and soccer facts: I’ve never actually played the sport myself, but I’ve played a bit of that table-soccer game where you’ve got to spin the little plastic men on the table, and knock the tiny ball into the hole at the other end – and that’s almost EXACTLY the same as soccer but with more thrills.
First, the history of soccer: Soccer is a very ancient sport that started way back in Roman times where two teams would gather in the colosseum and try to kick a ball across a finishing line, except the teams were usually made up of chain-swinging barbarians, and the ball was the head of a Spaniard.
Over the centuries, the game grew more and more popular, but it was the British who first created an official set of rules, and developed many of the specialised playing techniques we know today – like head-butting. Incidentally, in almost every other country around the world, the game is known as “football”, while here in Australia we prefer to call it “soccer” – but America does too, so we must be right.
Now a bit about the game itself: the most important move in the game of soccer is the “pass”: this is where you kick the ball across to a team-mate, and then they kick it back to you, and then you kick it back to them, and then they kick it back to you – and then 45 minutes later it’s half-time. Another useful move is the “header” which is where a player deflects the ball using nothing but the front of his head: in soccer this is considered one of the most difficult and impressive of all playing-techniques – in every other sport on earth it’s considered an embarrassing mishap. Other official soccer moves include the “Bum Pat”, the “Fake Injury”, and the “Pull-Your-Shirt-Over-Your-Head-And-Run-Around-In-Circles-Whoohoo-You-Just-Kicked-a Goal”.
Yessir, soccer has got to be the world’s most popular spectator sport: millions and millions of people are obsessed with the game – in England, people go on riots because of soccer, and in some Latin American countries, soccer even stands up as a defence in court…
DEFENDANT: I’m sorry for axe-murdering all those people, your Honour, but my team scored an own goal.
JUDGE: An own goal you say? Here’s an axe, go out and kill some more.
So as you can see, soccer is practically a religion, No other activity on earth can generate the same amount of passion and tension – apart from table-soccer of course, especially when the tiny ball gets stuck between two rows of plastic men and you can’t reach it, so you have to roll the ball a bit with your finger.
WEEK TWO. MONDAY
My mother is a big big liar. For years she told me that slow and steady wins the race, but I don’t think she’s right anymore – on the weekend I saw Usain Bolt win the 100 metres and he seemed to be going pretty fast and pretty recklessly. In fact, I haven’t heard a single athlete being interviewed after a race, saying “The reason I won was because I went painfully slowly, and I kept my body very very still.” Now I know why I never won anything in any school sports carnivals: I always followed my mother’s directions and came second last – the only kid I ever beat was Manios Stavrakis and that’s because he had to stop every three metres for a puff of Ventolin.
On the weekend I also saw a rowing race with eight guys in a long boat, it was totally surreal – there was a human head perched on the end of the boat, and the head was yelling at the rowers, telling them to row faster, looking very distressed. I think the idea of the race was to get the head to a hospital.
I believe today is the triathlon: this is truly the hardest of all sports, and not because of all the long-distance swimming and cycling and running – it’s because of the tricky shoe-changes between each discipline, you have to go from no shoes to bike-shoes to running-shoes. I’m no good at swimming or cycling or running but I think I could be an excellent triathlete because I’m an outstanding shoe-changer and shoelace-tier – I’m fast and dexterous and very good with double knots. This is where I think I could pick up time.
Shoelace-tying is one athletic skill my mother always taught me to go at hard and fast.
There’s more Olympic action in Danny Katz and Mitch Vane’s The Little Lunch Games. And you can get three books on the Olympics and China for the price of two by buying The Little Lunch Games as part of our Olympics 2008 value pack.