Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Rule Britannia!

OK, so I'm not catching a lot of the Olympics, apart from news highlights in the evenings. But doesn't it feel good to be British? Oh yes, we are a sporty nation once again. Third in the medals table, behind the mighty China and US of A, with some very inspiring performances. Most, if not all, of the names are anonymous to me, and there seems to be a distinct lack of personalities that were always around in previous Olympics. Names like Coe, Ovett, Cram, Thompson, and Christie, aahhh those were the days...or is it because the current crop of winners are excelling at sports not exactly geared for prime-time TV? Me, I'm a big 4x100/4x400 relay fan, I will be trying my best to catch those live.

As I'm writing this I see that Israel has just clinched its first medal of the Olympics, a bronze in the windsurfing. With that Israel surges into 69th place in the medals table. And as the guy pushed a Brit into fourth place, I shall be having words with him - his parents are friends of the father-in-law.

Not that I'm knocking Israeli sport, but this made me laugh. Arik Zeevi, Israel's big gold medal hope in the judo, on his failure to convince: In the days before the competition, I cried too much, like a pregnant woman. Yes indeed.