The Golden Weekend starts - with a GOLD!

Woo-Hoo! Dame Rebecca, as the swimmers are calling her, did it! 2 Golds and a shattered world record (19 years to the day after it was set!) into the process for Adlington. She may have been 'who she' a week ago, but won't be any longer - especially with a conk like that!


I was in something a dilemma, having dozed off on the sofa and waking up around 1.30 - to go to bed or not to go to bed? I decided not to, and started watching the coverage - but dozed off again & woke up at 3.20, wondering why there was no swimming. Then I realised -bloody live pause! Hit the stop button, and it cut back to live coverage - which was just in time for the last 25m - so at least I saw the magic moment of victory. Will Buckley quick off the mark with a good article...

"It was in London in 1908 that Henry Taylor became the first and, until yesterday, last Briton to win more than one gold in the pool, Taylor winning three. As for the present, Adlington is the Kelly Holmes of this Games, the double winner who sprung from nowhere. The difference, of course, is that Holmes was in the sunset of her career while Adlington's is just dawning. Come the future, in 2012, Holmes will be in an ambassadorial role on the wings while Adlington, who won the 400m earlier in the week, will be on centre stage in the starring role."

Phelpsy meanwhile got his 7th and equalled Spitz by, quite liderally, a fingertip, 1/100th of a second - having been in 7th place at the turn in the 100m Butterfly. Can't say fairer that that - the lad's an Olympic Swimming Legend - but he's also a lucky one! Got to feel for Cavic, whose dreams of becoming a sports trivia question went up in smoke because he was floating in, while Phelpsy was mid stroke, finishing faster, and smashed into the closing pad...He didn't break the world record though - loser. If he was a country, he'd be 4th in the medal table.


Then a Brazilian only goes and wins the 50m free - to wake or not to wake? Think I'll let her sleep and show her the race, as live, all 22 seconds worth, later...they will be going bonkers in the homeland though. First ever Swimming Gold - and he's only the 10th individual champion, 14th overall. It got VERY dusty on the rostrum, and he got a standing ovation from the crowd, he was booing that much. That's what we want to see, just like old Hugo said yesterday - it means something!

Sotherton watch - body language is poor, she had a shocking long jump, nowhere near a personal lifetime best evah, and going backwards - now 5th. Got to be all over, with the Jav to come, and her rivals competing like they actually want to win. Darren Campbell pretty critical on the radio, all very well talking the talk before the tournaments, but then you have to walk the walk. She doesn't have the right mindset to be a champion - what's she doing going a lie detector to prove she wants to win - shouldn't need to - etc etc...

The radio are that much more honest and less fawning than the telly, though at least Edwards has said her performance is lacklustre. The idiotic other bloke - just burbles on about her lifetime best in the 2 events yesterday.

it's 202!

And it's confidence! COME ON! Gold for the Team Sprint boys - amazing effort, smashed world record in qualifying then thrashed les francais in the final - who'd beaten them in the last 3 world championship finals. GET IN!

Hugo Porter, as the Germans won bronze by 7/1000ths of a second, and camera focuses on crying cyclist:

"Big man, tears flowing down his cheeks. That's what it means to win an Olympic medal."

They'll be needing all the water they can get, because Team GB are setting the Velodrome ON FIRE!



Meanwhile, the athletics is underway, and the Brits are dropping like flies in the second round of the 100m. Usain Bolt has just jogged into the semis with 9.92 - the only drugs they'll find in him after that would be a spot of mary jane - he was sooooo relaxed. Johnno is completely gob-smacked by the performance - guaranteed world record in his book. Only Tyrone Edgar makes semis.

Sothertonwatch - not doing too well, fairly lame efforts in Shot & High Jump so she was in 5th, with 200m to come today and the dreaded javelin tomorrow. Can't decide whether she's underperforming because she can't cope with the pressure of expectancy - even though nobody outside the bbc can surely have thought she'd get Gold - or is she simply not that good? Not doubting that she's doing her best, but she doesn't seem to be able to produce the goods when the pressure is on - but then she's got 2 PBs out of 4 events, and 2 shite efforts - which makes her performances all the more infuriating! Rallied to bronze overnight - but she has to throw a rubbish javelin yet, so not holding my breath. Cred to her for being honest enough to recognise what us other experts have been saying:

"I'm so disappointed. I'm really gutted. I'm in much better shape that that. I'm disappointed with the whole day. Maybe it's because it's my first heptathlon of the year. It's solid and only my shot was really poor, but overall it was just average. I wanted to win that 200m and run under 23 seconds because that's what I've been doing in training."

And another thing - LIFETIME BEST? Puhlease! Call it a PB like everyone else - only seems to be an LB if it's a Brit - and it just sounds, well, a bit gay somehow. And wrong, as it implies they will never do better...

Meanwhile, controversy reigns after the 10,000m, courtesy of bbc live blog:

1634: Bit of controversy here from Kate Reed, who came 23rd in that 10,000m. She tells BBC Sport: "I've been having troubles with my fitness and pain in my calf - at one point I had my flight home booked - but I was all set to race and then last night the team booked a time trial for me to test my fitness! I don't understand why they made me do it, I'm new to international athletics so I just gritted my teeth and got on with it, but it took so much out of me and today there was nothing in my legs."

Doesn't the blithering idiocy of sport administrators just drive you mad? First the boxing, then the swimming, now this. It's not like she was going to get a medal, and credit to her for toughing it and finishing, but give the lass a fighting chance, FFS!!!

The Golden Weekend - confidence or Hubris?

Sotherton not doing so well so far - is the choke already on, just 2 events in and before the javelin?

Meanwhile, huge amounts of hype being generated around the Golden Weekend. If we were Yanks we'd celebrate this without any concerns, but something in our national psyche makes most of us watching the hype feel distinctly uneasy, and worrying about hubris / mockers. In reality, however, all the media do is provide wrapping for tomorrow's fish & chips, and maybe a motivational tool for opponents, but I don't really believe that there are people in the Aussie / US / Dutch etc camps feverishly checking the UK press, watching the BBC highlights and saying that they've got to stick it to our rowers / cyclists / sailors because some dolly bird / talking head says it's going to be a golden weekend. Do they?

Steve Ovett a magnificent addition to the sofa - Edwards was banging on about how beautiful the stadium is, Ovett chuckling away and when they ask him why, he says something along the lines of:

"I'll leave the airy fairy arty farty stuff to Jonathan, for the track athletes, it's 400m around and that's all they care about. The rest is the same."

Steve, we salute you.

Also enjoyed Johnson's brutal honesty and Logan's subsequent scrambling not to offend the locals -

Logan: What do you think of the atmosphere Michael?
Johnno: What atmosphere?
Logan: blah blah etc

Oh FFS! Beckham & Leona Lewis to appear at London's bit of the closing ceremony, along with ballet & break dancers.

Olympics Schmolympics

Yadda yadda yadda. Nothing to see here. Come back on Saturday.



Stany Kempompo Ngangola, aka Stany the Stingray, aka Eric's mate. Read more.

Spectators' Charter

Sent this to the Mayor and to the organising committee this morning, spurred on by something I heard on radio - if there's anything you want to add, let me know.

I wanted to share my experiences as a spectator at the Athens games with you, following media reports on how it's going in Beijing, in the hope that you may be able to implement some of them in 2012.

I was at Athens and the problem with following the action was evident then as well. There were still tickets around for events, but not many available for finals. I had booked tickets for a load of sports over
a year before the events!

Anyway, my proposal for solving this in London:

1) Have a daily results sheet available - nothing flash, just a list of all results from the previous day. In Athens they had internet stations around the town where you could check the official website, but these were invariably not working. Nice idea though.

2) Have dedicated viewing areas where people without tickets can go to watch the action. Ideally, this would be in an area outside the venue. Maybe even have a spectators village.

3) Resell the tickets of people leaving the venues, like they do at Wimbledon. It was so frustrating trying to get in to the badminton, watching streams of people leaving while having to beg those arriving for a spare ticket. Very humiliating.

There were shops around the city, not sure how official they were, reselling tickets for events, usually at face value. Why not keep the touts out of the picture by doing it officially.

Keep the prices down - don't try and recover the debt by making us pay! No qualifying event should cost more than £10-20, medal events may cost more, but there should be cheap tickets available. Remember, if the prices are cheap enough, people will go, even to the most obscure sports.

I know I'm going out on a limb here, but endeavour to keep the corporates away, as far as possible - sell to fans first and foremost, for we are the lifeblood of the olympics. Or at least, stipulate that if they don't arrive at the venue within 30 minutes of the start of the session, the tickets will be resold to real fans, thus avoiding the embarassing spectacle of shipping volunteers in, or vast swathes of empty seats. Let's reclaim sport for the real people!

4) Have a grounds ticket for Olympic Park, so people can get in to the area and enjoy the atmosphere - preferably with big screens and a viewing area - you couldn't get in to the complex in Athens without a ticket for an event - not even at close to midnight when we were trying to get in just to be close to the 100m final.

5) Did I mention Big Screens - everywhere!

There you go - if any or all of these were implemented it would make the experience so much more memorable. If you could forward this to someone on the London organising committee I'd be grateful.

DRH recommends...

Getting a road bike immediately and starting to train for 2012. Emma Pooley only started racing 3 years ago. 3 YEARS!

fivelive's coverage - nicely irreverent & quirky

The BBC Guide to our potential Gold Rush

Darren Campbell's podcast - he had Boardman on the other day, who I thought nailed the difference in the mindset between the cyclists & the swimmers - too many swimmers saying they're here for the experience, rather than talking about winning medals, hence the difference in results. Seems fair enough. Also has snippets of commentary from when we win stuff...

Matt Pinsent's charmingly bumbling attempts at reporting

This article about American swimmer Eric Shanteau, who delayed the start of treatment for Testicular cancer to swim at the Olympics. Thanks to Tom for putting it my way.

Great Olympic Moments from the keyboard of Andy Bull - now with scary photo on blog, and not at all how I'd pictured him.

Barnes in Beijing

Getting hot under the collar at past injustices. Today I am outraged at the treatment of Jim Thorpe:

Stockholm 1912. Jim Thorpe – part native American and considered the greatest all round athlete in first half of the 20th century - was awarded gold for the decathlon and pentathlon by the King of Sweden who told him "you are the greatest athlete in the world," to which Thorpe replied "thanks king". He was later forced to return his medals due to playing baseball in a minor professional league match. He tried for years to be reinstated but Olympic president Avery Brundage (whom Thorpe had easily beaten in Stockholm) refused to give way. However, 71 years later and 30 years after Thorpe's death in 1982, the IOC lifted its ban and returned Thorpe's name to the record books and the replica medals were given to his family.

Read more of this kind of thing in Matthew Syed's 50 Greatest Olympic moments.

Super Angry Pants

Double bollocks - the end of the dream for the badminton. Maybe the koreans were hungrier, they were certainly fitter - not surprisingly given Nathan's recent ankle surgery. So Gail Emms retires having won everything but an Olympic Gold. A class act, put badminton on the map - she now wants to get involved with 2012...

Hooray for some of the swimmers meanwhile - though unfortunately Housewife's choice Mark Foster will swim no more in this Olympics.

Bollocks - Folkard crashes out of Archery in Quarters after a nervous display - hope she conquers nerves by 2012.

Boxers doing a bit better, though another one bites the dust. Judo having another shocker, including one who went out on the Judo equivalent of the golden goal - called the golden point. Their prediction of 2 medals looking embarassing, with only one person left in with a chance.

Well, the decision by the selectors to rest the best swimmers in the semi of the 4x200 relay backfired spectacularly, especially as Our Girls were tipped to challenge for a medal. Thing is though, most of the experts thought they made the right call, but are enjoying things with the beautiful benefit of hindsight. Given that the Aussies just took 5 seconds off the world record, and the British record would only have been 6th, it seems unlikely they would have done anything anyway. On the upside it means, as Steve Parry said, that Rebecca Adlington (feels wrong to call her Becky just yet) will now be channelling her rage at missing out into the 800m - where she apparently has a better chance of Gold than she did in the first. Still, all semi-finalists made their finals this morning at least.

Bad luck to Peter Van Den Hoogenband who failed to win the 100m free 3 times in a row - he memorably spoiled the Thorpedo's party in Sydney...

Meanwhile, it's shaping up nicely for the weekend - the beeb has already dubbed it Super Saturday - when we have many chances to win medals - track cycling gets going, and there are a bunch of rowing finals - we already have more finalists than at either of the last 2 Olympics. Did I tell you I saw the Pinsent Gold live at Marathonas in 2004?

The debate rages about whether Phelps is the greatest Olympian ever, just because he's won 11 Golds. He's certainly the "winningest" as one Yank tv person said, but the best? Not for me. Good blog about this here, tends to lean towards Jesse Owens, because of the context & his subsequent behaviour. Reminds us that Carl Lewis did well, but should have been banned for drugs. Obviously, the greatest ever would be either Daley or Sir Steve, goes without saying, but an honourable mention for Emil Zatopek, who famously won 5000m, 10000m and Marathon (first time he ran one) in 8 days in 1952! Or what about these from yesteryear, courtesy of Andy Bull.

One thing is certain - it will never be Moaning McMurray - crash out of the doubles, his brother a lot more devasted than he was by all accounts - he even admitted to not preparing professionally. Should he therefore pay back any money the BOC have passed his way? Should someone who gave a shit been sent instead? Or should tennis (in it since 1896 so not really a new sport) and Murray just fuck off out of it sharpish?

Meanwhile Lampard shows his loyalty to £39m Chelsea by signing a new 5 year deal...zzzzzzzzzzzzzz