Pages

Tuesday 12 August 2008

Day 4.2: That's nearly an armful

In the annals of human history, it's perhaps the conspiratorial thinking which sets human kind apart as a really very special bunch. But even within this paradigm, there are some utterances which are better than others. Few I have ever encountered, however, have ever quite matched up to this one: the Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell, former world record holder, claims that he has been blood tested to such a degree that he will be weakened when he comes to compete.

This poses so very many questions. If we may put aside the obvious one about whether or not Asafa Powell has lost it, the major one of these must be to ask how much blood they are taking per test. I have always assumed that even a small vial of blood would easily be classed as a representative sample, and that the sort of amount which I have given in the past for testing would be fairly easily replenished by the human body. I can only therefore assume that the IOC hang athletes up like the Mussolini massacre and then bust up their corotid arteries. Milk maids are subsequently employed to carry the gently steaming buckets of blood across town to the testing centre, where the scientists bathe in it.

A BBC correspondent wrote a piece for their website's Olympic blog yesterday, bemoaning the standard of food available to spectators at the Games so far. My advice to them all would be to steer clear of the black pudding.

Today's sport, incidentally, was Judo. And no, I have absolutely no clue what's going on there either, sorry. I also watched some of the men's tennis, but more of that tomorrow.

No comments:

Attention

You have reached the bottom of the internet