Dotlympics 2012: Day 16

So, let's talk about the Modern Pentathlon. The last sport to finish in the 2012 Olympic Games was very much the most remarkable of the lot and a fitting end to a thoroughly memorable fortnight.

Baron Pierre de Coubertin was a funny old goose. He founded the modern Olympic Games and for this we thank him. His general attitudes on gender politics notwithstanding, of course. He also created the Modern Pentathlon event, inspired by the Napoleonic wars and the demands that they placed on the modern soldier. Fencing! Swimming! Running! Shooting!

But my favourite of the lot is The Riding of an Unfamiliar Horse. This has percolated down the years to be a simple show jumping element, but the unfamiliarity of each competitor's mount is retained thanks to a random draw of horse. It is a dazzling piece of sporting theatre, that. No other event in the Olympics leaves things quite so much to chance, the luck of the draw. Some of the horses in that pot are a sight to behold. The reigning world champion in the event, Britain's Mhairi Spence's chances of a medal evaporated as out of the hat for her round came the most uncontrollable, lunatic, nag. The size of a small elephant, before the run began the swivel-eyed thing had its tongue lolling out of the corner of its mouth. It promptly gambolled around Greenwich Park with an abandon which was as intoxicating as it was terrifying. There have been worse strokes of luck endured by fancied competitors during the London Games, yes, but she would have been better off riding an angry camel.

The true magic of the Modern Pentathlon comes in the final event, the combined cross-country run and pistol shooting. The staggering of the competitors' start times so that it is straightforwardly the first athlete to cross the line who wins is something of a masterstroke and one I would like to see adopted into other multi-event sports. Hell, let's also have the riding of an unfamiliar horse shoehorned into as many sporting events as we can, too.

It was a suitably daft, picturesque and exciting end to a superb Olympic Games. All the pre-Olympic cynicism was as predictably British as the giddy excitement and a festival atmosphere that quickly followed it. For me it was never in any doubt because London is such a magnificent city and British people are such creative, adaptable and magnificent people. That it was so good and filled with such memorable sporting moments was just the cherry on the cake. Fitting too, in the Olympics where the British team have done better than ever before, the event saw British competitors win another medal, a silver for Samantha Murray to take the overall tally to a scarcely believable 65.

So that was it. I can tell I have enjoyed it because I'm feeling a bit maudlin now at the passage of it, at the passage of time. It was my ninth summer Olympic Games and you only get so many. So, the Olympic hangover begins for another 1400 days until Rio 2016, by which time I will be 36 with eight children, a money pit house in the country and a smelly dog called Hector. It's a far cry from Sydney 2000 which I watched in my pants, or Barcelona 92 which I glimpsed in between playing outdoors or Athens 2004 which I watched on the televisions in the corner of various boozers and in varying states of consciousness.

London 2012 is now a memory too, for its own reasons. It's all been rather beautiful.

Dotlympics 2012: Day 12

Imagine you are a horse. You are sat there - well actually standing there, as horses are such massive freaks that they can't sit down - when all of a sudden a minor member of the Dutch royal family sits on your back. Oh well, it could be worse I suppose. The Dutch royal family are wealthy enough to keep me in oats and sugar lumps and other assorted horse chow.

So, I'm willing to go with it even after they stick me on a slowboat to England. Now I'm in Greenwich Park. There's something of a crowd gathered, which isn't ideal. I'd rather be back in my field. But hang on, what's this? I know this song! I know the dance for it and everything.

So, I do the dance. The crowd go wild! But then they all start congratulating the horsey woman sat on my back and give her a gold medal. This seems rather unfair.

It does rather, doesn't it? I'm pretty steamed up about the whole business and I'm not even a horse. I know that moral opposition to things usually lasts only up to the point that one's ability at it catches up to the requisite level, but I'm willing to make an exception here. In spite of the Great Britain Olympic team's excellence in the Dressage competition, I cannot and will not accept that this unending, horsey, in-bred, shoot a fox in the face, bankers are a good sort, burn the Welsh, open the grounds to the plebs during the summer, cavalcade of titnonsense is worthy of an Olympic medal.

That a man old enough to have once heckled Ramsay McDonald at an NUS rally is able to perch himself on a nag and win the same medal that Usain Bolt gets for being the fastest human being who has ever walked the earth is damn near obscene. I'm not against horse dancing. Let the horse set train their horse to bump and grind to that Take That song from the Morrison's advert. Each to their own. Then gather all the horse people and all the horses to have a big horse dance off. Give the funkiest horse and rider a cup, too, by all means. But an Olympic gold medal? For goodness sake.

I'm sure there's a lot of skill. But most things that look deceptively simple are just that. And not all of those are deemed Olympic-worthy. I'm fairly sure the equestrian events are all a relic of the early years of the modern Olympic Games. It was like Grand Prix motor racing for them, then. But shit the bed, enough with the horses already. Show-jumping and cross country are only a sport if you happen to be a horse, and with dressage the odds are even longer.

Olympic dressage? Fuck right off. You horse.

Dotlympics 2012: Day 11

A fie on whoever it was who invented the slow-motion camera.  I've reached my limit of distorted sallow fleshbags wobbling at me. Even the world's finest, most honed and toned, athletes wibble like a troubled duck as they run along. Yesterday I watched Abi Oyepitan of Great Britain. A fine athlete, at the peak of her physical condition. But her whole face damn near folds in half with the impact of running when seen at half-speed. It's difficult to understand how she can see where she's going.

And that's before you even get to the willies. Willies aplenty. I reckon I could go on You Bet and successfully identify athlete's penises in the flesh just from what I've seen from the silhouettes in lovingly detailed close-ups  before the start of the races. Reedy ones. Bulby ones. Great big ones. Huge great massive ones. Ones with a bell end like an elephant's heart. Ones so huge you get a urethral camel toe. I should probably stop looking at them. I should definitely stop making a sketchbook of what I think they look like.

At least we didn't get any such pictures of the new Belarussian women's shot putt champion.

Dotlympics 2012: Day 10

I'm beginning to get P.E. anxiety. The reason is the hurdles.

Jumping over shit is hard enough, without having to take a running jump at it. Oh, and if you trip over you'll lose all your teeth and everyone else will laugh at you. I hated hurdles whenever they came out in school P.E. lessons. Partially because they always meant there was going to be some hurdling. But mainly because they always accompanied a lecture about hurdle safety.

You have to put the legs out facing you. If you hit the hurdle, then, the hurdle will fall over. Put them the wrong way round and you could really hurt yourself. The implication being that fat tubs of shit like me were going to hit the hurdles, but as we were more likely to attain actual academic qualifications for the school it would be best - with one eye on the league tables - if we were to not die.

Switching one of the hurdles round the wrong way has always struck me as being the ideal plot for an episode of Columbo. To this day, I still can't think of anything more dangerous. A carelessly set up hurdle could see you end up really twisting your melon in a big way.

Watching the professional athletes do it, therefore, is always accompanied by a muscle memory of stress and panic within me. But it's normally placated somewhat by the great skill of the practitioners. These are people who know what they're doing. They could leap over a hurdle with flying colours, whichever way round or up it was.

Unfortunately for me, in the first hurdle race I saw this time round, an early heat in the women's 400 metre hurdles event, an African runner did a colossal face plant after tripping over the second hurdle, leaving her looking like Beth Tweddle eating a bag of limes.

Since which time I have been hiding under the bed, where there are no hurdles.

Dotlympics 2012: Day 9

I'm watching some horse sport. It's terrifying. At a time when people are discussing what a difference a year makes - suddenly we're not doing a riot any more and we all love Team GB hooray - it is a timely reminder of the delicate threads by which peace and stability hang. Because if I were a horse, I'd form a union and go out on strike at the very least.

For a start, these horses are out there busting their hump - note to competitors: if your horse actually does have a busted hump then it is a camel and you may well be disqualified for infringing rule 10.1.3 Useage Of Camels - but it is the posh person sat on their back who get given a medal. No such luck for the horse, who are lucky to be given a carrot or some oats. Some people have argued, what use would a horse have for an Olympic medal? My argument is, what use does a person have for an Olympic medal? All it proves is that you excelled in the Olympic Games. Are horses not allowed to do that?

Equal rights for horses. #equinerights

But it gets worse for these pitiable nags.The jumps that some of them are being asked to do in the showjumping event are quite literally impossible. Vertical. Think north face of the Eiger. One of them, the water jump, features a pool that is slightly wider than the English Channel at its narrowest point. Maybe they're supposed to be grateful that it isn't as steep? But it's hard to feel a great deal of gratitude when you're then expected to take a flying leap over a 1:1 scale model of the entire City of London.

All of this for a bag of carrots? Don't be surprised if you see a horse occupying Hackney Starbucks tomorrow, eating all the muffins.

Dotlympics 2012: Day 7

I watched the women's 10,000 metres final. Ten thousand metres? That's got to be like 90 berjillokilotrillion laps of the track or something. I imagine there'll still be some stragglers finishing now.

In fact, it's only (only!) 25 laps of the track. The new Olympic Stadium looks mightily impressive, I have to say. But if only they'd taken a leaf out of the swimmers' books it could have been much more modest in size and, therefore, expenditure. All of the running events on the track are in multiples of 100 metres. Only a few are multiples (or divisors) of 400 metres, which is of course the length of a circuit. You know it: I'm suggesting that they should run lengths. Think of the saving.

Nevertheless, 10,000 metres is divisible by 400 and so instead of a hundred lengths the world's fastest (skinniest) women set of for twenty-five of the finest. It was an immediate object lesson - and god knows it was badly needed -  that human beings are superior to greyhounds, who need a rabbit on a stick for this type of work.

Distance running events are, of course, dominated by athletes from Ethiopia and Kenya. They practice at high altitudes in their homelands and so when they come down to sea level the air is like gravy to them. So it was something of a surprise to see the opening stages dominated by the three Japanese runners. It was a scene with strong echoes of one of those Japanese game shows where people put themselves through mental and physical torture in the name of entertainment: seeing who can sweat the most by dancing in a sauna, running the gauntlet of an actual cannon, gargling with live eels - you know the type of thing. After a few laps, and with a phalanx of puzzled Africans sauntering behind them as they ploughed on bravely at full speed, their faces were masks of anguish.

The speed of the race was very much something that impressed me. These women were all running considerably faster than I ever have, I quickly realised. And they still had eighteen laps to go. In the final analysis, the winner's time was a shade over 31 minutes for a shade over six miles. That's enough to make me think that all the finalists should be elected Pope, before you even noticed that the world record was a full two minutes faster. Yikes.

Running races are not the most hazardous of Olympic sports - unless someone breaks the world javelin record with some significant gusto - and so the competitors bravely ploughed on avoiding a few minor hazards: mechanical rabbit droppings, the Polish bloke who won the shot putt legging it across the track to see his coach and discarded eels. So it was something of a surprise to see a bunch of tressle tables come out after about ten laps. Ah, of course, this must be the health and safety games. A posse of men in bibs offering tempting, frosty skeins of water, coke, lager and Cup a Soup appeared. There was even a portable shithouse, obviously booked at a time when the organisers thought that Paula Radcliffe might enter.

The athletes, like me, had never seen such a thing at a 10,000 metres race before and shunned the tabard army. The only runner I saw avail themselves of the opportunity for refreshment was one of the Japanese trio, whose suspicion was overwhelmed by the fact she'd successfully run away all her bodily moisture (and soup) in the early stages.

By this point, the race had boiled down to a hardcore of two Ethiopians and two Kenyans, now lapping the field. Eventually they came by to put one on the Japanese runners, who now looked in so much agonising pain that they'd surely finish the race with pall bearers. With six hundred metres to go, the reigning Olympic champion Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia kicked for home. As she passed the bell she was already thirty metres to the good, and the man who rang it mouthed "fuckin' hell". Dibaba tore round the final circuit at a flabbergasting pace for a woman who'd just run 9,600 metres. The last lap was completed in a minute and some change, during which time I would be able to run 96 metres. It was a genuinely extraordinary moment. I was awestruck. If she had been a greyhound, she'd have caught the hare up on the back straight.

Only on later replays did it become obvious that she was broadly smiling all the way through her victorious tour, through a sea of the dying and the dead. Like all the victors in the London 2012 track and field events she wins a gold medal, a magnum of Coca Cola and a fuck off a camel.

Dotlympics 2012: Day 5

It being day 5 of the London Games already I am, of course, being visited by a crushing black dog depression which left me completely apathetic about watching or writing about any form of sporting endeavour. Of course, there was an inevitability that this would also be the day that Team GB won their first gold medals of the competition. Coincidence? Who knows. But if it isn't, there's every chance that when the Velodrome opens tomorrow it could be a portent of my suicide.

Medals have been much in the thoughts and minds of Olympic commentators today. Last night the American swimmist Michael Phelps won his 19th Olympic medal, an all-time record for any competitor in any sport. Today, of course, saw Bradley "Wiggo" Wiggins win his seventh Olympic medal and becoming the most decorated British Olympian ever. Much wiffling about Greatness ensued.

Michael Phelps (USA) - some medals pictured

Is Michael Phelps the greatest ever Olympian? Is Bradley Wiggins the greatest ever British Olympian? Well, that depends. What is the outstanding factor of a great Olympian? If it is medal count, then its obviously a no-brainer. However, the Olympics is more about people than it is sport. For me the greatest Olympian is the one who inspires the most people, not just to do sport but in their day-to-day lives. If Phelps or Wiggins manage to do this of course, then the more power to them.

But I think both men still have some way to go to match Eric "The Eel" Moussambani of Equatorial Guinea. And I'm not even kidding.

Dotlympics 2012: Day 4

In a flurry of chalk, swearing, pain, subtle Lycra-clad silhouettes of willies and the potential of rectal prolapses, it's about time for some Olympic weightlifting I plum reckon. The pity is it's not the top bodyweight class, because those people are fat. And it's a pity, too, it's not the bottom bodyweight class because those people are small and able to lift several times their own tiny bodyweight. Like ants.

Instead I am watching the 69kg class, which would be my class if only Reece's Peanut Butter Cups had never made the Atlantic crossing. There is a Team GB competitor here, though, who is from Wales. Wales has never struck me as a hotbed of weightlifting. It's really more of a preserve of those central Asian countries with virtually unspellable names and whose Presidents as often as not rename the days of the week after their dog.

Weightlifting is my absolute Olympic highlight. A lot of people like the track and field, but with the European and World championships and the Commonwealth Games, you're pretty much guaranteed to see some medal-slinging athletic action every year in the UK. Events like archery, volleyball and weightlifting, though, they're the special treats. In many ways I feel that long may that remain. As much as I'd like the BBC to launch Weightlifting 24, it would take a small piece of the shine off of my life as a sports watching man.

There's an other-worldliness about the 69kg class. These are the men who you'd sit next to on the tube and never suspect were out of the ordinary but could lift any number of pianos clean over their head. Special, too, is the red button coverage this morning. After the British competitor, Dai Weights, had completed his three lifts in the snatch phase - equalling the British record in the process - the two commentators said they were buggering off out the back to talk to him before the clean and jerk. A rare, rare treat indeed, as I am now watching my beloved Olympic weightlifting in a completely unfettered way, perhaps occasionally giving pause to what dear old David Vine might have said as the action unfolded.

An Uzbekistani gentleman who had arms like pipecleaners just narrowly failed to snatch a full 135kg bar above his head. A quick blast of some UK grime music. Now here's a Thai competitor who looks a bit podgy. He's dropped it too. The theme from Westworld. The Uzbek chap is back. No luck. Some stone cold funk. Here is Ravi Kumar Katulu of India trying to pick up 136kg, which is the equivalent of a snooker cue with a Smeg fridge on either end. Success. Parisian Walkways. The bar is up to 138kg now for an Azerbaijani who is no bigger than a small gibbon but can pull a Jumbo Jet with his knackersack. No problems at all.

There's been some time gap now since the Team GB entrant Gareth The Lift left the stage and yet there's no shortage of new competition. Most of them, like the North Korean athlete now on stage to cleanly snatch a full 140kg bar for his first attempt, are able to lift what Rhodri Muscles could and him while he did it. It puts things in a global perspective, rather. And it makes me very glad that there are no commentators to still be talking about him as a waif-like Turkeminstani wanders out to centre stage with a cow under each arm just as a warm-up.

Just sport. No chat. No Team GB. No needless excuses. It's complete bliss.

Dotlympics 2012: Day 3

It's day 3 of the London Games and an unusual thing is happening: I'm watching some sport not involving an athlete from the United Kingdom. I'll be honest, it's a brave new world for me. What do you do?

The BBC are no real help in this. After eulogising the wonderful smorgasbord of sporting action offered by BBC 1 yesterday I am now predictably going to complain about it. I suppose that Olympic coverage in this country has always been rather Team GB-centric, but the more choices they give us - the more platforms there are available - the more the jingle-jangle of jingoism on the flagship station begins to stick in my bleedin' craw.

How are Team GB doing today? What did We win yesterday? How many Gold Medal Chances (i.e. Olympic events we have a competitor in, no pressure there) do we have today? And how are Our athletes coping with the pressure? We ask all of them continually, every hour of the day and night, for two weeks or until they cry. The BBC like to make sportsmen cry. It shows the human side of them and gives an insight into the emotional self-mastery and personal sacrifices they all make. It's also a vivid image and a good story.

So Tom Daley, how has your dad's death affected you? By the way, he IS dead and is not coming back. Yep, deadsville. Kark City, Arizona.

It's driving me completely bonkers, I have to tell you. Here's the program of events from yesterday evening on BBC 1:

1900: Gary Lineker asks Ian Thorpe if Rebecca Adlington can do it.
1920: Interview with Lizzie Armitstead, silver medallist in the women's cycling road race that afternoon. She rode a completely perfect race, you know.
1932: Minute's silence for Paula Radcliffe's withdrawal from London 2012.
1943: In the aquatic centre, Claire Balding asks Mark Foster if Rebecca Adlington can do it. Over her right shoulder we see vague traces of two world records being broken and two gold medals being won.
1956: VT of Rebecca Adlington, mostly from four years ago
1958: Footage from The Rebecca Adlington Swimming Centre in Mansfield as a crowd assemble to watch her race on TV, all the while missing a number of European and Olympic records being broken and more gold medals being won.
2008: A ninety second piece of VT as Jake Humphrey and Misha Hussein tell us how easy it is to watch some - any - fucking sport at this pissing Olympics.
2015: A Lithuanian 15-year old wins her semi-final in European record time. Claire Balding notes she trains in Plymouth, which is in the UK.
2016: Can Rebecca Adlington do it?
2023: Rebecca Adlington's race takes place. Rebecca Adlington takes a bronze medal. Names of the gold and silver medal winners currently escape me, as no-one mentioned them particularly.
2028: Gary Lineker, Claire Balding, Ian Thorpe, Mark Foster, C.B. Fry, Sir Winston Churchill and Windy fucking Miller discuss how well Rebecca Adlington did.
0100: Pages from Ceefax.

Today, my Olympic watching attempts so far have been a 30-minute long discussion about whether Tom Daley and Pete Waterfield can do it, 3 minutes of a badminton match between an Australian and a Slovakian, Michael Vaughan discussing Lord's and its role in the Olympic archery competition and then the phenomenal arse that is Garry Herbert successfully commentating on a coxless fours rowing semi-final only mentioning the British boat in a race in which they were, at no stage, higher than third in a field of six.

Today will see me cuddling my broadband connection. I may even buy the router chocolates. I can't take this endless, meaningless, chatter any more when all I want to see is some sport. Any sport - any sport - will do, just so long as it doesn't cut off after 5 minutes so that Reggie Yates can talk shit at me for a quarter of an hour.

I will relent and watch BBC 1 for Tom Daley and Pete Waterfield's 10 metre synchronised diving final this afternoon. But I shall be doing so with the sound off.

Dotlympics 2012: Day 2

I was glad that I had Freeview for the Beijing Olympics. It was a revolution for my Olympic watching ambitions (chiefly: watching a load of Olympics). But four years have now passed and frankly that seems like a long time. For those wealthy herberts with Sky or Freesat or the like, there are now tens of dedicated Olympic sport channels so that you can watch uninterrupted coverage of whatever sport you like. Of course, you can also use the BBC website for that, using their really rather spiffy new live player. But I just can't get into doing it.

I am quickly realising that the Olympics is sport pick 'n' mix. I'd frankly love to watch the men's table tennis which is, as I write this, taking place and available to watch on the BBC website with live commentary by Reginald Bosanquet. Probably live from the Royal Albert Hall or on the Cutty Sark's poop deck or a similar venue somewhere else magnificently incongruous. However, if I were to take this cherry-picking approach I would have missed out on the men's volleyball or the kayak slalom events, both of which I watched this morning. I don't really know the rules of either of these sports - I know the basic aims but not the fine details which could very possibly make all the difference as to who wins the thing - but I was quite willing to get involved in them. Particularly as both featured entrants from Team GB, which saved me the bother of even having to work out which team to support.

Team GB haven't, so far, done very well in any sport I have seen. We even got pegged back in the ladies' team archery by Russia after a promising start. Quite grotesquely disrespectful, that, considering it took place in the proud surroundings of Lord's cricket ground. It's like your French exchange student beating you at darts in Gyles Brandreth's front room.

However, I'm happy to just be able to see any of it. Regardless of who wins or what sport it is that Jake Humphrey decides to beam into my face this afternoon, this truly is the greatest show on Earth for the sports lover. The facts that Team GB are dropping like flies left, right and centre or that people who live in solid gold houses are able to watch a live feed of the women's changing rooms at the Aquatic Centre with live commentary from the Duke of York, are of supreme disinterest to me. If I got hooked on the Olympic cycling then I damn near might miss the fencing. Where's the fun in that?

Dotlympics 2012 - Day 1

To celebrate the first day of the 30th Olympiad, I hardly watched any Olympics. It was a bold strategy but one that paid off as British athletes shamefully declined to win any gold medals. I know. What's all that about then?

Actually, I'm going to try and sidestep that editorial line - which is already well-covered by the BBC and every single other British news agency. I've come to the potentially risky conclusion that, in every field where there is a British athlete nailed on for gold, all the other competitors from all the other countries are probably going to be trying to win the Olympic gold medal as well. It's a disgrace, really. Why don't they wait for the Olympic Games hosted by their own country?

Anyway, Mark Cavendish didn't win the cycling road race. He was beaten out of the medal spots by some cunning tactical plans executed by the teams of other countries who were underhandedly trying to win themselves. The Kazakh cyclist Alexandre Vinokourov, who had the brass neck to look pleased with himself, won the race and the gold medal. But the road race was notable, at least, for being the first live sport  of London 2012™ that I watched.

It was a timely reminder of the key reason I love the Olympic Games. The allure of all sports. The way a sport you never watch, or watch perhaps once every four years, pulls you in to create a 17-day addict. I'm already jonesing for some swimming and I can't even swim.

My favourite aspect of the cycling road race event is the teamwork. Specifically, I like the way they have teams of four. There are, of course, only three medals. Quite how the brutally dominant Team GB had decided to divvy these up, I am not quite sure. Perhaps they took the democratic decision to not win any at all, which was jolly upstanding of them. Of course, it may be decided by who is being each team's little donkey. Every team has its star sprinter - in Team GB's case this was Cavendish of course - and this leaves the other three as a support and back-up crew. One of them always seems to be a literal water carrier, though. At one point I'm pretty sure Bradley Wiggins had four water bottles down the back of his shirt, plus a ham sandwich in his shorts and a six-pack of sausage rolls where the sun don't shine. On his back: a barrel of ginger beer. Fun-size Milky Ways were strapped up his legs with gaffer tape.

A fully-laden moving refreshment station, it's hard to see how Wiggins could have gotten a medal even if he'd wanted one. The unedifying sight of the winner of the Tour de France being passed for third on The Mall by a tressle table covered in pork pies could have been too much for the expectant populace of Britain, still overstimulated by the sight of Kenneth Brannagh in a stovepipe hat, to bear.

Dotlympics 2012 opening ceremony

I don't really care much for opening ceremonies. In fact, it's fair to say that the only thing I hate more than opening ceremonies are countries other than the one I live in. Plus, I love the Olympics. Therefore there was a grim inevitability that a combination of that and crazed jingoism would see me watching this evening's Danny Boyle-directed extravaganza of free dance and tiresomely continual anticipation of David Beckham's arrival.

I'm not really looking forward to it. I'm going in to the whole thing in the way you might a night in a haunted house as a codicil in a great aunt's will. It's something that I feel I really ought to do, rather than looking forward to with any great enthusiasm. Although actually the haunted house thing is probably a bad example, because that would be awesome.

Nevertheless, it's as good a time as any to launch the second Dotlympiad (You can see all of my reflections of the Beijing Games here). So, tonight, live on blog from 8.30 p.m. I will be presenting my own opening ceremony. I hope that you will enjoy it. Maybe you will prefer it even to the official opening ceremony in London? If nothing else, I can guarantee my opening ceremony will not have David Beckham in it.

- - -

2016: Welcome to the London Dotlympic opening ceremony. The location is my garden. The themes of tonight's festivities are British history, Britishness and the good old-fashioned British Friday night out.

2031:Pigeons.

2034: Bears on unicycles. One of them is dressed as Sir Edward Elgar.

2039: There are no better serial killers than British serial killers. This dance routine celebrates that fact. Here, a group of nubile young girls, many of them prostitutes, gambol across the infield. And here come the serial killers! Jack the Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, John Christie, Hindley and Brady. Let the chase commence!

Ian Huntley is in charge of the bath afterwards.

2043: Cavalcade of whimsical drunks.

2045: Cavalcade of aggressive, racist drunks.

2053: A red double-decker bus filled with Palace guards, drinking beer at its correct temperature.

2059: Unexpected pigeons.

2101: In order to celebrate cultural diversity and inclusiveness, my curry arrives.

2104: Here are the members of the Royal Ballet with their stylised re-enactment of the bombing of Dresden. Meanwhile the Royal Shakespeare Company perform scenes from Dad's Army.

2110: A flypast by some of the icons of British aviation as two Spitfires, a Sopwith Camel and a De Havilland Comet all drop into the Thames with flying colours.

2116: General-purpose dismissiveness of the French - including Agincourt, Waterloo and a 5-minute open mic segment.

2122: British popular music's influence is showcased, as the remaining members of The Beatles exhume the deceased members of The Who and vice versa.

2125: World War I in 45 seconds, by the children of the West Ham Church of England Primary School.

2128: A delegation of athletes from the West Indies, Ireland and Kenya arrive in the stadium only to be turned back by a landlady from Notting Hill wearing a tabard, officiously tapping the sign in her window.

2130: The entire Industrial Revolution is marked by the Manic Street Preachers singing some interminable dirge about the Miners' Strike of 1984.

2136: And here come the elephants.

2149: A celebration of British ingenuity: to celebrate the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928 it is revealed that every seat in the stadium has given its occupant a dose.

2150: Stonehenge.

2151: Foxes.

2153: Cavalcade of returning whimsical drunks, now notably less whimsical.

2156: The vomiting begins.

2201: Fights.

0013: The flame is lit by the only person left standing, the proprietor of Best Kebab, Plaistow, E13.

Olympic Trials

I pity the poor Londoner, so out of touch with the ways of the modern world. They are all kicking up such a lot of mountains out of so few mole hills, folks. The baffled and bewildered pearly kings and queens from the big smoke don't seem to realise that, obviously, if you want to host the sports day, then there are a few things that are going to have to change. Hopefully the whole experience will leave our gor blimey brethren more in touch with common sense security procedures and more willing to adapt.

When you delve into it a little deeper, you see how much fuss is being made over nothing. Life goes on as usual in the capital except for the following changes:

• No buses
• No trains
• No tube
• No-one to go out after 10 p.m.
• No-one in East London allowed out until after October
• Anyone living within 5 miles of Stratford to have ICBMs installed on roof
• Duke of Edinburgh allowed to carry an elephant gun

It's a tempest in a tea cup by anyone's standards, and I'm pretty sure the Duke of Edinburgh was allowed to wander about with an elephant gun even beforehand.

However, there's always some moaners who, as soon as depleted uranium-tipped warheads are strapped to the walls and ceilings of their home, start darkly muttering about wanting to get out of the city until the Olympics and subsequent invasion of Iran is over. This could lead to a potentially critical refugee situation for the people who live in the outlying areas.

Some good eating on one of these beauties

For those concerned about it but whose councils have so far refused to put surface-to-cockney missiles on the roof of their housing, I present this handy guide to Londoner prevention.

1. Confuse the Londoner - charging them under £4 for a drink should see them bewilderedly counting their change for long enough that you can wee in their shoes.
2. If you suspect someone of being a Londoner, get a tracking device on them by secreting one in a plate of tasty jellied eels. Londoners cannot resist their slippery goodness.
3. Claim that you ARE still in London. This may only work for places in Kent, Surrey, Hertfordshire, Essex or Middlesex. By the time they've reached Berwick-upon-Tweed the jig may well be up. In which case:
4. Hide up a tree.

Remember, the Londoner is more scared of you than you are of the Londoner, so treat them kindly. Not least because they are pissed off and have fucking missiles attached to their house.

Non-explosive Tupperware box disrupts Olympics

The British newspapers are up in arms today. Well, the red tops are at least. This is always a good sign. Firstly, it means there's no actual news to report, which is a good thing for scaredy cats like me. Secondly it is a sure sign that no English footballers are currently cheating on their wives, which should help them concentrate on their preparations for the European Championships next month.

The issue is that, during a security exercise, a policeman successfully smuggled a dummy bomb into the London Olympic Park. In this world of terror-threats and religious fundamentalism, this is a great concern. Particularly for The Sun on Sunday, who are always keen to distract people from any of the numerous terrible things that their parent company has done.

I love news stories like this. They are designed to cause panic and outrage. In so doing, they prove the futility of both of those emotions. They are snap reactions, devoid of any reason or perspective. If you really analyse anything deeply and properly, panic and outrage should quickly dissipate. If they don't, you are probably in trouble. But even so, having a brain clouded by either is unlikely to be a constructive platform for action.

In days past, I would panic myself up into a tree over silly things like this. Luckily, over the years I have learnt to be both more analytical personally and more cynical of the motives of the news media. Sorry, the news media. But you did kind of bring this on yourselves.

The whole point of exercises is that they are supposed to discover flaws, so that when the actual thing is in progress it won't happen again. Maybe if News International's hacks had practised not tapping phones and not rooting through celebrities' bins more often, their current and future troubles would be significantly smaller. Furthermore, it was a dummy bomb. I don't know about you, but you're welcome to smuggle as many dummy bombs as you like into anywhere. You can smuggle some into my anus, as long as I'm not breathing out at the time. Go nuts. Give your children some dummy bombs to play with. Feed a few to your dog. What I'm actually concerned about is real bombs.

Of course, this will all seem very silly come July and Usain Bolt's attempt at defending his 100 metre sprint crown is waylaid as he trips over a lunchbox full of Blu-tak and batteries, hurled onto the track by a mischievous urban terrorist. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

It always helps to put your trust in the people who are in charge of these things, after all. The fact is, whether you want to believe it or not - and whether the press want us to believe it or not - they know what they're doing better than we do. And even if they don't, thinking that they do is a nice warm feeling, although I may just have wet myself.

Personally, I'd be more offended if someone tried to smuggle a copy of The Sun, or Rupert Murdoch, into the Olympic Park.

BBC Sports Personality

Winning at sport is a means to an end, if you ask me. The real award is the BBC Sports Personality of the Year trophy. I'll admit it's perhaps become a little devalued in recent years since they allowed the general public - who are fucking idiots - decide the winner on the night via a phone vote. But still, it's the greatest single sporting honour this country has to offer.

As you may have already guessed, I'm a big fan. I'm particularly excited this year, because I think it may turn out to be the hardest decision made in years. Not since 1992 has there been a clash between a decent British showing at the Olympic Games and a British Formula 1 World Champion, for example. Then, Nigel Mansell prevailed. But the Olympian feats in Barcelona pale compared to those of Beijing 2008, and Lewis Hamilton could very well end up being the first British Formula 1 World Champion since James Hunt in 1976 to not end up with the biggest prize of all.

I've had both my crystal and magic eight balls out, to try and use science, mathematics and my own brilliant mind to figure out who will prevail this year. So, get your money at the ready and prepare to dash to the bookmakers, if you want the greatest Christmas of your miserable lives.

Before we move on to specifics, it is important to consider the breakdown of where the trophy tends to go. The BBCSPOTY was first awarded in 1954, which means that this year's event will be the 55th. Of the 54 so far:

Athletics accounts for 16 awards; Motor racing 6; Boxing 5; Cricket 4; Football 4; Equestrian 3; Ice skating 3; Tennis 3; Golf 2; Swimming 2; Cycling, Motorcycle racing, Rowing, Rugby Union and Snooker have one each.

Germaine Greer will be interested to note that men have won 42 times, women 13 (the numerical discrepancy here due to Torvill and Dean's shared award in 1984, rather than the fact I counted Fatima Whitbread as both or John Curry and Robin Cousins as women. I didn't. That would be both mean and inaccurate).

Sports Personality of the Year
Let's get this straight, fans of semantics. "Personality" here is a misnomer. Let's instead think of it as the BBC Who's The Best British Sportsperson of the Year award. Anyone who argues any differently is a prick. I'm sorry, but you just are.

Last year: Joe Calzaghe (Boxing)
This year: Between Chris Hoy (Cycling), Rebecca Adlington (Swimming) and Lewis Hamilton (Motor Racing). Anyone who says Andrew Murray will be laughed out of Dodge.
Who should win: Out of that lot? Chris Hoy. Who SHOULD win? Victoria Pendleton.
Who will win: Rebecca Adlington, I should think

BBC Team of the Year
Because there is no I in team.

Last year: England Rugby Union
This year: No contest really. The British Olympic and Paralympic teams will piss it, although they'll pad it out by whiffling on about the Welsh Rugby Union team and Manchester United
Who should win: British Olympic and Paralympic
Who will win: British Olympic and Paralympic

BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year
This is an award I love and hate in equal measure. I love it because it's not decided by the moronic populace. I hate it because it's so riven with politics, it might as well be. Michael Schumacher never won this award, despite a 12 year period of dominance during which he became the single most successful racing driver of all time. Sadly, it corresponded with the time that the BBC had lost the rights to F1 coverage, so he was well and truly buggered. Although, conspiracy theories aside, he also faced stiff competition from Lance "One Ball" Armstrong, Tiger "He's Black!" Woods and Roger "Not As Good As He Used To Be" Federer. But Goran "I Won One Thing, By Accident" Ivanisevic? Fuck off.

Last year: Roger Federer (Tennis)
This year: A fiesty duel between Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps and Rafael Nadal. (I'd not be surprised, in fact, to see a new award this year to put on public record the BBC's approval for this year's Wimbledon men's final, the greatest sporting event I have ever witnessed. It would probably be given some brilliantly portentious title, too, which would be a bonus. Watch this space.) Oh, and they'll probably shoehorn a bit about Valentino Rossi in here, too.
Who should win: Michael Phelps (Swimming)
Who will win: Usain Bolt (Athletics), probably. Otherwise the whole show could turn into a swimming love-in.

BBC Sport Coach of the Year Award
Because red-nosed borderline alcoholics, wife-beaters or frustrated army drill sergeants deserve awards as well.

Last year: Enzo Calzaghe (Boxing trainer)
This year: Between David Brailsford (Olympic Cycling Team), Warren Gatland (Wales Rugby Union) and Sir Alex Ferguson (Manchester United). Fabio Capello might get a mention, but he'll have to actually win something before he gets a sniff.
Who should win: David Brailsford
Who will win: Warren Gatland, to keep up the BBC's ludicrous "Rugby is a sport" façade

The Lifetime Achievement Award and the Helen Rollason Award I will not be discussing. This is due to the fact that they are chosen by an internal BBC Sports panel and as such are always richly merited, being untainted by the pig-ignorant trotters of the filthy masses. The current holders are Sir Bobby Robson and Oscar Pistorius. I'll also not be discussing the Unsung Hero Award. Because it's so boring and stupid.

BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year
There is an age qualification element to this. Initially called The Newcomer Award for people 25 or under (principally to allow them to give the first trinket - in 1999 - to 34-year old pipe smoker Dean Macey). Since 2001, however, the upper limit has been 18.

Last year: Tom Daley (Diving)
This year: Tom Daley having blotted his copybook by the entirely understandable failure for a 14-year old boy to win GOLD at the Olympic Games, this one will be fought out between Laura Robson (14), who won Junior Wimbledon this year and Eleanor Simmonds (13), double Paralympic swimming gold medalist. A sawn-off Rebecca Adlington, if you will.
Who should win: Eleanor Simmonds
Who will win: Eleanor Simmonds deserves to breeze it, unless BBC Health and Safety decree that having a dwarf about the place would be a fire hazard. Which is possible.

The Semi-Official* BBCSPOTY-Dotmund Drinking Game

This is very simple. Watch this year's ceremony on BBC1 (it's on Sunday, 14th December). Every time one of my hot predictions is right, you have to drink. Every time one is wrong, you have to take two drinks. Every time they mention Tiger Woods, drink. Every time they mention Padraig Harrington without drooling, you get to eat a biscuit. Every time they manage to almost-successfully gloss over a sport they've lost the rights to, drink. Every time they manage to almost-successfully gloss over catastrophic British shortcomings in events they DO still have the rights to, drink. If you're not dead from alcohol poisoning by the end of this, probably best to take a handful of painkillers and end it all. And I'll see you on the other side!

* I've officially licensed this game, they haven't. I also take no responsibility for any death or injury incurred by anyone stupid enough to play this game, however funny those deaths or injuries may be. Seriously. Don't play this game, you spackwit.

London Olympics, Day -1431: Boredom

After I watched the 10 o'clock news last night on BBC 1, I realised that I was already bored of the London 2012 Olympics. This is utterly spectacular as an achievement, and one the BBC decided to embellish with a programme this afternoon featuring the return of our heroic Olympic team. Several hours of shots of people alighting an aircraft, most of whom no-one has ever heard of. What an event.

I thought I might take this opportunity to once again mercilessly plug my other blog, where I provide a service much like my Dotlympics one, only less frequently. On the plus side, it tends to be more knowledgeably, as it is about motor racing, a sport I understand*. And you're none of you paying me for this, so can have no complaints.

It is here: Toto Roche's Flag

It only has one post on it at the moment, but you're not my mother, I don't have to please you. It will grow organically as and when I have ideas of things to write there and on that subject.

P.S. If you are my mother, hello.

* I understand the sport but not why I like it, incidentally. No more questions.

Day 16: I've run out of Olympics

It's Day 16 of the Beijing Olympics, which means I have just woken up to find it's all been a dream and I have to go through it all over again. Luckily, Hazel Irvine has reduced her restraining order on me to 20 yards and I have a really long stick. With a rubber glove tied to one end. And a feather.

The closing ceremony was a sad occasion. Not because a great sporting event has now come to a close, after all, all good things and all that. No, it was sad because in passing the Olympic flag over to the next hosts, 2 billion TV viewers all got a crystal-clear view as to what a total spanner the Mayor of London is. Many of these viewers will live in countries without a strong or consistent history of democratic government. Many of them will now realise they're not missing out much.

This much said, where the Olympic games doesn't really matter too much. Beijing's efforts have been universally well-received and will be, no doubt, fondly remembered. But that is the way of a games which runs as smoothly as 2008's has done. All the human drama and sporting excitement is by no means location-specific. The 10,000 metres was not run on the Great Wall of China, nor will Buckingham Palace host the Archery in the Queen's private quarters in 2012. London, then, doesn't have to worry about being as impressive as Beijing - only as efficient, organised and polished. Finishing all the venues on time and getting the transport infrastructure sorted out good and early would be a very good start. The key way for an Olympic games to be famous is for it to be faceless. The key way for it to be infamous is for all hell to break loose.

As an aside, during his interview with the BBC this morning, Gordon Brown displayed a number of gestures which were direct copies of those used by Tony Blair. It was quite sweet, really. Hopefully the Prime Minister in 4 years time - I'm assuming his name may well be David - will display as much schoolboy-like excitement as the current Premier did. And refrain from putting a windmill on Sue Barker and calling her Sustainable Sue.

Incidentally, in a piece of staggeringly fucking useless news, the BBC informs me that the start of the London Olympics is only 1432 days away.

Days 14 and 15: End of term atmosphere

It's day 15 of the Olympics, so John Inverdale and Sir Steve Redgrave are wanking each other off into Gabby Logan's hair. Then Hazel Irvine comes in frigging herself off and accidentally shits all over the floor in a great deluge of diarrhoea containing whole beansprouts. Claire Balding sees this and starts to lick it up, in so doing causing the large boil on her back to burst, revealing a cascade of writhing pus-coated maggots. Jill Douglas, being done up the arse by Jake Humphries notices this and laughs, breaking Jake's concentration for long enough to make him fart in Sue Barker's face. Sue takes the guff, and, shouting at Colin Jackson to put a foot up her, starts to lick her own tits. As all this goes down, Adrian Chiles enters, revealing his latest acquisition - a Prince Albert. He observes the great midden of shit, pus, maggots, blood and spunk and promptly shovels one out right into Jonathan Edwards' face as he prays for all our fucking souls.

Also, it's the day when controversy reigns supreme in the Biffa Baconesque-splendour of the Taekwondo, a sport already slightly over-complicated by having nonsensical and boring rules. The trouble with such sports - Judo is another - is that you daren't point this fact out to any of its competitors lest you end up in traction. Even an understanding of the sport isn't always enough to keep you out of the firing line, as the referee in the Arman Chilmanov - Angel Valodia Matos match found out today. Having disqualified Matos for an infringement too boring and pointless to repeat here, the Cuban decided the best course of action available to him would be to kick the umpire in the head.

It's difficult to know exactly what he thought this bold protest would go on to achieve. Earlier in the day, British competitor Sarah Stevenson was reinstated in the competition following her earlier loss to Chen Zhong of China. The judges seemingly completely failed to see Stevenson kicking Chen right in the face shortly before the end of the bout, a move normally reserved only for Premiership football managers. The British team appealed, and after having studied various angles and pictures of Chen Zhong being KICKED IN THE FACE, Stevenson was re-instated by the officials, going on to secure a bronze medal. You have to question, though, how it is that in a sport where you can miss out on progression because no-one saw you kick someone's teeth in, that umpires don't cop this sort of flak on a more regular basis.

Matos has, naturally enough, been disqualified from competition for life. Quite whether or not he considers it all to have been worthwhile, I doubt anyone is quite brave enough to ask.

Day 13: Relaying bad news

It's day 13 of the Olympics, so I'm starting to notice the little signs that things in Beijing are winding down. The commentary team have started to swear more often, Sue Barker has stopped shaving her legs, and the 4 x 100 metre relay heats have started.

The relay is an interesting event inasmuch as a well-drilled team will, more often than not, defeat the outright fastest team. Great Britain's men are the reigning Olympic champions, as to bear this theory out. This year's relay semi-finals, however, proved a step too far for their successors, a baton mishap on the last changeover leading to disqualification. They were not alone, though.

Team USA have had a fairly torrid time down t'mill this Olympics track and field program. As I write this, the medal table shows that the US are in second place with 27 gold medals, with Team GB third with 17. Had Michael Phelps been born in Rutland, however, it would be a very different situation. The United States team hasn't had a particularly stellar Olympics by their lofty standards. Nowhere is this felt more than in the athletics stadium, normally their own personal fiefdom. In Beijing, though, their sprinters have been put to the sword by their Caribbean counterparts, and other athletes have started to look pretty vulnerable from all sides. In terms of numbers, the US leads the medal table with 15, but with only three of these are golds, leaving them trailing Jamaica and Russia. Getting it together in the relay would provide a welcome boost for their athletic team's flagging morale*.

This is not how it turned out. Both men's and women's teams bungled their final changeover, neither team making the finish. All signs pointed to the fact it wasn't going to be their day even before the gun. In a soggy Birds Nest Stadium, the organisers hadn't got any "USA" labels printed for the athletes to pin onto their chests. The team, already up against it rather, could not have been particularly enthused to see their teammates each wearing a bit of A4 paper with USA handwritten on it in magic marker. I had wondered if, in keeping with this school sports day vibe, they would be given an egg and spoon instead of a baton. No such luck, there, either.

It was a mixed blessing, that, as the baton system didn't work out very well for them anyway. Maybe the problem is that a hollow metal tube doesn't quite inspire the sort of reverence and respect which the event demands. After all, it's all in the baton. It's the baton that has to be carried round, the runners are merely couriers. My suggestion is that instead of a baton, each country is made to ferry around a gleaming but fragile bowl of all of their nation's hopes and dreams for the future. Or a big dildo. Something to focus the mind on the changeovers.

If I were coaching a relay team, I'd suggest that the baton be passed between teammates in a stationary fashion, possibly accompanied by a warm handshake and some pleasantries. I reckon that, with the rich seam of slapstick comedy bound to be breaking out all around them, they would still be a good bet for a medal.

* since I started writing this, the USA has just won its 28th gold, and it's 4th on the track, just to prove me to be an idiot.

Today's sport

Today, I've been getting excitable about FIELD EVENTS. The two big British hopes that the BBC have been following today are Goldie Sayers in the women's javelin, the first British Olympian to be named after a Blue Peter dog since the great marathon runner Shep Harris in 1976; and triple-jumper Phillips Idowu, who I think was named after a video recorder. Sayers broke the British record in a bold and largely unexpected tilt at a medal, finishing down in 4th place. The surprise winner, ahead of the German and Russian favourites, was the Czech thrower Barbora Spotakova having the sort of day you normally only read about on the back of cereal packets. Having previously only ever thrown a pencil into a ditch, Spotakova hurled her javelin over 70 metres, the second-longest throw in history, to secure the gold. I think she was as surprised as anyone else. It was a reminder that it's always a highlight of any Olympics, when an unfancied competitor has the day of their life.

Meanwhile, at the time of writing, Idowu sits in second place in the triple jump final. The soggy sandpit must be like holding the horizontal jump finals in Filey, which can only help the two British competitors. The fact that Idowu is the favourite, however, is likely to prove nothing but a hindrance on a day in the stadium where history has decided to play its jokers.

Cheating bastards update

In an unusual twist, four horses - all from different countries - have been caught cheating. Their horse blood at a routine horse blood test showed traces of Capsaicin, which as any curry fan can tell you is the thing in chilli peppers that makes them hot. I can only assume unscrupulous competitors from Ireland, Brazil, Norway and Germany have got a Tabasco saucy finger and stuck it right up their horse's arse to make them run faster. I knew that doping was an ongoing problem in sport, but I had no idea it could spread to injecting a horse with Chicken Tonight.

++NEWSFLASH++

Liudmyla Blonska spotted eating three Bombay Bad Boy Pot Noodles before Heptathlon 1500 metres. More as we get it.

Days 12 and 13: A laziness round-up

It was Day 12 of the Beijing Olympics yesterday, which meant I got so engrossed in my oil painting of a naked Jill Douglas ravishing Dame Kelly Holmes I forgot to do any blogging of Sports Issues. It was quite a piece of bad timing, because yesterday was another notable day of Sports Happenings.

The big news was Usain Bolt, for once in his life running as fast as he could for the entire distance, in the 200 metres. The rest of the field looked flabbergasted as he disappeared into the distance, and at the line he broke Michael Johnson's 12-year old world record. It was a time which I clearly remember being set at the Atlanta games, so now having seen the mark be broken twice in front of my very eyes, it is now a very special world record for me. From this moment onwards I insist on only counting in base-200. I could pass comment on how astonishing an athlete Usain Bolt really is, but I'm sure you've all read all the superlatives everywhere else already. So, what I will say is this: Michael Johnson is probably the single most impressive sprinter I've seen in my lifetime. Anyone who can run fast enough to make Usain Bolt actually run flat out - and even dip at the line - to beat their best time has got to be the best of the best of the best.

Day 12's sport

Yesterday felt like a very hockeyey day, and so it proved, with the Women's Hockey semi-final between Argentina and the Netherlands. Hockey is a sport which people who enjoy football will often start to follow during the Olympics. This is mainly because hockey is played with swift, neat, passing moves and exciting teamwork. Hockey is played the way football should be played but never is, in other words. By Jake the Peg.

All this said, there are some exciting and bewildering differences which are just bound to get my juices up.

The first thing I noticed is the opportunity to accessorise. I had imagined that the hockey sticks would be painted up in team colours and handed out to the players by a faceless drone before the game began. But the hockeyists all provided their own bats. It's an opportunity all the top world footballers would kill for. In the absence of a third, wooden, leg, David Beckham has had to turn to tattoos to such an extent some of his earlier ones are now being tippexed out and worked back over. The hockey players are able to neatly sidestep septicaemia with the simple expedient of a trip to JJB Sports. Argentina's star player, Aymar, thrilled the world - both with her doomed attempt to win the match on her own - and through her matching pink shoes/ pink stick combo. All marvelled. Except, possibly, the Dutch, who play a brand of the game best described as Total Hockey.

Running out comfortable 5-2 winners, Holland's success was largely due to their mastery of that other intriguing aspect of Hockery-me-Hock, the Penalty Corner. Awarded for any infraction in the defending team's shooting circle, the defending team must retreat to their goal line whilst the attacking team go through a carefully choreographed routine which normally ends in a ROCK HARD ball flying through the air (at head height) towards the goal.

This is such an important scoring opportunity that the majority of teams now have a specialist shooter. Some of them are so specialised that they are only brought onto the field of play for a corner to take place. They have evolved to be brilliant at shooting, with a huge muscular upper-body and trunk-like arms, but their legs are so atrophied that they cannot walk. Possibly. The Dutch specialist was able to both score from short corners AND play hockey, and she put Argentina to the sword. Argentina's game plan was seemingly reliant on the dribbling skill of - almost inevitably - "The Maradona of Hockey" Aymar. The Dutch team neatly circumvented this tactical masterstroke by keeping the ball at all times.

A word must also go to the Hockey goalkeeper. These brave, fearless, lunatic, prematurely-aged souls are entrusted with the hopes and dreams of a nation. A responsibility discharged in this case by very hard projectiles being fired at you with sticks. The reason so many hockey games are so high scoring compared with football, I think, is basic self-preservation instincts. At the post-match festivities, I imagine the outfield players celebrate or commiserate over a foaming pint of mead, pausing only to sing a filthy song or spit out a few teeth. The custodians, in the meantime, are carried off to a darkened room readt go into therapy. Or, if they've been forced to face a penalty stroke, a medically-controlled deep narcotic coma.

I, in the spirit of Great Journalism, made a list of points during the game which I felt needed to be covered. Now, in the spirit of Lazy Journalism, I present the remainder which I was unable to shoehorn into velvety prose.

1. From the normal corner, players do not tend to head the ball.
2. The match surface is butcher's grass watered to the point at which a football match would probably be abandoned.
3. You are seemingly not permitted to hit your opponents with your stick.
4. Giant orange inflatable novelty hockey sticks have been invented and are available to buy.

Cheating bastard update

Five athletes have so far been caught being dirty, filthy, cheating bastards so far. Day 12, however, saw the first medal-winning cheating bastard. Ukraine's Liudmyla Blonska won silver in the Heptatlon but was caught on the goofballs. Her B sample is expected to confirm the findings today, at which point Blonska will be facing a lifetime ban, having been caught doping twice in the past five years.

Two points. One, surely the answer to this is simple: lifetime bans from drug cheats immediately that the first offence takes place. This way we can try to avoid a repeat of this, where the promoted athletes in the event will receive their medals in a fed-ex bag rather than on a podium. Two, how shit is Liudmyla Blonska? If you're going to cheat, at least win the bloody gold medal. There's only one thing worse than a cheat, and that's a stupid, useless cheat. A round of applause, then, for Liudmyla Blonska, Official Cheating Cow.


Day 13's sport - interim report

China is a culture deeply entrenched in numerology and superstition. Most people now know about their love of the number 8, and perhaps their distaste for the number 4. They are based on the fact their words for these numbers sound much like important life events, such as health, wealth, death, crabs, hangnails, sex, etc. I can only assume that the Chinese word for the number thirteen sounds a lot like the Chinese word for Insanity. Because all the most outrageous sports are out in force now. None more so than the 10km open-water swimming.

'Swimming' is something of a misnomer here, because whilst a certain amount of aquatic self-propulsion does take place, the event is rather more complex than that. It seems to also involve elements of fighting, rape and murder as well. All wrapped up in the handy package of the sternest feat of endurance since the 40 days in the wilderness. This is an event so tough that, no matter what your parents or teachers warned, the competitors actually have to eat and drink during the race in order to stave off the effects of death. Just to add an extra air of lunacy to proceedings, this is completed floating on one's back, like a sea otter opening a clam.

Britain's David Davies led off and at one stage held a lead of seven metres. Funnily enough, by the end of the race - which takes just shy of two hours to complete - he was rather tired and being closed down by his rivals. Closed down, punched, pulled, bitten, wanked off, robbed, the whole gamut. All of the competitors were so tired that they were lurching from side to side in the water like drunkards at closing time, but Davies, in only his third open water marathon swim, was taking it harder than most. Taking a very deliberate look up to see the position of the finishing buoy was all the invitation his Dutch rival Maarten van der Weijden needed to burst into the lead. Davies crossed the line second, 1.5 seconds behind after 6 miles of madness. He was completely delirious, and was carried out of the water on a stretcher. The real Olympics starts NOW, I thought.

The result of the race came with a postscript. The gold medal winner, van der Weijden, is a cancer survivor, having beaten Leukaemia at the beginning of the decade. I think he can now add survival of the Olympic 10km Marathon Open-Water Swimming to his CV.