Golden Effort

Well after 17 days of excitement, drama, disappointment, and dodgy scoring (how do you beat a chinese boxer - answer - knock him out ) the Beijing Olympics is behind us and we can look forward to enjoying four years of Boris trying and failing to be statesmanlike. Fourth in the medal table was a fantastic effort and of course this became first if you look at the medal table for sitting down sports. Yessir noone can sit down like the British, although we do struggle a little when we have to get up (its the pies).

With this in mind I have been thinking of other sports we could nominate for Olympic inclusion which could raise our position above those pesky russians and start to challenge the yanks. first i think there is more to go at in the cycling. Frequently we had two finalists in the events and this means we could easily win a couple more golds if tandem racing was introduced. Dominoes was another early thought, together with shove hapenny and snakes and ladders. This of course takes us into the arena of the public house, and I thought we might do quite well if drinking is included in the Olympics. To be honest we might struggle to medal in the men's event against the might of Russia, Poland and Germany ("its a powerhouse team from Bavaria"), but we'd have a good change in the womens...

Anyway regulars to this blog, the challenge is laid down, what sitting down sports currently unrepresented at the Olympics can we propose for 2012?

Before leave the Olympics - a couple of things need to be said. One is about our dear friends Australia (did they make the top 10?) who started the (admittedly funny) joke about sitting down sports. When they made this jibe they declined to comment on a certain other country who also take part in yachting, rowing, and cycling - yes australia. The lesson here is simple - if you are going to go in for "rugby union" sports - ie ones that only a handful of countries do because they cost a lot of money - at least be good at them.

To be fair the aussies were very good in another sport that requires serious cash, namely swimming. (I mean the kenyans were nowhere in the pool and jamaica had a terrible time in the yngling.) We have learnt from them now though and have our own star, Rebecca Adlington, which means we have another sporting Becks - only this one is the real deal.

Final point - Britain is still the only nation on earth that feels bad about winning. Apparently when it became clear we were going to win almost all the cycling golds, there were some comments that it was too much and becoming embarassing. Can you imagine any other nation feeling that way? I can just see the Australian cricket captain saying how embarassed he is that they have thrashed everyone else for the last 15 years, or Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal apologising for hoovering up all the grand slams netween then for upteen years - or - we now go live to the track where the Jamaican athletic coach is ready to say sorry to the yanks for beating them 5 - 0 in the sprints... nope I don't think so either.