Swallowtail Hill Goes Sportstastic

In the last fortnight I have become an armchair sports expert.  I’ve spent more time watching the Olympics than I care to admit to, and even more time googling the rules of the new sports I’ve discovered so that I can participate more fully – and shout more loudly at the telly.   It should be noted that my sporting career to date looks like this:

Excellent synchronised swimmer (late 1970s) – no qualifications to prove it, I just felt certain

Trampoline proficiency award – level one (early 1980s)

Winning house colours in the 100 metre hurdles three years in a row ( mid 1980s)

Keen member of the aerobics society at University – the main incentive being  that the men’s rugby club trained with us (early 1990s)

Recently joining the local ladies netball team (2012)

So you could say I’ve been resting for the last twenty years and have recently come out of retirement. Obviously I’m going to up my training schedule now as I fully plan to represent my country in Rio in either – competitive talking, or maybe speed washing up.  I was considering also the marathon hoovering event – but I reckon my mother has that one covered.

But in the meantime I’ve a few observations to make about various sporting events that I’ve enjoyed or been puzzled by in recent days.   So in no particular order:

• Rowing!  Or more specifically Men Rowing!  I rest my case

• Handball? Who made that up then?  They use a STICKY BALL.  If we’d have been given access to sticky balls at school even I would have been good at team sports  (stop sniggering at the back)

• Women’s Judo? I can recall similar looking girl-on-girl incidents outside the student union on a Friday night after too many Bacardi and Cokes (not me obviously – although I may have done my share of hair-pulling)

• Why can’t the divers get given proper towels?  It seems unfair that they only have tea towels to dry themselves on

• Why don’t the horses get medals?

• Which soap powder does the equestrian team use to keep their jodhpurs so white?

• In gymnastics why are they now the ‘uneven bars’ when they used to be the ‘asymmetric bars’ – is asymmetric a big word no-one understands these days?

• Likewise the ‘beam’ is now the ‘balance beam’ – just in case any of you thought previous events involved gymnasts fitting joists in house extensions

• And just to check – when you were a kid on hols or by the seaside weren’t you always told to wait half an hour after eating before you could go for a swim?  Like it was THE LAW and that if you dared to defy the rule you might die of cramp / sink to the bottom / get eaten by a shark or something?  Well then – how come the marathon swimmers actually visit a FEEDING STATION during their swim for a snack?!  I think this was a parental conspiracy – we were had!  I think my Dad just wanted a kip after his picnic lunch rather than keep an eye on me in the pool!

MEN ROWING!  – Did I say that one already?