TV VIEW:'WHAT WENT wrong," Jonathan Edwards asked Kenenisa Bekele. The Ethiopian legend shrugged. "What I can I say? The weather?"
Edwards nodded, causing the icicles that had formed at the tip of his nose to jiggle a little. Bekele skated away, dejected after his fourth place finish at the Edinburgh International Cross Country. Jonathan tried to say goodbye but, through his frozen lips, it came out like “guba”.
That kind of set the frosty tone for the weekend. Not a very successful one, as it proved. We just assumed, for example, that the Scottish Cup game between Hamilton and Rangers would be postponed yesterday because Scotland disappeared under snow a fortnight ago. So, imagine our displeasure when we turned on Sky to discover that not only was it on, six goals had already been scored. “A veritable goal fest,” boasted the commentator when we arrived in the 64th minute, after which neither goalkeeper was troubled again.
Of course, if you want to be sure to be sure of your sporting action in these wintry times, you have to move indoors, which is what we did for the world darts championships. We’ve often wondered if outdoor darts might be more entertaining, if, say, the competitors had to deal with gale-force winds. But, on reflection, there could be a health and safety issue there, not least for the scorer who stands perilously close to the board.
So, indoors we went. Last week we’d seen Phil “The Power” Taylor beat Simon “The Wizard” Whitlock in the PDC final, the highlight of which was Sid Waddell’s observation that, “It’s so quiet, you could hear a fly’s dandruff drop”. Yesterday was the BDO decider between Martin “Wolfie” Adams and Dave “Chizzy” Chisnall.
Wolfie had beaten Martin “Buster” Phillips in the semi-finals, but the real surprise was the unseeded Chizzy’s defeat of top seed Tony “Silverback” O’Shea.
“I can’t believe it,” Chizzy said, “I’m going to get drunk tonight.”
Some might argue a session in the gym and an early night might have served Chizzy better on the eve of the final, but if getting trolleyed works for Chizzy who are we to argue?
“Darts is such an emotional game,” said our presenter, Colin Murray, after we heard Chizzy’s Da tearfully tell us how proud he was of his son.
Bobby George agreed, and appeared to need to wipe away a tear or two himself, but with what looked like gold knuckledusters on each hand he’d probably have knocked himself out if he’d tried.
Wolfie emerged to the tune of Hungry Like the Wolf for the final at Frimley Green, an eventuality Duran Duran possibly never anticipated when they penned the tune, which sent the already boisterous crowd in to a frenzy.
Chizzy, though, arrived to the strains of I Predict a Riot, and for a moment, judging by the spectators, we wondered if he was armed with a crystal ball.
It calmed down, though, mercifully, and it was game on.
It finished way too late, alas, for our deadlines, but Chizzy was struggling last we saw. Hopefully the hangover wore off.
The only other sports we could be absolutely guaranteed over the weekend were ones that require snow, like skiing and stuff like that. Upon arriving at Eurosport, though, we thought it was the RTÉ News showing us the M50 again, until we copped that it was actually Nordic Combined Skiing from Val di Fiemme in Italy.
Granted, the bit we saw looked a bit gruelling, the competitors skiing uphill when we tuned in. “A total climb of 495 metres,” said the in-awe commentator. But he should have seen us making our way to the shop for emergency supplies the other day.
And try climbing 495 snowy metres when you’re laden with streaky rashers, barbecue Hula Hoops and fire logs and being used as target practice for snowball-wielding urchins who, last we heard, were comfortable after having those fire logs surgically removed.
Norway’s splendidly named Magnus Moan was struggling back in fifth, while also trailing was Jason Lamy Chappuis. He, apparently, had a heart rate of 96 per cent at this stage of the race, according to the on-screen stats, but we had no idea whether this was a good thing. Just 14 more, though, and he’d have matched the 110 per cent we gave getting home with those messages. So come on Jason, must try harder.
The leader was American Bill Demong, who, apparently, stars in a telly ad campaign for Alka Seltzer, sponsors for the US ski team. So if the competition gets a bit stomach-churning for them, they’re, well, laughing.
“A good tactic there from Demong to switch to the penguin skate,” said the commentator, “otherwise known as the herringbone skate.”
As if we needed to be told.
Bill won, p-p-p-picking up a vital World Cup win, and with that it was guba from Val di Fiemme.
