Yep, those all-in-one bodysuits really can help you knock a few seconds off your PB (that's "personal best" to you non-athletes). I tried one out for the first time last night when I had to visit a 24-hour shop to restock my Ovaltine and scampi fries supplies and did the round trip in 12 minutes 39.8 seconds, a whole one minute, 41.5 seconds faster than my previous best.
Granted, I was shattered at the end but what upset me most was the fact that the whispering campaign had already started on my return ("what is she on?"). But, to my knowledge, Ovaltine is not a banned substance. The BBC's Nigel Starmer-Smith could have done with a loan of my all-in-one bodysuit during the Britain versus Pakistan hockey game, just to hasten his exit from the commentary box.
It wasn't just because things were going badly on the pitch, it was more to do with his co-commentator Karen Brown's little slip-up early in the first half. Impressed by her boys' reasonably steady start to the game she declared "they've managed to slow the Packies down", before quickly correcting herself (". . . eh, the Pakistanis"). Anyway, Nige persevered. So did the Pakistanis. They won 8-1. Coming from a country where a stray dog makes up the average attendance at a hockey match it's spooky enough seeing up to 15,000 attend the matches. Stars so far have been the Aussie women and their coach Ric Charlesworth. "We are no more thugs than anyone else," he insisted, after they were accused of being a tad over-physical against Britain. Hallelujah, the term "jolly" has now been officially erased from the lexicon of hockey. R.I.P.
Actually, I was a bit worried that Bill O'Herlihy would be a bit over-physical with rowing expert Sam Lynch after he promised our presenter that "the boys will definitely go through in this heat, unless something goes wrong". "Well, well, well, now - explain that, Sam," said a peeved Bill after something went wrong and the Irish boys finished last in their coxless fours heat. "They will look at that now and wonder what happened," explained Sam. "They won't be on their own," said Bill. It wasn't, on the whole, a great night/morning for Bill. "Ian Thorpe is 26-1 on to win the 200-metres freestyle final," Gary O'Toole told him earlier in the night. "So I could put my house on him?" asked Bill. "You could," guaranteed Gary. Result? Pieter van den Hoogenband won the gold. Bill? Have a heart, the nights are getting chilly - give him your spare room.
Thanks to Pieter's wonder swim Bill will now be an "outdoor-urban dweller" which, as you know, is the acceptable term for "homeless". If you've had one jar too many you're "spatially perplexed", not drunk and if you end up in jail you're not a prisoner, you're "socially separated". Okay? Right, here's another one, courtesy of Eurosport. "Recorded highlights" are now to be known as "Re-Live". Not "relive", "Re-Live". Good, eh?
Anyway, it was on Europsort's "ReLive" section yesterday afternoon that I saw the New Zealand men's basketball team taking a hammering from France. I wore a black armband for the rest of the day. Why so upset? Well, they call themselves the "Tall Blacks" and for that alone, I reckoned, they deserved to win gold.
