Fun and Olympic games (From Bournemouth Echo)

Fun and Olympic games

7:10pm Wednesday 3rd September 2008

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One thing still makes me gasp as if I had just run 25 metres. Without stopping. It is that some Olympic athletes spend years of their life training... to jump in a sandpit. Or over a rod.

Can you believe that?

It is something I did a lot myself when I was young. At infants school. Though not achieving quite the same distance. And often landing on Stinker Pinkerton.

Similarly, I am always surprised when watching Olympic sports that grown-ups still wrestle. I have not wrestled with any object bigger than my conscience since pinning Stinker down in 1962 with a hold I believe was called the Stretch Plum.

What's more I have never even considered using a pole to jump over an obstacle. Not even when negotiating my parents' garden fence when crapulous one night in 1974 that resulted in timber and anatomical damage.

Curiously, all these activities featured in the Beijing Olympics that are now consigned to history with all the medals won and lost. (Well, let's hope they haven't lost them already.) And it's time, they say, to focus on London, 2012.

As the host nation, I believe we should be able to pick the sports we would like to see included. To give us more of a sporting chance.

Silver medal sandpit jumper Phillips Idowu is, of course, a class British athlete who could leap from London to a Weymouth sandpit in one hop, as far as I can see. And still will be in 2012. So we should certainly keep that in.

But could we quietly drop others where we perform like drunken ducks?

It wouldn't be the first time the pack of Olympic sports has been shuffled. Tug-of-war, rope climbing, a swimming obstacle race and club-swinging (don't even think about it) all featured in the Paris Olympics of 1900.

As did underwater swimming that was stopped because of its minimal spectator interest. Presum- ably because you couldn't even stare at the competitors' dripping bushy moustaches. In either the men's or women's events.

But on to the future. We need to change the prog- ramme for London 2012 to give Britain the edge.

A radio presenter recently floated the question of what sports could we introduce?

One caller suggested gurning though some might pull a face at that.

Another suggested, heavyweight gymnastics, because it was more suited to our physiques, being built more for comfort than for balance. (Mind you, we have some experience with vaults and uneven bars.) Patriotically, I have come up with the following potential Olympic sports for Lord Coe to mull over:

• 1500m space-hopping.

• Competitive philately.

• Long distance standing up on trains.

• Two-woman DIYing. (Men are barred, of course, due to general incompetence.)
• Giant Marrow Growing.

• Most Extraordinary Pair of Pyjamas To Take Into Hospital Relay.

• Spooning Up Marmite.

• Long distance queuing.

• Dining out without complaining about the service-athon.

• Ping-Pong with That Ball Dad trod on.

• Swim pool bombing'.

• Wearing the Least Stylish Men's Socks with Sandals.

• Keeping a Stiff Upper Lip while watching the Blazing Saddles baked beans scene.

• The Listening to a Pub Bore Going On About The Best Way to get from Ongar to Piddle- trenthide Challenge.

So what do you think?

We should get a decent medal haul with that lot.

The Blue Riband event, however, would have to be Marathon Moaning. As a nation we're good at it.

Though we'd have to surrender the gold to the Aussies.

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