Well so said an
interior designer in the Homewares store I was in yesterday.
“I went to a
Trade show in Sydney last weekend”, she squealed with excitement, “and I can tell you silver will be big on the
home decorating front for years time to come. It’s definitely the new gold.”
In candlesticks
and serving platters maybe but even the
Australian Olympic athletes seem to be under the impression that silver medals are the new
gold too.
You see after eight days of competition we have little gold to speak of but are right up
there on the silver medal tally. Along with Russia, China and the USA. It will
be the first time since the 1976 games that we have walked away from the swimming
pool without an individual gold medal.
Shock. Horror. Great Britain, New
Zealand and even Kazakhstan are way ahead of us. I am not sitting on the couch
yelling Aussie, Aussie, Aussie oi, oi oi but kneeling on the floor crying
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie wah, wah wah.
So in an effort
to be more sportsmanlike, I would like to congratulate those countries ahead of
us on the gold medal table…and there are a lot ……18 to be precise. And a big shout out to the USA who are hanging on
to the leader board by one gold medal over China, and to the host nation, Great
Britain, for some amazing and spirited performances.
And France - who knew you could be so stylish and so sporty!
I have been
unashamedly glued to the TV. I am very competitive. In fact I could easily win
a Gold Medal – for sitting on the couch for extended periods of time yelling
at the TV. However, with each Olympics I am inspired to move more. And now I have found a new sport I am keen to try. I
want to take up tossing a ball over a net on a beach even though I may actually
be better suited to tossing people around the floor - for reasons I will
explain later.
And as you would
expect, after so much Olympic viewing I do have a few highlights and lowlights
to share.
The Opening Ceremony
Well done Great
Britain. Your athletes uniforms may have looked like Elvis impersonator cast
offs but Danny Boyle sure put on a classy and fun opening Ceremony. Queen
Elizabeth and Bond were just fantastic as was Rowan Atkinson hilarious. And I
loved the fact that talented young athletes who are not yet household names got
to light the cauldron. The only lowlight for me came in the shape of a Beatle.
And at the risk of sounding sacrilegious, Sir Paul McCartney, I think it’s time
to retire…. flogging a dead horse I think it’s called. Yes, I said it.
The Twitter Games
Isn’t it amazing
how much trouble can be started in 140 characters or less. This is the first
social media Olympics. A Greek athlete was expelled from the Games for
something she tweeted. Then Police had to arrest people in the UK and US for threats sent via Twitter to athletes. Rupert Murdoch thinks the athletes
should just toughen up. As he points out, he has received hundreds of death threats since joining
Twitter but he doesn't run to the police. Personally, I would like to know why elite athletes are up half the night
tweeting and facebooking their fans, friends and family.
A level playing field
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei
had been the only three countries that had never fielded female Olympians in
their teams. With all three now including women, these are the first Olympics
in which every competing nation, 205, is represented by female competitors.
That is a triumph. Now all Saudi Arabia has to do is give women the keys to the
car as they are still banned from driving there.
Different shapes
With so much
exposed flesh running around you cannot help but admire all the different body shapes. I am loving what running on
sand must do for your body because beach volley ball players have great
figures. With those skimpy uniforms you cannot help but notice. Just ask all
those men who have filled the stands with each game. I also have been spell
bound by the rowing. The athletes are so
long and lean. However, to give us more well padded people hope that we could
just walk from our couch straight into Olympic competition, meet Ricardo Blas Junior a 218k judo player from Guam.
He was defeated in the second round by someone half his size but skill comes
in all shapes and sizes.
Sportsperson of the Decade
The United States
swimmer Michael Phelps. There are no words really but there would not be one
person in the entire world who could not given him a standing ovation for what
he has achieved. 21 gold medals across three Olympics. Personally I think his biggest feat is
consuming 12,000 calories a day for that many years. Like how?
Best sport of the Games so far
Everyone loves an Olympic underdog (no, I am not talking about Australia here). We all know that large countries spend millions on their athletes to
bring home Gold medals. However, think about the small nations who have nothing
- no money, resources, training etc but
who still participate in the Games. Meet Hamadou Djibo Issaka, a 35-year old from Niger. He keeps smiling even though he
keeps coming last in the rowing. Four months ago he had never been in a boat. He won a place at the
Games courtesy of a wild card from the IOC ‘in the spirit of universal representation’.
His experience until then consisted of watching rowing on television. To be
fair, there isn’t much call for rowers in Niger. More than 80 per cent of the
country is Sahara desert; there is no coastline, no flat-water lakes, no rowing
clubs and no specialist rowing boats. Much of his training was done in a
traditional fishing boat.
The fastest man on Earth
Will it be Usain Bolt of Jamaica
who wins the 100m final? He is accomplished. Not only is he a five-
time World and three-time Olympic gold medalist but he has also been learning Spanish. Why? Because he believes most
of the really 'hot' women athletes speak Spanish. Nice to see him so focused on the competition,
perhaps just not the right competition. Time will tell.
So onwards we go
for the next week of competition. And
a final word to the Australian Olympic Team. Silver is only the new gold in
interior decorating NOT Olympic competition. Now that we have that clear. Go
on. Get on with it!
News Flash: There is a silver lining apparently. I just found out that the Gold Medals are
in fact made of 93% silver, 6% copper and 1% gold. So there is not much of a difference between the medals after all….maybe
our athletes are on to something….no need to exert yourself.....I am only counting silver medals from hereon in.
So, for those of you who have watched
the Games, what are some of your
highlights? And don’t worry I do not
take this competition thing too seriously, it’s just sport right? Besides, did
you know the world’s richest woman lives here (perhaps she could pay to have those silver medals dipped in gold and we could pretend, lol).
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