thrown by ladies

I really, REALLY enjoyed the Olympics, Particularly revisiting the sports I'd forgotten existed in the interim four years.

Fencing is definitely one of those sports, I find it utterly bewildering, lots of prancing and lunging with rapid scoring that I, literally never spot.

To the commentators I'm witnessing fencing excellence with moves of great skill, to me I'm seeing them take turns to run at one another whilst holding a bendy sword.

I had a bendy sword as a child, (no jokes!)great fun it was, I guess there in lies the attraction. I wonder if the olympian fencers are also pretending to be pirates?

Then there's the judo. I love judo, I did it as a child albeit briefly. I got thrown all over the place, all the while laughing like a drain. You see, I went with my friend Eddie, a large lad who's ma had sent along to help lose weight. The 3 packets of crisps he'd eat afterwards somewhat mitigating her hopes.

Now Eddie was a grumpy child who loved the strength his bulk gave him and particularly using it on his friends, so, to see him being thrown round the mat by a girl, was hilarious.
He ALWAYS got paired with a tall teenage girl, some 4 or 5 years older than us.
I could'nt concentrate on myself for laughing at Eddie. This is MY excuse for being thrown around by a ginger lad. I mention his hair only as a point of reference, I love ginger folk....

For me now, some years later, the thought of being thrown by a sporty lady has its appeal...as long as its onto a bed.....for the soft landing you understand.

Well now, thanks to Olympic focus I once again know what an Ippon is, I forget in the interim periods and have to have it explained to me again every 4 years. I feel almost guilty that I pay so little attention otherwise but, really the difference between that and the other moves is negligible to my untrained eye.

Its the same with a multitude of other sports, if you told me I'd be gripped by the womens weightlifting I'd have said you were off your head!

Its big ladies lifting stuff, where's the attraction?. Well, the attractions there and I'll tell you what, the women these days are often fine looking ladies! Not that that is important, I mention it only to emphasise my surprise. I remember the days of East German weightlifting 'ladies' with a shudder.

A confusion for me in the judo is the constant state of undress. They spend an inordinate amount of time and energy repeatedly having to readjust disaassembled clothing, I'm like that myself, my trousers forever needing adjustement but, in a high paced sport shouldn't they wear something a bit more sensible?

Those huge jackets are like dressing gowns. I could turn up at the venue wearing a hotel dressing gown and they'd probably let me compete! Not that I'd want to appear on television in my dressing gown, its forever flopping open, what would the BBC think!

As for BMX, I want one! I want one now, I want to ride that mad course up and down those humps and bumps. Granted the last time I rode one....1984 ish...I flipped off a ramp and damaged my groin of all things, but I'll give it a go!

I might feel a little daft to be fair, grown man and all riding a dinky little bike but, with Rio only 4 years away....now what can I use to build me a ramp?.

A sporting tale.

In the midst of the Olympic extravaganza, I caught a local news item whereby, they reported on a protest by users of a, community sports arena designated for closure.

Now, when i say protest there were 7 actual people outside the arena with a smattering of small,  handwritten placards among them. The(less than)magnificent 7 included a baby and at least two other people who appeared to be actually waiting for a bus, probably wandering across with the shopping bags to see what the camera was about.

Anyway, when the piece cut inside, the reporter did his report in front of the badminton court where, easily the worst ever badminton players ever allowed on a court, were enacting an(alleged)game of badminton. The news item was only a few minutes long and the 'game' only filled a couple of those but I seen enough to validate my statement. Easily the worst ever.

The two ladies in question did not get the shuttlecock over the actual net once! Not once, the player 'serving' and i really hesitate to call it that,would  drop the cock(!), take a mad desperate swing at it with the poor misfortunate racket and, if they did connect at all, it 'flew' upward for about two miserable feet before decending with the grace of a fallen swan to land unceremoniously at the same players feet. The whole fiasco would be repeated while player b tried to look 'sporty' down the other end.A look she might have greater luck with if she hadn't been wearing jeans and a jacket.

The poor baby( protester no7 from outside...keep up!)had to watch all this from her pushchair parked courtside. Sadly for her they parked her facing the court but at least, being more than 3 feet away, she had no chance whatsoever of being hit.

With the theme of this Olympics being the legacy for sport afterward, our local news team obviously saw the chance to shoehorn a topical piece into the evening news, a classic filler item which they actually led the whole bulletin with! A seriously slow news day obviously, I believe the reported rounded up the 'protesters' from the local mom and baby club, theres no way on earth those two women had seen  a shuttlecock before let alone hit one. Come to think of it they're probably still there 3 days later trying to hit that one! 

Still, I hope they are sucessful in their protest, sports venues should be saved, I might even phone up and offer assistance, oh not with the placarding but to show the two ladies at least which way up a racket should be!