August 10th
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| This just won't cut it any longer. |
Today's real hero
Today was the Men's 10k swimming marathon, Oussama Mellouli won the thing and our very own Daniel Fogg came in fifth.
I'm not here to talk about those two though. I'm here to talk about Ecuadorean Ivan Enderica Ochoa who came back in 21st position (out of 25).
Why are we discussing him you ask? Because when he touched home, his metres took the swimmers at this Olympics through the 1 million metre barrier. He was the one to cross that line, go follow him on Twitter at @ivanend why don't you.
That's 1,000km he got them to (and a bit beyond to be fair) and meant that I could finally start checking Wikipedia's list of Rivers over 1,00km in length.
Bravo Ivan. Thank you. Let's get a pint together while you're still in London.
The best Summer job ever
I'm a big fan of the BBC. I'm going to state right now that their coverage of these games has been brilliant. The fulfillment of their promise that everything would be available live somewhere has been incredible.
There is one fly in this ointment however.
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| He's the fly, not the ointment. |
Since it launched I've listened to Radio 5 Live every single day that I've been in the UK. I've fallen asleep with it more times than I have other people. I have the call-in number saved in my phone so that I can call and pester @StephenNolan anytime he's unfortunate enough to have some fucking homophobe bigot on his show when I get back from the pub. I reckon I listen to more of it than any other person in the country.*
It's a really, really big part of my life and it's wonderful but somehow this summer it's basically become the Nicky Campbell' 'Make A Wish Foundation.'
Now Mr. Campbell is an important part of 5Live. Five mornings a week he hosts a show wherein Daily Mail readers call in to argue with communists and he does a great job at it. It's his thing. I can't think of anyone who could goad extremists into calling up to prove their idiocy on national radio so well. What he is not is a sports broadcaster.
Radio 5 has access to dozens of really good, insightful, provocative and articulate sports journalists. Sometimes though, due to scheduling issues the day after a big event Nicky has to helm a discussion hour on the England football team or John Terry or some such thing. It's no fault of his own but he is clearly uncomfortable in this costume. It is not his mileu; you may as well ask the pope to run a drag club as expect Campbell to discuss sport.
The problem is that they've put him in charge of the early morning coverage of the games, generally before there is anything going on. This means he basically wanders around the Olympic site and cheer-leads the crowds; then interviews an athlete's parents and turns to shout off-mike to get some roars going. That's the easiest gig in the world (imagine being the MC at a comeback concert for Elvis and Sinatra) and he still manages to do it badly.
They've paired him up with George Riley who knows his stuff and the always excellent Rachael Burden but it still doesn't cut it. Please BBC; let him get back to talking about benefit reform or equal marriage rights as soon as Monday rolls around. Get him back were he's useful rather than where he's having fun.
Numbers
Swimming: 250,000m
Running: 140,200m
Jumping: 158.74m
Throwing: 3,297.35m
Today's Total: 393,656.09m
which gives us
Swimming: 1,045,500m
Running: 8,807,015m
Jumping: 7,633.44m
Throwing: 59,869.16m
Overall Total: 9,920,017.60m
Which frankly is just getting stupid. Tomorrow we will blast through 10 million metres and I'll probably get a bit teary and witter on about human endeavor.
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| Which isn't always used for good. |
I'll ask in advance that you excuse me.
See you then.
R
*Seriously; after Sunday's done I could probably find the time to make a spreadsheet to prove it.
You can follow me on Twitter at @Le_Paien_Roux
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