Now I know that Paula Radcliffe is not in herself an Olympic event, though the amount of accidental P.R. news I stumbled across puts a lie to this. She got more coverage than any of our winners, and the 10,000 metres (surely one of the dullest races ever invented) seemed predicated wholly on whether Paula would run. I would not have been surprised if the event had been cancelled if she didn’t. Still like the marathon Paula started, worked out at one point that she was not going to win, and then stopped. Since her husband is her coach, this could be the most overt divorce attempt ever seen on British television. But winning isn’t everything, finishing is also important. Luckily her withdrawal allowed me to turn it over.
This trend seems more than worrying. When you realise you won’t win, you give up. It happened with the US 4×400 women’s team in the heats too, which if you thnk about it is the kind of distance over which you might be able to make it up. The change-over second to third was fluffed, but they did not exit the box. But third runner gave up. Possibly started crying (as this is de regieur when you fuck up to make it look like it isn?t your fault).
But, yes, from this you can assume that I saw about fifteen minutes of Olympics to make these notes. Its all getting a bit tight.
TOTAL SO FAR: JUST UNDER FIFTY ONE OLYMPIC MINUTES