In an ordinary Olympic games, Britain racks up 5 or 6 gold medals: this time, we have 16 and counting – marvellous news, incredible work on the part of Team GB, etc etc. But also, in a sense a slightly raw deal for some of the athletes involve[…]

The swimming is finally finished*, Michael Phelps is reaping in lucrative sponsorship deals and everyone has started watching the athletics instead, so it must be time for some stat-cruching! (more…)[…]

STOP WINNING MEDALS so called Team GB (so British to invent a teamname which tries not to actually say the contentious British word). Its relatively easy to avoid the Olympics when your radar is set for the BBC with extra Clare Balding alerts. But wi[…]

So, OK, Michael Phelps may be rather good and no doubt in four years time he will become the most medaltastic performer in any sport ever ever ever, BUT at the moment he still just trails the great Ray Ewry who won TEN individual gold medals between […]

As I move into the second week of Olympic avoidance, the game is getting considerably harder. The reason? I am no longer in charge of the television as I am visiting my parents. And they want to celebrate Great Britain’s successes and it would […]

Taking time out from my dedicated swimming coverage, I caught a bit of the women’s archery last night. The Koreans totally dominate this sport – possibly because the opposition take one look at them and their jaws drop to the floor:

Yun […]

You know how I keep saying I hate the Olympics. Well there is one bit of the Olympics I like, it’s the bit which suggests that there is still room for bonkers artistry and fireworks this a po-faced search for medal Dorado. I have always liked openi[…]

You’ve probably seen the headlines already – in the early hours of this morning Britain’s Rebecca Adlington won the 400m freestyle, making her the first women’s swimming medallist since 1984 and the first women’s gold si[…]

Thanks to the miracle of the BBC streaming video I have now seen some live weightlifting – the mens’ 62kg finals. I can report that I was – as someone in the comments mentioned – quite wrong about the lack of tactics: but the […]

I saw a minute of the Basketball game between the USA and China today. Gosh Basketball is dull. Look at all the things I thought about in that minute to try to avoid engaging with the game
a) Is giganticism a kind of disability (door frames too low e[…]