For Canada: Good Games or bad Games? More bad than good

Holy smokes.

These Games are over today?

Seemed like it was just 10 months ago that we arrived, how come they have to end so soon?

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Good Olympics or bad Olympics for Canada?

As many medals as Beijing, fewer gold than at any Games since 1976.

Wanted a top-12 finish among countries and, as I type this, it doesn’t look like they’ll get there.

All in all, I’m saying bad.

Now, I don’t know how the Canadian Olympic Committee will spin it when it has its final news conference to wrap up the Games – and nor do I really care all that much.

From the inside, and I’d suspect from the outside, Canada didn’t quite measure up here.

Now, it is some ways unfair that we come to know some of these athletes for a fortnight and rush to judge them based on one performance on the world’s stage because all of them are brilliant enough to have got here, many have won World Cups or world championships and their talent cannot be denied.

But sports is about The Moment and popping a big one when everything is on the line. Greats do it – Usain Bolt, Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis, Bradley Wiggins are four who quickly come to mind here – and it provides those memorable moments that make the Olympics special.

Canada?

Canada didn’t have many of those at all.

Yes, Diana Matheson’s goal against France was special but it was cast in the context of the loss to the United States in some ways.

It will unquestionably “the” London Games moment for Canadians, won’t it? And it’s because there are so few others.

These will be Games we remember for Paula Findlay and the men’s sprint relay team, for Dylan Armstrong and Jessica Zelinka, for Mary Spencer, for the boxers who got jobbed, an equestrian scandal, another synchronized swimming debacle, for moments of disappointment and sadness on the big stage.

Too bad.

But that’s why these games, despite the medal total, have to less than anyone hoped or expected.

And that brings us to our lone gold medalist and I’m tying this just after 9 a.m. in London so it could change.

And Rosie MacLennan’s win should be held up as one of those huge performances that should be remembered.

Yes, it was trampoline, one of those odd sports in the minds of many, but the fact not many of us know anything about it can’t diminish the accomplishment.

Quite simply, on the day of the biggest challenge of her sporting career, on the biggest stage, MacLennan put on the best routine she’s ever done.

That, my friends, is an Olympic performance.

Too bad we didn’t have many others.

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They do this song after almost every final here and it’s very, very cool.

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Things I say every four years, Vol. 1.294.603

“How many rounds are there in taekwondo?”

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I think it might be the relaxed nature of the old pubs here that make me like them so much. Just blokes and lasses sitting around having a pint, no loud music, no servers wandering by wondering when you’ll next order.

But this was a bit much.

Looked up from my Tribute at The Ship sometime last night to see a lady walking with a dog on a leash.

Yeah, a dog.

Now, I don’t mind dogs – Super Dog can be a bit of pain but she’s relatively harmless – but I’m not sure they belong in Public Houses.

It was a tiny little thing – looked like a Jack Russell terrier – but, still.

A dog?

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Don’t forget, if you’re around when the gold medal basketball game starts – 3 p.m. here, 10 a.m. in Hazelville, check your local listings wherever you are – we’ll have one of those IGBT we like so much.

Stop by any time.

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I know I can get this back home, but The Swan has Staropramen on tap and it’s quite a tasty concoction. How come no one’s told me about it before.

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No, I am absolutely not going to the closing ceremonies.

They’re a TV show, actually, so I’m going to write a basketball story and find a TV in some little joint with some friends and close these Games the way they should be closed: Pint in hand, a wistful feeling in your heart.

But I will say this, wherever I am, there will be Brits who drop in for quick second to at least see some of what’s on TV.

It’s happened dozens of times over the days, when Mo Farah runs, people get off the street and into pubs; when Laura Trott cycled, people put lives on hold for a few moments, duck in to the nearest place that’s showing it and cheer.

The British media, for the most part, have been over-the-top cheerleaders for the duration of the Games, they hail their medallists unabashedly as heroes and it’s caught the fancy of the regular people.

We saw the same thing in China four years ago but that was to be expected; I have a feeling if you didn’t openly cheer for China you’d be kindly asked to go live in a part of China that no one should live in.

But here?

These people – public and media – are nuts. All this calm, British reserve has been, frankly, rubbish. They cheer and celebrate and it’s been quite something to see.

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Okay, gotta get to the gym and get settled and spend the entire bronze medal game and 90-minute break before the gold figuring out a perfect two-day mini-vacation in this great city that starts whenever my eyes open tomorrow.

I’ve got Cheshire Cheese, Red Lion, Lillywhites at Piccadilly Circus, maybe a shot back at the Cabinet War Rooms and Cittie of Yorke pub on the list. What else have you got?

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A fitting tribute to a great, great guy

Marnie McBean made me cry.

How’s that for turning the tables?

The COC did an outstanding job with a breakfast to honour the late, great Randy Starkman here this morning (it’s why I’m a bit late) and when Marnie got up there to speak on behalf of athletes, to tell the 60 or so people there how much my good friend and colleague meant, it just got to me and, truth be told, it had to get to every reporter in the room.

And when Randy and Mary’s daughter Ella and his brother Laurie reciting a poem they’d written in memory of my guy, well, it was almost teary time again.

Randy’s been a constant presence throughout these Games. You go to almost any event and someone asks how Team Star is doing without our anchor. People from around the world, guys I see once every four years, offer condolences and want the message sent back home as well.

And maybe that’s why I really enjoy these things and wish I could do more on Olympic athletes. It’s been my history that they are delightful people and wonderful athletes with interesting stories to tell and you can truly get a connection with them by getting those stories out.

No one did it better than Randy, no one in Canada ever will. It’s not an easy job, we are by nature and nurture a cynical lot who are sometimes as happy to find flaws as we are to find goodness.

But here, that cynicism is suspended. Someone back home last week suggested it was hard to write about the sports because we don’t know them and, often, neither do readers. But it was easy to point out that we’re not here to write about sports, we’re here to write about people who happen to play sports. It’s a very different animal than I’m used to, a very different animal than we typically deal with in North America. I can see quite easily how, if you did the job full time, you could get attached to some of the men and women and demand that people follow their journeys by writing about them.

Can’t remember if these were Marnie’s exact words but this pretty sums up what Randy did and how he did it for so many years.

“Randy was there when we were nothing. He was there when we became something.”

We knew what he meant to us at our paper and in our lives, it was nice to be reminded again what he meant to the people he wrote so eloquently about.

And he’s still with us in some small way.

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Anyway …

One of the lads at The Swan said I needed to hear this.

So do you

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Having been fed a typical British breakfast every day for about an eon – that’s how long we’ve been embedded here, isn’t it? – I can safely say it’ll be a very long time before I can handle beans and mushrooms with a morning meal.

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So, after two days of watching the American men’s basketball team here, I can safely say this:

I’m glad I didn’t have to see them in the first round.

Not that they’re bad guys or uncooperative or play with any kind of sense of entitlement or anything; in fact, I’m hearing quite the contrary from some of my boys who’ve been around them.

It’s just that, in some ways, the games I’ve seen have been boring.

Sure, there’s a little buzz in the building when they come on the court, people rise to take pictures of them when they leave it, the inevitable “wow” moments in the two games have been greeted by slack-jawed wonder and ovations. But other than that, they’ve been kind of boring in the two games I’ve seen.

Here’s hoping Spain pushes them tomorrow and it’s a game rather than an event.

-Things I hear once every four years:

“How do I get to BMX?”

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Hey, what are you folks doing tomorrow at 10 a.m. back home?

Want to come to an IGBT?

Just like the olden days with the Raptors, we’ll be here to goof around and watch the gold medal basketball game. Well, I’ll be watching it, I’m not sure what the broadcasters wherever you are will do.

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You don’t often see an accredited member of the media at a basketball game wearing a Chicago Bulls Dennis Rodman replica jersey.

I have.

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You know how you can tell we’re getting close to the time they put a lid on the fire?

No one’s running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get to two or three events in a day.

There’s just enough to keep everyone busy and no one over-worked with one, perhaps two, venues to go to. Other than that, this is a weekend of press centre days and wrap up stuff and it’s a very normal weekend.

We deserve it.

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It’s official: Racewalking is the silliest-looking sport at the Olympics.

And I now know that one of the Aussies in the men’s, um, race, is about 15 minutes behind the leader thanks to the rather loud reporter sitting a row away from me talking to his office.

Oh, and the leader:

“Cheating like buggery.”

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There's a difference one medal to the next

Hey, sorry I’m late.

Was at a women’s soccer news conference that droned on over here this morning.

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Was having a discussion with someone yesterday in the aftermath of The Glorious Soccer Victory about the value of medals.

Not monetary but the value in perception and I think we made the case that not all bronzes are created equally and that team medals seem to capture the imagination of people more than individual ones.

The thing with teams is that they are an ongoing thing at Games; they play a lot, interest in them builds, there are more compelling stories to tell as the days unfold and there is a “win or go home” playoff round that can be anticipated.

It’s not to say a weightlifting bronze or a wrestling bronze or a judo bronze is in any way diminished but building to a crescendo as teams do just seems more interesting. Maybe that’s the North American in me, or maybe it’s the fact I like to follow things and tell stories over a few days rather than just do a one-off thing, but teams create a better buzz, don’t they?

Even if they ultimately lose, I think they just get into the collective consciousness a little bit more and become “ours” more than an individual does who pops up out of nowhere to become a one-day story.

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I am quite glad to report there are no stories out there of young fellas driving cars into houses on their first day behind the wheel.

Well done, Super Son.

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Who doesn’t like a little Vera Lynn to calmly get into the day?

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As was pointed out to me after I mentioned it in The Biggest IGBT Ever by a handful of helpful people in varying degrees of disgust, it’s not …

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie; Oy, Oy, Oy

It’s

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie; Oi, Oi, Oi.

Sorry for the mistake but I still hate that chant with, as a friend used to say, the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns.

Sorry, Australia.

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Yes, am off again to the basketball to catch the men’s semifinals tonight.

No, another diary is not coming unless they tell me to do it; it was fun but we need to debrief and see if we can make it better.

Got any suggestions?

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Conductor bloke on train to Coventry yesterday:

“First-class service is available at the back of the train and there are four cars. You need a first-class ticket to use the first-class accommodation.”

And here we were thinking we’d just trundle back there.

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We get to The Swan at the end of yesterday, guy behind the bar who knows us asks what’s been up for the day.

Been to Coventry to see the football, I tell him.

“Oh, nice. Football, good. Coventry, not so good.”

Bang on assessment. It’s a drab little city with, seemingly, very little to offer. It did, however, have a nice little store at the train station that’d had a sale on Stellas (two tall cans for four pounds) to make the hour-long train ride home a tad more amenable.

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Hang on a sec!

Dwight Howard got traded?

Wow, who saw that coming?

But he got traded for Al Harrington, Arron Afflalo, Nikola Vucevic and Moe Harkless and a bunch of draft picks from teams that are better than Orlando?

Wow.

Anyway, it does take time to see how trades of this nature really pan out – like two or three years – but the initial reaction is that the Lakers are waaaaaaay better and the Masai Ujuri could end up being the executive of the year.

You put Howard with Nash, Kobe and Pau Gasol and I don’t think it matters who the other guy on the floor is; that’s as good a team as there is in the league.

And Denver gets another very good player in Andre Iguodala from Philly but still has a trade exception worth about $13 million and, really, didn’t give up anything of consequence. If they use that money and add another stud they might not be as good as the Lakers but in an ever-changing West, they’re still pretty damn good.

Philly gets Andrew Bynum and loses Iguodala and maybe that’s an upgrade and maybe it’s not. If Bynum’s healthy – far from a sure thing – he’s as good a centre as there is in the league but for right now, I’d just say the Sixers are different. Not necessarily better, just different.

Orlando?

I don’t get it. I really don’t.

The four guys they’re reportedly getting are, well, frankly underwhelming and we have no clue what the draft picks will be but whatever they are, they are years away from being major contributors.

I don’t know – and no one really does – what other legitimate offers were out there and since Howard had handcuffed them from the beginning, perhaps this is the very best they could do.

I just don’t think it’s very good.

It’s not Williams-Williams-Mourning-pick bad, but it could be close.

Best thing, if the deal does go through? We don’t have to read one more sentence on what sources say about a Dwight Howard trade.

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All the right answers from Valanciunas, and Garbo's here!

I think I might end up liking this Jonas Valanciunas guy quite well.

Finally got to see him play in person yesterday and he actually wasn’t that bad. Ran the floor extremely well, good on pick-and-roll offence, not so good on pick and roll or post defence but big and quick and he’s going to be a player. A pretty darn good player it looks like right now.

Not sure he’s a favourite of the Lithuanian coach, who buried him on the bench most of yesterday to go with a small lineup that got drubbed by big, and very good, Russia.

But that’s one game, no sense rushing to too much judgement on the kid, I still go back to various reports from people I respect with no affiliation with the Raptors who say he’ll be just fine.

He does give a pretty good quote.

After introducing myself as a scribbler from Toronto, to which he replied “good to meet you” and that puts him ahead in my books, first question out was what did you learn here?

“I learned how not to foul out.”

Badda-bing!

Gotta love a kid who can deliver a line and someone who knows what he’s up against.

“I get tough lessons on how hard the fight is under the basket, I need to gain some pounds and gain some power. But I’m still young.”

Dwane? Have you been telling the kid what to say?

Next up for him is a couple of weeks off – he’s been on the go pretty steadily for about a month and a half – and then it’s back to the gym because now he’s got some idea of what’s ahead of him.

“I played against all the NBA stars so I think that was good experience and it’s going to help me for next season.”

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I come around a corner leaving the mixed zone after talking to Jose and who do I run into?

Garbo!!!!!

The one and only Jorge Garbajosa, who has to be in the top three or four Raptors of all time in my books, was standing there waiting to talk to Pau Gasol while accepting congratulations and hugs and kisses from a handful of Spanish journalists.

Garbo looks like he could still give you 12 and 10 on any given night but his career as a player is over.

Now he’s working for the Spanish basketball federation (“A big shot? Oh, no. I don’t know what I’m doing, they think I can help") and one of his primary gigs is to help prepare for the 2014 basketball World Cup.

And if you don’t think I’m already planning to weasel my way to Spain for three weeks or so to hang in Barcelona, Seville, Gran Canaria, Malaga and wherever else they play games, you don’t know me at all.

(Boss? I am soooooooo going. Thanks. Just wanted to let you know)

Anyway, another great Garbo line, right up there with “if I am the rookie of the month, this league is (blanked)” came to mind.

He used to bust on people, jokingly, for their choices in fashion, ties and shirts were a big target. One day we’re standing there, he looks at person who shall go nameless – honest, it wasn’t me, I’d take great pride if it was – and smiles:

“If you wear that in my city, you will get beat up.”

Love the guy.

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Think you’re having a bad day?

Well …

Pack up all troubles in your old kit bag, please.

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Things I never thought I’d hear myself say, Vol. 10 or so:

“You know, maybe it’d be kind of cool to do a day-long web diary of the basketball quarter-finals.”

And this is what you get after a dozen hours in the O2 Arena.

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Hey, this is Thursday, right?

Less than a week to go!!!!!! And if you don’t think Monday is going to be spent on a walkabout that includes stops at The Ship, The Cheese, Citte of York and The Red Lion, you don’t know me.

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You can also tell it’s getting close to the end because everyone’s getting a tad more testy.

Angry that buses are either full or a minute or two late, a tad hot under the collar at the crowds and the crush, a bit chuffed if things run even a wee bit off kilter.

Haven’t seen any true explosions yet – lots of grumbling last night but no swearing or punches – but it’s coming. Someone will tell me about some dust-up any night, I’m sure.

And then the Olympics will be complete.

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Okay, Mr. K and I are off to the football thingamabob up or over or down in Coventry (I should really look at a map) and you’ll see the fruits of our labour here later on.

You’ll also see or have seen (this time zone thing is messing me up big time) Christine Sinclair because did the right and honourable thing by delaying any discipline for the team’s antics after the semifinal until the bronze medal match has been played.

Sure sounds to me like the mandarins of the sports realize the referee was awful, she kind of decided the outcome of the match and know that dropping any suspensions before today would have been a gross miscarriage of justice.

And I wouldn’t at all be surprised if the whole thing is swept under the rug eventually, or a suspension is offered for some “friendly” some time down the road.

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And now, a personal moment, if you’ll indulge me.

This is one of the great gigs in the world, being a sportswriter. You see history on courts and you see history in the great cities of the world and it’s a priviledge to be able to try and tell some stories.

But there’s a toll. The 110 or so nights you’re away from home each year wreak havoc with family stuff, you miss things that are important because there’s not much alternative.

It takes great and loving people to put up with it, they sacrifice as much as we do, if not more.

They need to know how hard it is to be away on those big moments, how much you wish you could be there to share them.

So, Super Son, have yourself a helluva good 16th birthday, it’s a watershed moment that I hope you’ll enjoy to the hilt; I wish I was there.

And, no, you cannot drive the Smelly Ford Focus around the crescent.

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A long trip that was fun to watch from afar

It’s been my pleasure.

That’s kind of what I wanted to say after the women’s basketball team got finished with its rather impressive run Tuesday afternoon in the quarter-finals with the Yanks.

It was a predictable result – the Americans are head and shoulders better than anyone here – but that’s not what the story was.

The story was this very interesting group of young woman have now restored Canada to a level of prominence on the world stage they haven’t enjoyed in a decade or so.

I can remember many a night in the early 2000s when they’d be at some FIBA Americas qualifier for the worlds or the Olympics somewhere in South America and every night a couple of us would have conference call with Allison McNeill and maybe a player so we could write a little story about the drubbing they’d just taken.

They knew, and I knew, and everyone really knew that they weren’t ready to compete at that level in the post-Sydney era. They were young and, frankly, not skilled enough to compete with Brazil, Cuba, Argentina.

And after every tournament just about, I’d talked to Allison for a wrap up and she’d say something to the effect of “we’re going to get there but it’s going to take time. We just have to commit and keep going.”

It had to be hard, no one likes getting their brains beat in regularly with no real end in sight. They could have chucked it all, gone on with their lives and left the game.

But they didn’t. They got jobs in far flung places – Turkey, Lithuania, China, Greece – and played and worked on their games and got better. And every summer they’d come back to the program a little bit better, a bit closer as a team, a bit wiser about what the task was like.

And then they got to the worlds in 2006 and the worlds in 2010 and now the 2012 Olympics and the quarter-final.

It’s been a tremendous story that’s unfolded in basic anonymity for a decade, a story of athletes slogging it out with one goal in mind, to get here. Some women came and some women went, that’s always going to happen. But most bought in, stuck it out, got it done.

It’s not a big story, I guess, never was. But the totality of it, what they did, is an important story and should be told.

I’m glad it got told, I’m glad they got here, I’m glad they were rewarded.

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So they put on these little concerts most nights in the courtyard area between the Main Press Centre and the International Broadcast Centre. Usually two or three acts a night and they’ve had a gospel choir, a barbershop quartet, some dancers.

Last night they had these guys, Gentlemen Duke doing something called Country Folk.

But any band with a fiddler and a bass player needs to be listened to.

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Attention, world media:

I’ll say it again, especially to the guy who sat next to us in the press centre yesterday and particularly to the fellow sitting beside me on the bus home:

SHOWER

I beseech you in the name of all that’s good in the world.

SHOWER

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No, it’s not all fun and games and The Ship here.

It’s work and as I recall, this is how the conversation went:

“What are you writing?”

“Tripe. You?”

“Treacle.”

So there you have it, he’s treacle, I’m tripe, or the other way around.

Seriously, it's not all fun and games and pubs over here; we do do some work.

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In the whole brouhaha over the woman’s football and the officiating, the great Michael Farber had the best line.

It takes a bloke of a certain age to get it but when Mike tweeted this, I laughed out loud.

“For Canada. Soccer ref Christiana Pedersen = hockey ref Josef Kompalla. Discuss.”

Anyone?

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Zaniest thing I saw yesterday?

Wandering down Southampton Row from the bus to the hotel just after 11 p.m. and there’s a Mexican TV crew walking the other way. Two hangers-on, a guy with a camera, and a fellow talking quite rapidly into a handheld microphone while other people on the sidewalk scattered.

Not sure what they were reporting on, there was nothing at all going on, but it sure sounded like an exciting story.

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Hey, you Irregulars have to get up bright and early tomorrow.

Every great needs a caddie and, barring any zaniness like news happening today, I’m going to carry Cathal’s bag up to Coventry for the big football match and I’ll be joining him on what should be an epic IGBT.

Be there, or be square.

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Big.

Boy.

Basketball.

Quarter-final day in the men’s tournament and I cannot wait, to tell you the truth.

Going to go and sit through all four games – first men’s hoops I’ve seen since I got here – and the plan is for some kind of day-long diary here on the web later tonight or overnight or whenever I get it done.

Kind of looking forward to it.

And much looking forward to the games – Spain-France, Russia-Lithuania, Brazil-Argentina and USA-Australia.

As I mentioned, thanks to my new career as an archery-beach volleyball-swimming-cycling-athletics reporter I haven’t been to a game but I have watched some and talked to some people and I’m not going back on my original prediction.

I think Spain gets the USA in the end to win gold and Russia’s going to win bronze.

Trust me on that, would you?

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Inept officiating is too often an Olympic problem

Of course they got hosed.

Anyone with two eyes can see that the women’s football team was robbed in the loss to the Yanks in the semifinal, done in by inadequate officiating in the biggest game of their lives.

Everyone wrote it (Cathal’s piece is here) and the true shame of it is that there’s nothing anyone can do.

I’ve often said in private conversations that the refereeing in team sports when you get to this level is, basically, atrocious.

The game has become too fast for some of refs – and I’m talking basketball and football because it’s what I know best but I presume it holds true for field hockey, water polo and volleyball – and the players are simply too good.

I put the blame solely on the world governing bodies, FIFA for football, FIBA for basketball, because they are the ones who nominate the officials, they are the ones who decide who gets to do the games and the pick too “fairly” too often.

They take refs from countries where the game is emerging and not that important and plop them down onto the biggest sporting stage in the world. It’s stupid.

And then when they fail, either blatantly as she did last night or subtly like you see time after time after time, nothing happens.

Now, I don’t know if last night’s ref is a veteran or a rookie, highly regarded or an afterthought. But there can be no debate that she was overwhelmed by the moment and choked.

Until these global organizations start spending more money and time on referee development – and, most important, get past this idiotic notion that anyone can ref any game and put the best they’ve got on the biggest game – travesties like last night are going to keep happening.

Truly a shame.

And a sham.

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The bar here in the press centre is named after Steve Parry, a legendary, now deceased Reuters sports editor and that’s a fitting tribute.

But if you’re Canadian and you hear that name …

Who doesn’t like a little Journey in the morning; hope Armstrong and Devlin are reading.

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I know it’s a legitimate sport and the athletes are wonderful but you cannot have wrestling without turnbuckles, can you?

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This was an Olympic moment I’ll never forget, a very cool few minutes that came about entirely out of nowhere.

Had to go cover cycling yesterday – and if you thought my trampoline knowledge was lacking, you can only imagine how lost I was trying to decipher women’s omnium cycling – and it was a hoot.

The mixed zone (where we do our interviews) is pretty much right in the middle of the track!

So we’re down there talking to Tara Whitten’s coach (I didn’t ask a single question so as not to prove my ignorance of the sport) when all of a sudden we have to stop chatting.

That’s because not 15 metres away was the medal ceremony for British men’s sprint gold medalist Jason Kenny. All the pomp, all the circumstance and there’s little old me, smack dab in the middle of it. Was going to grab some flowers to send home but though the better of it.

But standing in the middle of a track, seeing the British flag raised not 20 feet away and hearing the crowd bellow God Save The Queen was as cool as it gets.

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After far too long an absence, got back to The Ship Tavern last night for a few – the Tribute cask ale was as good as I remember – and of course there's a conversation with the barkeeper.

She’s born in Sweden, now a Londoner, the conversation got around to Mats Sundin and the pucks (I know, I know, a true slip by me) and whether she’s a fan of the game.

Seems the answer is yes.

“They actually fight and I like that.”

Despite that, I’m still going back there at least one more time before we come home.

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This is why R. Doolittle, Cub Sportswriter, is the Rookie Of The Year.

We’re back from The Ship having one in the lobby and there she is, over in the corner, just back from watching the football match in a pub, typing away.

Anyone who’ll sit in a lobby bar and sip water while writing a story about watching a game in a bar can play on my team any day.

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So there’s this collection of buildings, with an open-air patio-like thing at the top just beside the basketball venue here at the Olympic Park.

I’ve been told it’s an NBC compound and I figure maybe that’s where the decide how to screw over viewers by tape-delaying everything so that writers and tweeters can scoop the network any old time we want.

Then I find out that, no, that’s not it.

It’s actually the Today Show set and I’m figuring if I can sneak in there today on my way to the women’s game, that’d be a heckuva good Olympic moment.

Might cost my credential but it’d be fun.

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I’m thinking 10 or 12 hours of men’s basketball on quarter-final day might be a wonderful way to spend a Wednesday.

And it’ll keep me away from sports I know nothing about. You’d appreciate that, I bet; am thinking the bosses would, too.

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The greatest event of the Games? I'd say so

We all know there are a lot of incredible sports events scattered over the year and in every different competition.

There are championship games and big games and playoff games and, way back in the day, prize fights that were and are truly “moments.”

Nothing – nothing – beats the men’s 100 metre final at an Olympic Games.

Nothing.

It’s like 80,000 fans, or 100,00 fans, or however many fans there are in the stadium, collectively hold their breath for a second until the gun goes and then they are in awe for the less than 10 seconds it takes to run the race.

And maybe that’s why it’s so special. There is huge anticipation and it’s over in a flash. There is a purity and a simplicity to it that is unmatched anywhere, ever.

Gun goes. Run fast. It’s over.

No reliance on teammates, no “playoffs” that stretch out forever.

And it’s probably helpful in some strange way that it only occurs every four years. We don’t get tired of the same guys doing the same thing on some circuit of meets because we don’t see them.

We watch them at the Olympics and we might watch them every couple of years at the world championships but that’s about it. It’s that kind of uniqueness that adds to it.

I’ve been to big fights and they’re cool, the build up to them is substantial and there is – or was back when fights mattered – an aura to them.

But I’ve also seen 100 metre finals – didn’t go last night but saw Donovan Bailey win in Atlanta and Usain Bolt win in Beijing – and nothing compares.

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At least it’s not Chumbawumba but this one’s getting on my nerves, too, since the ask the crowd at basketball to sing along with it at least once a game.

So you should hear it, too.

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There’s like a jillion reporters here and pretty much we all come through the main press centre at least once a day and just inside the door there’s a tiny coffee kiosk that’s always busy.

Why, then, did I walk up there this morning and the three lasses all said, pretty much in unison, “a triple shot latte, then, Mr. Smith.”

I am far too predictable it seems.

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Someone told me that NBC did not show the men’s 100-metre final live?

That cannot be possible, can it?

Sometimes I just don’t understand people.

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Yes, I most certainly did ask aloud yesterday:

“So, if a horse is DQ’d, can the team still compete?”

Seriously, you get quite the education around these things.

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Oh, yeah. We meet some famous people indeed here.

Me and Wenlock are mates now.

And I might be in the minority, at least that’s the impression I’m getting, but I don’t mind these mascots, My Thing Wenlock and its buddy Mandeville.

Now, they aren’t Cobi, the one from Barcelona that I thought was very cool and there were little Oompa Loompa-like things called Snowlets at Nagano and the fuzzy, furry, funny dudes and dudettes from Sydney were outstanding as well.

If I had to rank ‘em, I’d probably go

Cobi

Olly Syd and Millie from Sydney

Wenlock and Mandeville

I honestly don’t remember what they stuffed animals were like in Atlanta (I’ve been trying to put that Olympic debacle out of my mind since the second the plane left the ground for the flight home) and I’m not sure they’ve yet finished the ones for Athens.

So there you go, Olympic Chickens through one man’s eyes.

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Canada-USA Monday-Tuesday women’s team sports doubleheader?

Neat.

Now, I don’t think the basketball team has a chance, the Americans are simply exponentially better than anyone here and making it a game for a half, or even into the start of the third quarter might be a victory for Canada’s ladies.

And you want to know how long the Americans have been good for?

The last time they lost a women’s Olympic basketball game, two of the Canadians – Natalie Achonwa and Michelle Plouffe – hadn’t been born.

That’s domination.

The soccer?

Who knows?

Cathal thinks they Canucks have a chance and he knows way more than I do so we’ll go with that.

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Today I are an expert in women’s omnium cycling and women’s hurdles.

Lucky, lucky readers

Gotta run, sorry this is a tad short, somewhere there’s a sport I know nothing about that needs to be covered.

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Good stories aren't always about winning; and midway medals

We gather last night at the end of a very busy day and we’re talking about the story of the day.

You’ve got the trampoline gold, the swim silver, the cycling bronze and, you know what?

The very best story was Paula Findlay, last in the triathlon.

It pretty much summed up what we are, and what these Games are and what it all truly means.

We love medals, we celebrate them, they’re fun and they make us feel good.

But we admire, truly admire, athletes who compete through tough times, who stick it out because finishing is what matters, it’s important and getting the job done and seeing how it all works out says far more about an athlete than where they finish, I think.

I don’t know Paula Findlay, not sure I’ve ever even been in a scrum when she’s spoken, but I have so much admiration for her it’s not even funny.

And you should, too.

Here’s a woman who could have packed it in and no one would have been all that troubled by it. She was hurt, it was a tough slog and at some point if she’d stopped and explained it all we would have said, ‘ah, tough luck, too bad.’

But she didn’t.

She got through it because it mattered to her and she knew it mattered to the people who support her and care about her. She did it because that’s what elite athletes do, they fight through.

Last in the triathlon is not good, no one’s suggesting that it is.

But I honestly think that willingness to finish says more about her than any podium finish would, it tells you she knows what matters and who it matters to.

I saw the quote where she apologized and that’s just wrong.

She did it. She got through it when it would have been easy not to.

Yes, Rosie MacLennan was great and Ryan Cochrane was great and the cycling team was great.

The story of the day was Paula Findlay.

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The woman are at Old Trafford and, I swear, you cannot have enough Ricky Hatton in a sports blog, can you?

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An Olympic moment.

As I’m watching the trampoline and, as you can imagine, I have no real idea what I’m seeing.

Bosses ask for a play-by-play of Rosie MacLennan’s final routine, I get a’scared about writing it because, well, because I have no clue what they do in the air but the coach, Dave Ross, comes through in a pinch and it’s like I know what I’m talking about.

I (heart) the Games.

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Words I uttered I never thought I would:

“Was that a triple somersault or a double?”

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So we’re halfway through this marathon (at least the competitive portion of it, I think I’ve been here long enough to be able to vote) so …

Gold

The Ship Tavern

Great place, fine suds, a piece of Haddock about a foot long, tiny snugs, it’s down an alley, a five-minute walk from the hotel, a comely young lass drawing the pints.

If they put one in Hazeiville, I’d never leave.

(Haven’t wandered down to Cheshire Cheese yet; that’ll be second half gold)

Gold

The venues

Archery at Lord’s, beach volleyball at Horse Guard’s Parade, the Olympic Park is functional without being ostentatious and everything seems to work.

Silver

Hotel

Yes, it has a bar that’s OATH (Open All The Hours) and it’s fine but it’s also just a hotel; I’d much prefer a village where the world’s press all lives ‘cause it’s far easier to meet new people that way. I’d trade a wee bit of comfort for being able to arrive home every night and join some table of some people from some country and decompress.

Silver

The weather

Let’s see.

It was 33 C the first few day and unbearable. It was 16 C one night at I was the beach and cool. One day it poured for about 15 minutes, got clear, poured again, got clear. It’s teeming rain right now as I look out the window here to my left; I glance to my right and see clear blue skies in the distance. Weird.

Bronze

I got none.

Really.

Through this first week I haven’t even seen a hiccup let alone experience one.

It’s, of course, the jinx we all know well but these things have run swimmingly so far.

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Hey, it’s Simcoe Day weekend, right?

What are you all doing?

Funny how it’s not a long weekend here.

Well, it’s a long weekend but not that kind of long weekend.

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Gotta run a bit early and a bit today, am helping run Team Star over here today (think herding cats only with very nice people in the role of cats) and there’s much to do before I head to see the women play basketball.

And after a day where I wrote about a double-amputee 400-metre runner and trampoline, kind of like the thought of getting back into my comfort zone.

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Tramps, hoops and a wee bit of track; just another day

Am off later today to cover trampoline and if I see one of the competitors show up in a Chicken costume carrying a couple of basketballs, I know who the gold medalist will be.

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Of course, I was happy.

And, frankly, a bit nervous.

You know we’re not supposed to cheer except for our story (I guess I could say it was a better story the way it played out so cheering was allowed) but when the women’s basketball team won, I pretty proud of them.

You know how I feel: It’s a good group of dedicated women coached by an excellent staff and run by a program that’s finally getting fully turned around.

And when they qualified for the quarters, I really do think it was some kind of watershed moment.

Now, they’re likely to get drilled if they meet the States – USA hasn’t lost in something like 37 straight Olympic games – and Australia’s going to be incredibly tough in the final preliminary round game.

But I agree with the likes of Kim Smith and Chelsea Aubry that this program’s success – two World Championships and a top-8 Olympic finish – could do immeasurable things for the growth of the game in Canada among young women.

We know where the men’s program is headed – which is up – and now that the women have established a benchmark, it’ll be up to the men to match it. They haven’t – I always said it’d be the 2016 Olympics or maybe the 2018 worlds before they’re totally legit on a global stage – but maybe now the young men say, ‘hey, we need to get going, the women are better than us.’

And talking to Wayne Parrish after the game, he pointed to Rio as a true turning point.

“Our young women are ranked third in the world, our young men are ranked fifth in the world. When you put all that together with the performance that we see and the resilience we see from the women this year, you have a helluva combination for 2016.”

I’ve been around Canada Basketball for more than a couple of decades now – going back to the late, great Jack Donoghue and I honestly cannot think of time when both the men’s and women’s programs were so promising.

Not bad, eh?

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Seriously, a song about Manchester by Davy Jones and that’s where the women’s football team plays its semifinal?

I don’t have anything better today and there probably isn’t much more obscure.

 

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Things I never thought I’d say:

“Does anyone have a scoring table for heptathlon handy?”

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Hey, Londoners! Come on home. Really.

Was talking to my new buddy who has a relative in Markham and who runs the little mom and pop news agent by my hotel this morning and he confirmed what I had thought.

The city is relatively empty.

The business people are working from home, a whole slew of locals have fled, the students are gone and, outside of the Olympic people, there are no tourists.

And, sure, it’s pretty cool for the venues and some of the hotspots but the small local guys – like my pal – are getting killed.

Not sure that’s what they had in mind when they got these Games.

“Never seen it so quiet,” is how he put it.

So come on back, I’ll stand out a round some night. It’s kind of fun here.

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The public address announcer at the Olympic Park basketball venue never shuts up and the only thing worse than the timeout hostess asking 8,000 or so fans to do the wave is asking them to do the wave while making “as much noise as you can.”

Grrr.

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Note to Marriott:

Yes, every hotel should have a 15-foot high stone thing in the lobby.

On second thought, if you come around the corner after a night out and run into this thing, you might be a tad startled.

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Thanks to The Swan (one of the Bars In An Alley) for staying open until midnight on Friday, it was nice to get one in before the bell.

And I do think that’s a much more civilized way to signal last call; they ring bells quite loudly to let you know it’s time to go home, far better than forcing servers to wander around yelling at patrons.

(I’m told that’s what happens in Canada; I’m rarely out at the time).

But this whole closing at 11 during the week and extending the hours to 12 on Friday and Saturday is mystifying.

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Been here a week and a half almost and have yet to eat at the McDonald’s here at the Main Press Centre.

Somewhere, someone must be proud of me.

Of course, haven’t really eaten that much of anything but am growing quite tired of the beef and gerkin or egg salad or aged cheddar and various relish pre-fab sandwiches they have at all the venues.

I can just picture some huge factory on the outskirts of the city where thousands of zombie-like workers are slapping sandwiches together 24 hours a day to feed starved writers.

A true Olympic experience.

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So, 80,000 people at the track on 10 o’clock Friday morning, another 80,000 there Saturday night, a jam-packed basketball arena for Canada-Brazil women, standing room only crowds at beach volleyball every session I was at and a record-setting audience up in Newcastle for the women’s football yesterday.

Think some folks have to go back and re-write those ticket rip jobs from a few days ago.

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Of blade runners, basketball, movies ... and, of course, a pub

Little items today.

A few of them but nothing really stands out.

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Sentences I never thought I’d utter.

(To a volunteer in the main press centre as I was writing my track story)

“Ma’am, could you please change the channel on that television to badminton?”

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Finally!

In our Adventures In Pubs part of this shindig, finally found a Samuel Smith joint, the Princess Louise on High Holborn just a stone’s throw from the hotel.

Sam Smith’s Organic Lager might be the favourite beverage of that ilk anywhere in the world; crisp, not too heavy and you can’t find it everywhere. Think the barman said there were less than 40 Sam Smith pubs in the city – not including Free Houses, I would think – and it was a pretty good find.

And if you find it in a 140-year-old pub with all kinds of snugs and tiny rooms with ornate wainscoting and some mirrors that were part of the original structure, you’ve hit the motherlode.

Yes, this trip isn’t half bad at all.

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Yes, they take their warnings seriously around these parts. Saw this on some electric relay station or something outside the main press centre.

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It’s about 8 a.m., I’m going on about four hours sleep again with a long day of track, basketball and then track ahead.

I do not need, at any level, a group of exuberant volunteers a few rows down singing Happy Birthday to someone.

Really.

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Someone needs to explain to me how a list of the best movies ever comes out and not only does Citizen Kane get kicked out of first place, it’s kicked out for Vertigo.

Vertigo isn’t even Hitchcock’s best, every right-thinking person in the world knows that Rear Window is Alfred’s best, let along the best ever.

These people need to give their collective heads a shake.

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So as I’m researching the track story, I have to find some Oscar Pistorius quotes, or at least some background information on the South African blade runner.

And it seems he had a press conference somewhere here this week and there’s a nice full transcript.

Quote of the day on how his Mom influenced him is priceless:

"My mother said to us one morning, 'Carl (his brother), you put on your shoes, and Oscar, you put on your prosthetic legs.’ And that was the last we heard of it. I didn't grow up thinking I had a disability, I grew up thinking I had different shoes.”

Pretty good, no?

However, I’m not entirely sure I agree with the Court of Arbitration’s decision to overturn the IAAF’s ruling that he not be allowed to compete here.

It’s a tough one, no doubt. He’s met the qualification standards, there is medical evidence that there is no physical advantage to racing on prosthetics and those are probably the two biggest issues.

But it gets dicey in my mind. And you need to know I all about inclusiveness and think treating people equally well regardless of almost any circumstances.

But here? Here I think Pistorius should probably be in the Paralympics. Those are the Games that put him, so to speak, on equal footing with his other competitors, his presence there will, in some way, raise the bar for other amputees, he gives them a standard to try to meet.

I think if there’s a “cause” to advance, it might be best that he advance it against others in similar circumstances.

I don’t know though. I could probably be talked into changing my mind because his presence in the Olympics could very well stir others on to try and match his accomplishments and proves how we should not view amputees as different but as normal athletes.

Either way, it’s a pretty good story and that’s a pretty good quote.

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You know me and roundabouts (or traffic circles as we know them).

Well, there are a billion of ‘em here, we go through half a dozen or so each day on our drives in and out of Olympic Park and, get this, they also have traffic lights.

Traffic lights at roundabouts?

Kind of like wearing suspenders and a belt, isn’t it?

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The beach boys got knocked out of the Olympics last night, the women were eliminated in the afternoon and I fear my journeys to Horse Guard’s Parade are now over.

That’s good in a way because the incessant music was nice and all but they play this song about every 40 seconds it seems and it’s been rattling around in my head for days.

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I see the Americans edged Nigeria 156-73 in the men’s basketball here Thursday night.

Yeah, that’s the kind of delightful game that’ll “grow” the sport incredibly.

No, the Yanks didn’t run up the score, it’s just the way the game unfolded and it’s the kind one-off rout you’re going to get every now and then.

The story over at the basketball – and, yes, I’ll get there one day soon, haven’t been able to yet because other things are getting in the way – would be Lithuania, which is 1-2 and the coming showdown between Russia and Spain that could be epic.

The Lithuanians are interesting, I’m told. Valanciunas has been okay but only played seven minutes the other day against France for some unknown reason and they are just 1-2 and seem destined to barely squeak into the quarter-finals.

I wouldn’t read too much – heck, I wouldn’t read anything – into the Valanciunas numbers, which are quite underwhelming. First off, numbers don’t tell the story; secondly, it’s a different style of play and, third, the kid has skill. So, please, don’t sweat it.

As for Russia-Spain, it’s a huge game between two very good teams with an awful lot on the line.

The winner, if all things play out as expected, won’t have to face the Americans until the gold medal game; the loser would have to play the USA in the semifinals.

It goes Saturday at 11:15 a.m. our time and I think I need to be there.

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