The Winter Olympics

Although the final result won’t be known until every competitor has competed in every sport the early leader in the Falling On Your Arse competition must be the Japanese lady in the pairs skating the other night. Not only did this daughter of Nippon fall down on her arse in the most spectacular manner but she also managed to do the splits while doing it, then, having struggled to her feet, careered arse first into the barrier surrounding the skating rink. I think this is known as a triple. The Falling On Your Arse competition is of course the event in which traditionally Britain has the best chance of a medal, although all the British competitors I have seen up to now, while predictably managing to fall down on their arses pretty quickly, have been less than spectacular. We are obviously in need of another Eddie the Eagle. Atkins Down The Road says his favourite for the title is the Finn in the Biathlon who fell on his arse and in the process of doing so caused his rifle to fire off several rounds, one of which mortally wounded an elk. I didn’t see anything reported in the newspaper about this so I suspect Atkins is romancing again as usual. Apparently our women have an excellent chance of a gold in the curling, much better than our men’s chances in this event. When I first heard of curling, a sport in which we won gold at the last Winter Olympics, I thought it was something to do with hairdressing, particularly as women were good at it, but couldn’t for the life of me think why anyone would want to do it on ice. Wouldn’t the driers melt the ice? I was a bit surprised then to learn that it consisted of sliding a big round stone along the ice, the object being to stop it in a target area like a big bullseye. I wasn’t at all surprised that our women were good at it though because the only other thing that happens is that two other women track the path of the stone, sweeping in front of it from time to time with long brushes. Could there possibly be a better sport for women, who have a natural aptitude for sweeping up? No wonder they stand a better chance of a medal than our men’s team.