All Night Olympics »

  • The utterly arbitrary A-Z of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad

    August 24, 2008 @ 4:06 am | by Seán Kenny

    12:21: And so our Olympic odyssey draws to a close. It has been a strange sort of odyssey, being entirely sedentary apart from those intervals in which All Night Olympics left the couch to replace the matchsticks propping up his eyelids and refill the drip supplying his intravenous caffeine line.

    12:30: Half past seven on a Sunday morning in Beijing and the men’s marathon is off. Numerous locals, perhaps residents of a local asylum, have turned out to watch. We suspect each spectator has a gun barrel pressed into the small of their back by a representative of the People’s Liberation Army.

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  • Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow (or Barry Davies’ last night of commentary from Beijing)

    August 23, 2008 @ 6:01 am | by Seán Kenny

    02:02: Our penultimate night at the Olympic couchface. We must first commend boxer Kenny Egan, who proved again that what we saints and scholars do best as a nation is beat the lard out of people from other countries. Verily, it makes us want to weep tears of patriotic pride.

    02:10: RTE, as has been the station’s custom in recent nights, is sipping cocktails from a hammock somewhere. Another lordly snub to the sport of women’s taekwondo. They could kick you into the middle of next week, you know.

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  • A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a clean horse!

    August 22, 2008 @ 5:31 am | by Seán Kenny

    01:40: Strictly speaking, this falls outside our remit. However, a matter of such gravity must not be ignored. For the record, we are shocked, appalled and dismayed at yesterday’s news that Irish rider Denis Lynch’s horse Lantinus tested positive for a banned substance. Lynch said he was ‘shattered’ and well he might be. I mean, what was the horse thinking? These thoroughbred gee-gees, it all goes to their heads – the women, the money, the fame. Before you know it they’re jabbing a hypodermic syringe into their veins round the back of the stables, seeking ever-greater thrills. You wouldn’t have caught Arkle or Shergar at any of that business. Not a bit of it. A pint of plain was enough for them. But horses these days! O Lantinus! What have you done? (more…)

  • The strange tale of Marty Morrissey and the praying mantises

    August 21, 2008 @ 5:41 am | by Seán Kenny

    01:41: Strange thoughts arrive unbidden in the watches of the night. The spectre of rickets has been haunting All Night Olympics. Deprived by our nocturnal existence of the nourishing Vitamin D provided by the sun’s rays, and hopped up on caffeine, we have been more than usually neurotically concerned. Could our mission be exacting a terrible physical toll on our precious bones? We consulted Herself, who knows about such things. It seems that if the Games of the Olympiad lasted 18 months and we were confined to a dungeon for their entire duration, there might be a problem. Since the 18-month Dungeon Olympics are still at an early planning stage, we are relieved to find that we face no imminent threat of bone-softening. (more…)

  • I paid €160 for a TV licence and I expect to be able to watch live women’s 49kg taekwondo at three in the morning

    August 20, 2008 @ 5:42 am | by Seán Kenny

    01:30: Let us be clear about one thing. All Night Olympics is not in the business of aggravating Ireland’s highly proficient pugilists. No, sir. Ours is a cowardly sort of satire extending only to those we feel do not have the capacity to beat us to a bloody pulp. It is in this spirit of pusillanimous surrender that we offer our warm congratulations to successful boxers, Paddy Barnes and Kenny Egan.

    01:34: On the other hand, frankly we’d fancy our chances against Jimmy Magee. The Memory Man, who actually reported live from Olympia in 776 BC, was on top form yesterday. Jimmy stopped just short of proposing marriage to Paddy Barnes, such was his expressed admiration for ‘the little man from Belfast.’ Two things you should know about Paddy Barnes, the little man from Belfast. He is:

    A)    Of small stature

    B)    From Belfast

    We kept forgetting this during the 12-minute bout, so Jimmy helpfully reminded us of these salient facts on 17 or so occasions. (more…)

  • Me and Barry Davies, part four

    August 19, 2008 @ 5:53 am | by Seán Kenny

    01:20: Regular readers (Hi Mam, Dad) will be pleased to hear that the dulcet tones of Mr Barry Davies are currently gracing a screening of the GB v US women’s hockey match.  

    01:29: ‘There’s the gang, doing their Last Night of the Proms thing a little early.’ Barry sees a sea of Union Jacks in the stands. The rest of us see four GB supporters.

    01:54: Says the BBC’s Clare Balding: ‘We’ve been going on a lot about Great Britain’s medal winners.’ Not at all, Clare. How could we ever tire of being regaled repeatedly with the story of Joanne Jackson’s bronze medal in the 400m freestyle? And we will all eternally cherish memories of the golden performance of GB’s Yngling crew. Despite having no idea what a Yngling crew does. Well, they yngle, obviously, but apart from that. (more…)


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