London calling

A games miscellany compiled by Mary Hannigan

Bums in no rush: That empty feeling

IT IS, perhaps, the most plaintive Twitter account yet opened, The Empty Olympic Seat (@OlympicSeat). It launched by revealing that “my grandfather was a seat in the 1948 Olympics. He made it sound so grand. I wanted to follow in his footsteps,” but thereafter the updates were just filled with, well, emptiness:

“It was my lifelong ambition to be an Olympic seat. To provide rest and comfort for cheering sports fans. I feel like such a failure”; “Seven years I’ve been waiting for this moment. Seven long years, and for what?”; “Where did it all go wrong? They say its the organisers fault, but I blame myself.”

By midday yesterday the Empty Seat had 12,000 followers (possibly not including Sebastian Coe), many of them trying to cheer it up (“Don’t blame yourself, it’s NOT your fault”), but while it appreciated the kind words, there was no raising its broken spirits.

Last we saw: “Day 3: Still empty.”

Aw.

Broken dream - Judo hero lets bronze medal slip

YOU’D IMAGINE alright that if you were ever lucky enough to win an Olympic medal you’d guard it with your life, so it’s hard to criticise Brazilian Kitadai Altikes for being perhaps a little over protective towards the Judo bronze he won on Saturday.

“I took it with me everywhere,” he said, “I even took it into the shower, but I was afraid to get it wet so put it in my mouth while I soaped myself. But it ended up slipping.”

And what happened? It broke. Granted, we knew these things weren’t made of pure bronze, but still, they sound a touch on the flimsy side.

Altikes, needless to say, was distraught, he hadn’t worked all his life for two halves of a bronze medal, but, mercifully, the story has a happy ending.

The Brazilian Olympic association put in a formal request for a replacement medal, which was accepted by the International Olympic Committee. Now Altikes will have a shiny new medal while, hopefully, getting to keep the original two halves.

Not a sausage: Weymouth struggling

Business owners in Weymouth were, you’d imagine, rather excited when they first heard that their town would host the London 2012 sailing events, the local council predicting that 60,000 and more people would visit each day.

How’s it working out? According to the BBC yesterday “the 15,000-capacity ‘live arena’ on the beach is struggling to see more than 1,000 people at any one time”, with several business owners reporting that their trade is down.

“The Olympics have damaged my business, said Dennis Spurr of fantastically named Fantastic Sausage Company in Weymouth, “normally this time of year you can’t move. On Saturday I went home and I was so deflated – I’d been ready for the hype, I’d bought extra equipment, in my mind’s eye I’d got queues across the street – but it didn’t happen.

James Parsons, owner of the Nothe Tavern, was also glum.

“We’re taking a significant loss at the moment,” he said, “we’ve had busier Sundays in November.”

Things, surely, can only get better.

Star Wars: Hope Solo strikes back

American goalkeeper Hope Solo is a lively old character, never shy about her expressing her opinions. Back in 2007, for example, she was dumped from the World Cup squad after being less than supportive of coach Greg Ryan and fellow goalkeeper Briana Scurry after Ryan had replaced Solo with Scurry during the tournament.

It was the wrong decision, and I think anybody that knows anything about the game knows that – and theres no doubt in my mind I would have made those saves,” she said after the team was beaten by Brazil.

She returned, though, and is now regarded as one of the best goalkeepers in the world. She was a member of the team that beat Colombia 3-0 on Saturday, so you’d imagine she was happy enough. Well, she was until she heard former international Brandi Chastain had been critical of the performance in her role as a commentator.

Naturally, then, Solo took to Twitter:

Its 2 bad we cant have commentators who better represents the team knows more about the game ….. lay off commentating about defending and goalkeeping until you get more educated …. the game has changed from a decade ago.

Ouch. Chastain, it should be pointed out, won 192 caps between 1988 and 2004, scoring the winning penalty in the 1999 World Cup final, so she’s not exactly ancient – or clueless.

Sláinte

Feeling a bit thirsty and in need of a boost? Scottish firm Brewdog’s new limited edition “performance-enhancing ale” might do the trick, the product called ‘Never Mind the Anabolics’. The London Metro reported the India Pale Ale is being launched “in opposition to the shallow corporate sponsorship of the Games”. So, what’s it made of? “

An array of banned Olympic substances – including creatine, guarana, lycii berries, kola nut, Gingko, matcha tea, maca powder and steroids”.

Sláinte.

Swiss star: sent packing

Unsurprising Expulsion Of The Day: That’d be the decision of the Swiss to send home footballer Michel Morganella, who plays for Italian club Palermo, after he tweeted some post-match analysis following the team’s 2-1 defeat to South Korea on Sunday:

“I want to beat up all South Koreans! Bunch of mentally handicapped retards!”

He apologised later for his thought-provoking assessment of his opponents, but the Swiss reckoned he hadn’t quite got the hang of this Olympic spirit thing, so said cheerio.

The 23-year-old is the second athlete to be expelled over a racist Twitter comment. Greek triple jumper Paraskevi Papachristou was thrown out of her nations team last week, two days before the Games started.

Lost property is not usually a priority for the police but they have made an exception for Britain’s first London 2012 heroine.

Cycling silver medallist Lizzie Armitstead’s sunglasses fell off during yesterday’s women’s road race and Surrey Police today appealed for their safe return ahead of Wednesday’s time trial.

A tweet from Surrey Police read: “Lost: 1 pair lucky Oakley sunglasses. Owner: Lizzie Armitstead. If found, please hand them in. She’d like them back for the #TimeTrial on Weds...”

The cycle of blame continues

Twitter, as we know, is to blame for all kinds of evils, but it wasn’t until yesterday that it was revealed it was responsible for the BBC commentary team having no clue what was going on in the men’s and women’s cycling road races.

The BBC had blamed the Olympic Broadcasting Service, who provide the pictures for Olympic events, for the lack of information sent to its team, commentator Chris Boardman even left using his own watch to estimate timings.

But the International Olympic Committee insisted yesterday that it was all the fault of over-busy Tweeters. “They said fans sending updates to Twitter while watching the race had in effect jammed transmissions of race information,” reported The Guardian.

“Communications director Mark Adams said: From my understanding, One network was oversubscribed, and OBS are trying to spread the load to other providers. We don’t want to stop people engaging in this by social media but perhaps they might consider only sending urgent updates.

Good luck with that.