Archive - Aug 2004

The Games of the XXVIII Olympiad are over. Athens 2004 was not the shambles that many feared. Neil Horan, looking like a reject from an un-filmed Father Ted screenplay, was the only intrusion when far, Far, worse was feared. Yay.

What is it about the marathon that attracts serial pests? It was bad enough in 2000 when Peter Hore ran onto the course, but at least he didn't get to do anything.

You can just see Steve Cram dribbling over his keyboard as he wrote his BBC Online recap of Saturday night's athletics. But you can probably close off the polling for the 2004 BBC Sportsperson of the Year right now. Kelly Holmes has it in the bag. She won the 1500 metres to add to her 800 crown earlier in the week.

Waterford Crystal won the 8.40 jump at Markopoulo on Friday night. The thirteen year-old gelding, ridden by C.O'Connor and trained by J.Doyle, finished a neck in front of French-born Brazilian stallion Baloubet de Rouet (R.Pessoa), who took second place in a photo over US stallion Royal Kaliber (C.Kappler).

"What was easily the worst day of the Athens Games for the United States team also could be considered among the nation's worst at any Olympics." So said the unbylined Associated Press reporter dis

Mark this down in your diary: Saturday October 16 is the day for the 2004 Rock Scissors Paper World Championships at the Kool Haus, Toronto, Ontario.

I never thought I'd see this day come. After following 28 years of near and not so near misses, I wake up this morning to see Channel 7's Randy Hobbits announcing that the Kookaburras - Australia's men's hockey team - had won the gold medal. It was Australia's first olympic gold in men's hockey, and ended Holland's dream of a three-peat.

It's 1pm Friday in Athens, 8pm here in Sydney on a balmy Friday evening in late winter. We're getting down to the Bismuth End of the Athens Games. Here's where the team sports are up to:

We've come a long way since Rick DeMont lost his swimming gold medal because of his asthma spray in 1972. Are there really more drug cheats in the Olympics these days or is the IOC just doing a better job of catching them? Two words: (i) East. (ii) Germany. Two more words: (iii) Stella. (iv) Walsh.

Since the start of these Games, the following medal-winners have been disqualified because of drug breaches:

When the Australian Government introduced anti-spam laws earlier this year, an exemption was included for charities and political parties. I've yet to see any legalised spam from an Australian charity or political party. They'd be mad to do it, you'd think.