and now he's throwing discus for liverpool and widnes

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Blog of the Week #11 - Olympic Special

Three blogs for you this week, all related to the London Olympic Games in 2012.

1) 2012 Olympic Competitor

Jonathan Philips is 33 years old and has "limited" sporting talent. Here's his plan:

"Ok, the bid is simple : Find a sport, train hard, gain Olympic qualifying standard, convince a country to give me nationality and a place on their Olympic team, raise £1m for charity and be there at London 2012."

That's right. He wants to compete in the Olympics in 2012. He doesn't much care what event, or what country he represents. The tart. He's getting a lot of publicity from places like the BBC, so I won't dwell on him too much. Worth a look though. Apparently archery is looking promising.

Speaking of archery....

2) Twenty Twelve Gold

"In July 2005, to the delight of the nation, the International Olympic Committee announced that the 2012 Olympics are to be hosted in London. Lord Coe said: “This is just the most fantastic opportunity to do everything we ever dreamed of in British sport.” I have one of those dreams - to compete and represent Britain in the discipline of Archery. This Blog records my progress of my attempt to compete at archery in the 2012 Games, having no prior competitive experience."

I picked up a bow for the first time in about 20 years last week (amusingly it was branded "Surprise" - there's a macabre joke, if ever I saw one), so I was particularly interested when I saw this one. This guy is slowly working his way from a standing start into the world of competitive archery with a view to making the Olympic team in 2012. There are 2305 days before the opening ceremony.... and by the looks of things Nick has some way to go. Should be an interesting ride.

Which brings me to this clown....

3) The Ultimate Olympian

"I am a man. I weigh just under 80kg. As such, there are 136 Olympic events in which I would be eligible to compete. Between the closing ceremony of Athens 2004 and the opening ceremony of Beijing 2008, I hope to have a go at all of them. I’m doing it for two reasons – to raise money for a very worthy cause and because I’ve always wondered just how one goes about learning to pole vault…"

The other two guys are looking for one event that they can compete in at the 2012 games. This pillock trumps them all in my books by looking to take part in every single event on the Olympic schedule before the 2008 games. So by my reckoning, that's four years less and 135 more events.

Who's the daddy?

John is actually a good friend of mine, so perhaps I'm biased, but he's recovering from surgery on his knee and needs some moral support to get him up off his arse and back into training. Not to mention the fact that he's doing this all in the name of an excellent cause and you can sponsor him here.

Believe me, it'll be worth it just to see if he can top falling out of his canoe.... (footage and laughter all courtesy of me... at least his shoes were dry)

Anyway. They're all funny blogs in their own way. We British can be a little strange, no?

[Previous blogs of the week: Delrico Bandito, I have ordinary addictions, Girl With A One-Track Mind, Ditch Monkey, Skinny Legs and All, Wandering Scribe, Sarah, MC Hammer, Lisa Whiteman, Paul Daniels]

and yeah, I know it looks like I stole this post wholesale from John... but I didn't, I swear! He just got there first. Ok?

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If you are reading this from North America and it's Wednesday, then may I be amongst the first to congratulate you on the fact that at 01:02 and three seconds, the time will be 01:02:03 04/05/06. The only time in our lifetime that the date and time will read in ascending sequential numbers, apparently.

Amazing, huh? We should all pause for a moment to enjoy the magnitude of that thought.

Like, wow.

Of course, if you're reading this in the UK, you'll have to wait until the 4th May to enjoy a similar sense of amazement.

I don't know about you, but I can hardly wait.....