“The society which has abolished every kind of adventure makes its own abolition the only possible adventure.” Paris, May 1968


Monday 4 October 2010

Commonwealth Games.

After a slightly shambolic start the Commonwealth Games have got underway and we can now all concentrate on the really important bit - moaning about the TV coverage of the games. You can bet a pound to a pinch of shit that if you are interested in any of the more marginal sports you will have to be content with a fleeting glimpse of your favourites in action. Well it has to be admitted that small bore shooting just can't pack the crowds in like say athletics can. I will be looking out for a bit of wrestling coverage and I suppose that a lot will depend on how well the English wrestlers do. England has actually sent a fairly strong team over and if nothing else it will be an experience for them to compete in one of the major wrestling nations in the world. It has always come as a surprise to me that the Indian community in this country has not had a far greater influence on British amateur wrestling than it has. To be honest I was expecting every weight division to be dominated by someone called Singh by now.

1 comment:

Paul Stott said...

There was actually a story in the Evening Standard a few years ago arguing that GB was importing wrestlers from Eastern Europe (mostly the Ukraine I think) and getting them trained up well ahead of 2012.

Seeing a British guy with a very long name indeed win gold in Greco (at which as far as I'm aware GB has not even competed for years) rather indicates it has come to fruition.

If this raises the standard, and introduces wrestling to another generation of Britons, I'm all for it.

There is a potential downside though, evidenced from the world of weightlifting. There we brought in a former Bulgarian weightlifter to run things, only to withdraw the offer when the extent of his association with drugs became clear:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/london_2012/9001248.stm