THE TRUE OLYMPIC SPIRIT

 

No doubt you've seen the images of Hayden Wilde winning the silver medal in the triathlon at the Paris Olympics and hopefully, like me watched the event. This was stunning stuff with a great effort made by a very admirable young man. Watch him in post event interviews and in replays of not only his performance in the event but his actions in congratulating the UK winner Alex Yee. It makes me proud to be a New Zealander.

I've been watching live events at the Paris Olympics over the week especially rugby sevens, rowing, football and, I admit, the occasional peek at beach volleyball. My interest in the first three is in the fact that New Zealand has been performing. My interest in the fourth is prurient as The Old Girl would say.

In a small way, the unsung heroes of the Paris Olympics though, who largely go unseen, are the old buggers like me who disrupt their normal sleep patterns to watch live events at user-unfriendly times. Paris time is 10 hours behind us so I've been watching events late at night and in the early hours of the morning. As a result, today, I 'hit the wall'. It's been a lovely sunny day so I started early at tennis, played for 3 hours and this afternoon kept dropping off to sleep. Like this:

I calculate that, off and on, I slept about 3 hours this afternoon. My body is in catch-up mode. It meant that I let readers down by not writing posts, leaving them to have to read some AI created nonsense from Robert and some spoof 'AI written' nonsense from Richard. Sorry about that. For any 3P guys out there - Mea Culpa.

Congratulations Hayden. I imagine that you will continue to excel in your sports career but, with your attitude I look forward to see you representing New Zealand in post-sports endeavours.