The London Games: What we’ve learned so far

Scott Feschuk on Week 1 of the Olympics

August 3, 2012

It’s Day 7 at the Summer Games – a good time to look back and reflect on what we’ve seen so far:

When oh when will we experience an Olympics untainted by chicanery in badminton?

Inspired by Olympic swimmers, I now shake out my arms before opening a beer. Injuries are way down.

It’s still early, but the heptathlon definitely looks like it’s going to be one of the better thlons.

Idea: Instead of worrying about sinking, hiding or burying it, why not just implant a lucky loonie directly into every Canadian athlete? Get on it, Tewksbury.

Generally speaking – and this is just my own personal view based on anecdote and observation – there is more crying in women’s gymnastics than in men’s shot put. Shot put, however, has the advantage in belly fat.

Factoid: You could fit 34 Gabby Douglases inside Canadian shot putter Dylan Armstrong. Also, a bear.

Those Japanese women who beat the Canadian pair yesterday? They would not be very much fun to play badminton with at a picnic.

I assume that after years and years of playing water polo, after dedicating so much of your life to achieving excellence in your sport of choice, you still think to yourself during every game: I look ridiculous.

I still don’t understand those Air Canada ads. Maybe they’ll make more sense after the next 200 times I see them.

Here are your contenders for the gold medal in commentary double entendres: Dressage, men’s gymnastics, weightlifting. Weightlifting is the obvious favourite – what with its multiple guaranteed utterances of “clean of jerk” – but men’s gymnastics was unexpectedly strong in these Games, delivering a number of winners, including “Swinging is where he shines” and “He’s got himself on top and he won’t be getting off.”

Speaking of dressage, Mitt Romney’s wife has a horse entered in competition. Every Obama ad should be just 30 seconds of that horse prancing. Election over.

The dressage competition had the added appeal of its commentary being provided by a woman who sounds just like the Dowager Countess from Downton Abbey.

It’s a good thing there are commentators on the CTV track and field broadcast. Otherwise we’d never know that the Canadian shot putter Justin Rodhe, who trained for years to compete at the Olympics but faulted three times in competition, is disappointed not to have done well.

Bad news, ladies: If you watch just two more days of CTV Olympic coverage, you and the RBC cartoon guy are officially common-law.

Speaking of the RBC guy: WHY ARE YOU LETTING HIM SPOT FOR YOU, WEIGHTLIFTER? Dude has three fingers and is animated.

Public service announcement: since CBC is airing the next two Olympics, these are your last 2,977,302 chances to hear “I Believe.”

By the way: I’m not saying I kicked The Tenors in the nuts for recording “I Believe,” but they’re now called The Sopranos.

Hey, everyone: Lunch is on me because I bet heavily on the circular saw in the middle lane in the Rona ad.

The joke will be on all those rowing guys when they discover that girls don’t like muscles and handsomeness.

Observation: I bet Michael Phelps and all these guys got into swimming just so it wouldn’t seem weird when they waxed each other’s chests.

I’ve been keeping track of Brilliant Insights provided by the CTV commentary team at the Games. To win the gold medal in this discipline, you can’t just say something mundane like, “He wanted to do better than that” or “He’s giving it his all.” That’s terrible and everything, but it’s ordinary terrible. Repeating the same empty phrase over and over gets you closer to the medal stand. Barney Williams, who’s at rowing, has the edge here with his repeated utterances of, “TRUST YOUR FITNESS!” But to triumph in a crowded field you’ve got to dig down deep and come up with an observation that’s meant to be profound – that even briefly sounds profound – but is, in fact, not that. At this stage, the diving analyst is going to be hard to beat. She’s the one who said, “Training together is the key to synchronized diving.”