Swimming Suks

Image via WikipediaCrickey on the joys of televised swimming, set to swamp our airwaves here in Australia over the next few weeks.

At athletics we suck, which is presumably why the majority of television you will watch between now and the end of the Beijing Games will be in some way connected with the fortunes of brave Aussie boys and girls in the pool. Which is both a pity and a lost opportunity. If there is anything more tedious than televised swimming it's probably swimming on radio.

Both are to be avoided in the lonely quest for a civilised existence. Here we go then. Games wall to wall, and the focus will not be on the great opportunity of Olympic competition -- exposing a momentarily attentive and curious audience to the eccentricities of fringe sports and their arcane mysteries -- but rather slavishly dwelling on the events in which Aussie gold is on offer. Here we go. Splash.

We will just have to wait until Cricket hits the Olympics for another sport to get a look in. How about it Lord Coe?

And if you didn't think that the Olympics was about raw power and money, the scheduling of the swimming finals was changed to meet the armchair habits of the largest rights holder NBC. Now they will be held first thing in the morning and likely shown later that day here in Australia. I will pass on both.

Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

I laughed when they talked about swimming on the radio. So true. Editors Disclosure. I have always hated swimming ever since I was thrust into a freezing pool at an early age to be terrorised learn to swim. We have one in our back yard and I like to get in for about 3 minutes to cool down on a hot day. Laps, fawgettit.

As for the Olympics, I'll just order take out and do some domestic chores thanks.