TANTRUMS and upset have marred day four of the Commonwealth Games, with collapses, disqualifications and chair-hurling signifying the strain the athletes are under.
It also signifies the strain I’m under. As someone who has been held captive and forced to watch these games, I’m a little on edge too. The final straw came when the office vending machine kept rejecting my crumpled five dollar note. I almost flipped all the furniture in the room like weightlifter Boady Santavy did when he lost out on gold today. But more on irrational lashing out later.
DAD’S MORTIFYING HEARTBREAK: James Weir recaps the Commonwealth Games
Clearly emotions are high and everyone’s counting down to when they can eat fast food again.
Tensions reached their peak Sunday when Claire Tallent was disqualified from the 20k race walk. I love the race walk — mainly because I legitimately think I could enter and win one. After all, my habit of being perpetually 45 minutes late for work every day of my adult life has been terrific training.
The difficult part of the race walk is nailing your speed. You can’t meander, but you also can’t tear through the course like a mum at an Aldi sale.
Several elements make the late-for-work dash the perfect training ground. You have to dodge all the slow losers on the footpath and suppress the overwhelming urge to push them onto the road. But it’s carrying the takeaway coffee cup that really helps you maintain a precise and acceptably hasty speed.
You can’t run with the takeaway coffee cup because it will spill. And if your barista is like mine, he’s a jerk who carelessly fills it too high and aligns the sip-hole with the cup crease, leading to easy splashes. So you have to notch up to a speed that’s swift but not unsteady — focusing on strong leg work and minimising jerky upper-body movements. You can’t look down at the cup. Looking down only leads to anxiety and a definite spill. Instead, you’ve just got to look ahead to the finish line: your office’s glass revolving door.
Australia’s Claire Tallent had clearly been practising hard with the takeaway coffee cups. Everything was going fabulously for her and she was on track to make it into the office before her boss realised she was late.
But then she looked down at the takeaway coffee cup. It threw her off. Without realising, she started running at Aldi-mum speeds and both feet left the ground. She was busted and disqualified.
It was a stunning upset. Almost more shocking than today’s news that Ian Thorpe and Giaan Rooney have been operating a questionable gypsy cab service on the Gold Coast to make extra cash on the side of their Channel Seven commentary gigs. I think I read that story correctly.
With Tallent collapsed and crying on the road, fellow Australian Jemima Montag beat her to the office — with her coffee cup full and her boss completely unaware she was late.
Watching these games has really inspired me to get out and put my own body to the test. Exhilarated by the possibilities, I finished my king size Twirl and traipsed into my local Fitness First. From the CCTV footage below, you’ll see the dream ended just moments into my routine. Towards the end of the clip, you’ll note a team of personal trainers covering me with a tarp.
By Sunday evening, all eyes were on Emily Seebohm. The previous night, she was robbed of a third Commonwealth Games gold medal in the women’s 100m because of the open-roof stadium at the Gold Coast Aquatic Centre. Apparently because there’s no roof, there was nothing for her to focus on as a guide to stay straight during backstroke. She became momentarily disoriented and got tangled the ropes.
I had no idea this is how swimmers stay in a straight line while doing backstroke and clearly this is the only reason why I sucked so much at school swimming carnivals. If only our substandard public swimming pool in north Queensland had a roof I could’ve reached my true athletic ability.
This realisation only made me sympathise with Emily more when, again, she missed out on gold and placed third in the 200m backstroke on Sunday night at the inferior roofless pool.
Other, more bitter, people might point out that all the other competitors managed to race successfully without a roof but I’m not going to mention that.
Sports fans are so disgusted when they see athletes throw a post-loss tantrum. They think it’s disgraceful, but I don’t agree. Losing sucks and sometimes you just want to hurl a chair.
And that’s just what Canadian weightlifter Boady Santavy did when he missed out on gold to Papua New Guinea’s Steven Kari in the 94kg final.
The raw moment captured in a series of screenshots below could depict both Santavy’s loss and my reaction to the office vending machine that is still rejecting my five dollar note for no damn reason.
Either way, it’s a natural human reaction to a cruel outcome.
For more observations on Aldi sales and being late for work, follow me on Twitter: @hellojamesweir
