Unfortunately this week normal ‘The Week on the Telly’ service has been suspended because, after complaining about it for the best part of a year, I’ve suddenly got really into the Olympics. Almost a week has passed since the opening ceremony and if it wasn’t for the need to go to work I would have spent the entirety of the last seven days in front of the TV, giggling every time someone mentions a ‘men’s semi’. Watching anything else but the Olympics seems wrong. I’ve even missed an episode of Superscrimpers.

I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that elite athletes are just better people than us. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t hunched in front of the TV/my iPhone watching these demi-gods flip and spin and dash around in tight Lycra. I’ve even found myself angrily and unreasonably demanding that Team GB win more medals.

I think I might be turning into a sports fan.

These are some of the events I’ve been enjoying so far…

Women’s Football

On Tuesday, the British Women’s football team beat Brazil to come top of their qualifying group. No, you haven’t read that wrong; a British football team won all of their group games in a major international tournament. It just wasn’t the men.

Usually when watching any of Great Britain’s men’s teams I feel like I would have to perform a blood sacrifice just for someone to get a shot on target. The women just make it look effortless. Apparently Rio Ferdinand tweeted that they were very good, which was generous, but he’d be better off asking them for tips.

Swimming

Most of the events in this first week have been at the aquatic centre, where we get to see sexy mer-people win medals for being the hottest/fastest at swimming. My favourite event is the 4x anything metre men’s relay, and I excuse my shameless perving by using it to off-set the perving over the women’s Beach Volleyball. I’m basically doing the world a service.

The only reason why I’m not hanging around the Olympic village right now like some kind of destitute swimming groupie is because of a creature so terrifying that I get the shivers just thinking about it- Swimming Moms. Michael Phelps’ mother looks like she could swallow a girl alive just by looking at her, and Ryan Lochte’s mom has been widely reported declaring that her precious boy only has time for one night stands. No doubt this is true, but the sexual activities of a 27 year old man have no place in a mother’s knowledge. Maybe she is arranging the one night stands for him, like a horrifying aqua-pimp.

Horses

My intense hatred and distrust of horses is well documented by me screaming every time I see one, but by the time the equestrian events started I was so dazed from Team GB medal lust that I found myself cheering for the horrifying creatures. I even cheered for Zara Philips.

I saw a few internet commentators claiming that riding a horse is not a real sport, but I think that anyone who can keep their composure while guiding a dangerous and ferocious beast over a series of jumps higher than a person deserves a gold medal the size of the Shard.

Gymnastics

If I could do half of things that gymnasts can do, I’d never walk anywhere ever again. ‘Walking is for suckers,’ I’d shout as I triple back-flipped down the street. In reality my flabby, inflexible body lies prone on the sofa as I stare in amazement at other people doing these seemingly impossible, gravity defying things on the TV. Gymnastics has always been my favourite, being one of the more visually interesting events. Who doesn’t love to watch men with biceps bigger than their heads hold their bodies horizontal on a pair of steady rings?

This year’s competition has also provided us with actual competitors to cheer on, in the form of the men’s team who won bronze on Monday, the first British gymnastics medal in a hundred years. There was even a scoring controversy, taking the British team down from a silver medal to bronze, to please those sports fans who enjoy sitting in the corners of pubs muttering ‘we was robbed’ darkly into their pints.

For those of you who are yet to get into the spirit of things and are still complaining about transport and security and the cost, I have this to say: I was like you once. I thought the whole thing was a pointless, ridiculous spectacle, but now there are actual superheroes doing insane things right in front of our eyes. Also it’s pretty much the only thing on TV right now, so you might as well get involved.

 

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