WOW!

[blamebrampton]

You need to know that when Australia plays New Zealand at Rugby, it's like England playing Australia at cricket, or the US versus the USSR at the Olympics in years past. Lives hang on the outcome.

So tonight, when New Zealand beat Australia in the normal rugby, there were groans from the pub up the road that could be heard inside our thick brick and stone walls. But they were watching the wrong game.

At the Paralympics, Ryley Batt, the Australian paralympic equivalent of Jonny Wilkinson, just brought home a victory against the Wheel Blacks that Jonny would have been thrilled to manage. After scoring somewhere between half and a third of his team's points, in the dying seconds he screamed around the whole Kiwi defence to slam his chair into a tiny gap, scoring the winning point. Now THAT was a game.

Now I'm watching the replay of the Aus-US women's wheelchair basketball game, and I have my fingers crossed for the Gliders who I have been supporting since Sydney 2000 (and Liesl Tesch and Kylie Gauci are STILL phenomenal), but I cannot bear to check online to see the outcome. I am in fear, because the US team budget is hugely more than the Australian.

When I interviewed some of the Gliders (and some of the Aus-Rollers, the men's team) in the lead-up to Sydney 2000, I was amazed at the level of training they were able to manage without funding, what money they did receive mostly went on equipment., I think things have improved a little since then, but not much.

And the US won. Bum. The score blew out at the end to 60-48, but was up and down within five points for almost all of it. I would like to take the money that gets put into Australian rugby for a week and give it to one of these teams. Hell, let's take it for a fortnight and give it to both. The sporting spectacle is better, the athletes more committed, and the wanker level very low.

In other news, only a small mystery baby update, apparently the mother had been taking medications that may have masked some signs of pregnancy. Father returns to work next week, so I hope for more details.

We voted in council elections today, which meant the festival of dogs took place at the polling booth. I liked the polite encounter between a foxie with bandana and a giant malamute. The Lord Mayor was returned, she is a decent politician with a good public transport plan that is slowly being implemented, it may be that I will one day cycle in Sydney again. 

As for other Erko news, the nice French lady has a sick cat, which she has been carrying about in a backpack worn at the front, with little kitty face showing. I think everyone has given him a pat to wish him well. The horse festivals are next month, and I missed the deadline to have a sculpture picked up, due to flu, but will try to finish one up tomorrow and see if there is still an opportunity to have it fired. The French cafe/grocery had lamb as its special last night, so we consumed our first proper meal since becoming ill. Oh so very good. But we were too stuffed afterwards to think to buy any of the groceries we required today. Oh well.

Still sleeping a lot and somewhat coughy, but definitely on the mend!

Comments

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

But not as intense as an England=Germiany football match.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

A metaphor I rejected for exactly that reason. There's no sporting contest involving Australians that intense, no matter how much they like to go on about the Ashes.

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

I think there was one football match in Southe America that sparked a war....


We're doing quite well at the paralympics, which is nice to see. Though they really aren't getting much coverage.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Oh anything will start a war in some parts of South America ...

Team GB's cyclists received excellent coverage here, but I've only seen their games against Australia in most other sports. It's a good example of funding reaping rewards, though, as eight years ago team GB had the same issues that the Australians are still dealing with. I do not understand why the major commercial channels don;t at least cover the rugby and the basketball as they are infinitely more physical and exciting games than their everyday counterparts.

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

Ears can start wars.

Yes, we hearda bout them, and some of the swimmers but ther est is through the local portions of the BBC website as human interest and not so much as athletes.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I hate that. I once had another journo critique one of my Paralympic stories in the lead up to 2000 because I hadn't mentioned how the athlete ended up in a wheelchair. I replied that I hadn't mentioned how the football player I'd interviewed prior to the Olympics lost his virginity, either, because these were stories about sport.

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

Otherwise you may as well pat someone on the head and tell their carer how well that person had done.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

You know, I have been occasionally inclined to do this back in the days I used to interview certain starlets ... But I took the optimistic view that they would grow out of it and pursue a rewarding career in daytime television.

[empress-jae.livejournal.com]

you just have to understand. even in wheelchairs, the US will alwaus kick the world's ass in basketball. :P

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

BECAUSE YOU HAVE FUNDING!!! (And perhaps also because all the best players in the world go to the US to take advantage of some of that money when they aren't playing for their own nations at the Olympics and Paralympics.)

ONE DAY WE* WILL BEAT YOU! And there will be singing and rejoicing!


* Team GB or Australia, or, hell, New Zealand, I don't care! I'd probably even cheer Germany.

[empress-jae.livejournal.com]

funding yes. but according to jimmy the greek, out dominance in sports is because slave owners thought about a lucritive future in the sports world. *eyeroll*

althought in all honesty, i'd silently cheer for germany if they beat us in basketball. :D

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

That is one hell of an odd theory. I am backing away from it in a small amount of fear.

And why do Kenyans win in the running, then? Argh, BACKING AWAY!

[empress-jae.livejournal.com]

well...i heard one comedian say years ago that africans are good at marathons because they have to run long distances to get away from hungry lions. and then i heard another comedian say that black american men are good at sprints because they have to run quickly away from the cops.

needless to say i didn't laugh at either of those.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

You don't run away from a lion, you stand very still and look as big and as heavily armed as possible. Stupid comedian!

There is something in the running as a part of life aspect to it, because Kenyans, Ethiopians, Tanzanians and some South Americans do a lot of running as transport every day, the cultures do have a tendency to produce great distance runners, but that's the same way that Australians produce great swimmers and Brits produce great rowers.

Americans have massive college scholarships attached to sporting excellence and an entrenched social underclass with limited ways of gaining education: I cynically suspect this may have a degree of influence.

[libby-drew.livejournal.com]

Glad you're feeling better. :D

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Somewhat better, though today was STINKING hot and I feel like poo, but am still awake as it closes in on 2am. BUM!

[jamie2109.livejournal.com]

I watched some of the Aust/Canada ball game and loved it. God, they were throwing themselves into it with everything they had. It's been terrific to see SBS covering a lot of the paralympics - I just wish that the commercial channels supported it better - like in Sydney.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

The Sydney Paralympics were fantastic! Though I foolishly went bushwalking in Tasmania during them, so I missed out some of the games I really wanted to see.

SO looking forward to the rugby finals. And then there's the AusRollers in the basketball gold match! I can't believe this sort of play isn't telecast in prime time!