Poms missing in action
HEY Team England, where the bloody hell are you?
Here we were all excited about those Australia-England rivalry stories, but so far the gold medal contest has been as close as Origin III, 2015.
The gutsiest English performance of the Games up until now has been Camilla staying awake through the opening ceremony. That and the Pommy journalist asking Sally Pearson if she was being “disingenuous”.
If he’d bothered to do his research that tosser would know Australians don’t understand words with more than three syllables.
As for the England athletes, the only ones who look like they came to the Gold Coast with any intention of putting their bodies on the line are the ones who posted their photos on Tinder. The rest have been duds.
No wonder they didn’t bother giving them proper uniforms.
A couple of weeks before the Games a London newspaper published a list of England’s best gold medal chances.
Of those whose events have happened so far, sprinter Adam Gemili and diver Tom Daley pulled out with injury, triathlon superstars the Brownlee Brothers looked more like the Marx Brothers, squash top seeds Nick Matthew and Laura Massaro didn’t make it to the final, gymnast Max Whitlock got bucked off the pommel horse for the first time in three years and the women’s triples bowls team was eliminated by South Africa, which was beaten in the final by Australia.
Oh, and spectacularly tattooed breaststroker Adam Peaty – who two days earlier had predicted his unbeaten run would never end – was beaten. Maybe all that ink on his left arm weighed him down.
The whole debacle has been personified by Olympic bronze medal hammer thrower Sophie Hitchon, who was out after three straight no-throws – or, as one reporter put it, “went round in circles and got nowhere”.
Unfair? Maybe. There’s no doubt Team England has had some bad luck. Take butterfly world champion Ben Proud for instance. If only someone had told him you’re supposed to stay on the blocks until after the starter sounds the hooter he would have won his heat swim for sure. Well, probably anyway.
Same with hurdler Adam Pozzi. Adam, mate, the idea is to jump over them, not through them. And as for cyclist Melissa Lowther, I think we’re all in — Lauren Wood agreement she would have been a good chance to win the individual pursuit if only team officials had remembered to enter her.
Seriously? This is the worst organised English campaign since Gallipoli. The Pommy team is so bad even the British tabloids can’t be bothered bagging them. The coverage back home is almost non-existent and that’s saying something.
So what’s going on, England? This is an event to commemorate the British Commonwealth of Nations. You started the bloody thing and now the rest of us are stuck with it, so the least they can do is take the Games seriously.
Anything less would be … what’s the word? Disingenuous.
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