Born with potential to be an Olympian

I’VE realised that I’m a potential Olympian. I now know I could win a medal.

There are those who say I would win gold if bullshitting was recognised by the IOC, definitely a medal if there was, say, a couch pentathlon for channel hopping while lying on the couch, eating pretzels, opening a beer and arguing with the commentators – all at the same time.

Sadly, though, my talents have been unremarked, unremarkable and definitely unrewardable – until Tuesday night SA time.

There in Rio, on one of DStv’s array of Olympic-dedicated channels, was a green pool.

I’d segued from the swimming, where South Africa had high hopes, and was in a holding pattern until the Blitzbokke kicked off their 15-minute annihilation of France.

I’d watched the 3m springboard event a couple of nights before. The athleticism and the timing had blown me away, but this one was in a league of its own.

Apart from being hopelessly unathletic, unbelievably unco-ordinated and slothful (see above), I’m also terrified of heights.

I wouldn’t have been able to get up to the platform, never mind jump off feet first, but here were athletes, some just into their teens, doing pikes and twists together, and then entering the water with nary a ripple from a height that had my gorge rising.

I was enthralled and then horrified.

All the other events were sparklingly blue, but this one was snot green; the underwater camera providing extraordinary visuals of something more Piranha 3D than Rio 2016.

And then my heart was glad, because if there’s something I succeed in, it’s ruining the chemistry of any swimming pool I’ve ever had to look after.

I can keep pools pristine during winter, but just when you want to use it because it’s warm enough, I’ll turn it green – effortlessly.

And then, once I’ve blown a colossal amount of money throwing in enough chemicals to create a cloud above the pool and have the kids jump in normal and emerge with orange hair, rashes and asthma, there’ll be a highveld storm and one lightning strike will mean I’ll have to empty the pool and start all over, trying not to wince when the bill comes in from the City of Joburg at the end of the month.

At least that’s what the professional pool cleaners told me when I got them in after my wife threatened to divorce me if I didn’t get the pool back to normal.

I am the reason why professional pool cleaners exist. I keep them, electricians, plumbers and handymen in business.

I didn’t do physics at school, I cannot work out a pH scale – and I can’t add acid to a swimming pool without destroying the shirt I’m wearing.

I confuse Kreepy Kraulies and make those leaf catchers on the outlets rise into the air in anger of their own accord, untouched by my hand or anyone else’s.

All this, though, is finally in the past; we finally own a home without a pool and marital bliss has been restored.

But on Tuesday night, I realised I wasn’t alone.

More than that, I could have been a contender, I could have made that diving pool look just the way it did in Rio. The sad part is you can’t win medals for that – yet.