Fascinating. That would be the best word to use when talking about the world athletic championships in Helsinki. Not just because the Dutch team won a first gold medal ever, with Rens Blom on the pole vault, but just in general. Just watched the finish of the 50km speedwalking… Amazing event! What kid that joins an athletic club does that with the intention to become a 50km speedwalker champion?! Non right? You would think they would blindly go for the decathlon! That must be by far the most fun, as you get to do all things… mmmmm… except speedwalking though… I always thought that as a kid, everybody starts with the decathlon and if it turns out you are doing really well at one of the events, you specialize. And now I understand it! If you suck at all events, you go speedwalking! :-) Probably not… And this is for sure not the place to talk badly about speedwalkers! Especially not as the world champion (Kirdyapkin Sergey from Russia for who missed it) did the 50km in an amazing 3:38:08… That deserves only one word… Respect! Although he still looked rather funny, wiggling like a drunken duck for 50km! :-)

There seem to be fascinating stories at almost every event. It’s just sad we hardly get to hear about those… I read on a Belgium TV-text page an amazing story about a shot put contester from Samoa, Shaka Sola. He missed his flight to Helsinki, got there to late for the shot put qualification, so decided to enter in another event, the javelin throw! Why not! Else he made the whole trip for nothing! Lovely story. The good man finishes last on the javelin throw qualification, with more then 40 meters less then the number one, but who cares! The crowed loved him! :-)

I don’t understand why there is not more coverage on stories like that! It’s briljant stuff! Very entertaining and there must be so many stories like that… It’s just sad no one wants to tell them… :-(

This entry was posted on Friday, August 12th, 2005 at 19:16 and is filed under News & media, Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.