gullybogan

Flickr photo by Gullybogan.

Dear Reader,

I don’t know about you, but i’m pretty much over the Olympics®.

I’ve had enough of fricken China, and i’ve had enough of looking at Libby Trickett’s dopey fricken smile, and if i have to bear witness to one more fricken historic moment that’ll live for all time, i’m going to puke boxing kangaroos.

Being an Australian, the Olympics® for me is the swimming, with the occasional surprising sideshow in the shooting, or the rowing, or the equestrian. But mostly it’s all about the swimming.

And swimming is just black blobs splashing up and down a pool.

It was great while Stephanie Rice was winning all those Olympic® Gold Medals™, and we were all pleased for her and for the fact that she’d remembered to shave her underarms, but now she’s finished swimming, and all she has to do is hang around the Olympic® Village looking for a spare root and waiting for either Ralph or FHM to return her agent’s calls. And there’s not much interest for us in that, at least not until the raunchy photos start appearing on the interwebs.

And adding to the ho-hummery of the whole shebang, Australia’s not been as successful in the pool this meet as we were hoping to be. Probably cos now everyone has those cheat suits that ppl like that underwear designer and has-been swimmer, something-or-other Thorpe (Andrew? Ian? What was his first name?) used to wear.

The only real interest in the pool in the post-cheat-suit era stems from wondering whether or not the zipper in one of Speedo’s LZR Racer suits is going to fail (and the zippers have failed at least twice, costing swimmers medals) in such a way that the whole laser-fused assemblage is going to just sproing off of the athlete in a world record wardrobe malfunction, leaving her (cos we’re not that interested if it’s a him) standing on the launchpad stark naked.

Now that would drive up ratings.

And it could happen, too.

Basically, the suits are just rubbery full-body corsets, with the tensile strength of the cables holding the roadway to the Westgate Bridge.

Ppl are saying that maybe Speedo’s LZR Racer suits should be banned for all time. This is on account of two reasons:

1. They seem to be making it far too easy for swimmers to break records, so they must be adding to the athletes’ performances, the way, say, drugs would add to their performances
2. They’re not bursting open and leaving swimmers standing stark naked on the launch pad often enough

The suit is designed to compress the swimmer’s body, stopping vibrations and cadences in the muscles that detract from the task of powering through the water, and they also shape the athlete into the right posture to be swimming at their best capacity.

They cost $500 each, and have to be replaced after ten races.

Speedo offered them free to any Olympic competitor who wanted one. The suits have to be cut exactly to the shape of the swimmer, so Speedo now has in its databanks the exact dimensions of every Olympic® swimming competitor in the whole world.

Sounds like a plot line from Doctor Who, much?

Speedo are talking about having suits for the 2012 London Games that are coloured, taking advantage of colour therapy, and possibly scented, the way you can buy lavender-scented tyres for your car now, to take advantage of aromatherapy.

Personally, i think the IOC should just make the swimmers compete naked. That way, everybody is on an even and unassisted playing field.

Plus it would make great television.

Yours,
Gullybogan