Big excitement at the Olympic Velodrome (aka the Pringle) yesterday evening, as the GB men's cycling trio won the team sprint event in a world record time. Medal safely in hand, however, the team's lead-off rider, Philip Hindes, made a surprising admission. In the preliminary round he had got off to a bad start, and therefore deliberately fell off his bike in order to force a restart! The team brass were quick to cover his tracks (so to speak), saying variously that his words had been misinterpreted, or were meant as a joke. The media, happy to see Team GB moving up the medals table, seem willing to accept this.
Here's a thing, though: Hindes was born in Germany, and until a couple of years ago could have chosen to represent that country in international competition. Can you just imagine how the UK tabloid press would have reacted if Hindes had in fact been riding for the land of his birth yesterday, and had diddled Team GB out of a medal through such tactics? It hardly bears thinking about.
Anyway, after a hard day's Olympic watching yesterday, I decided to flip through the channels in search of something entirely unrelated to sport. There on the excellent Sky Arts 1 was the world's smuggest man, the conductor Andre Rieu, coming to us from an outdoor stage in Maastricht. He brought onto the stage a gorgeous African soprano, and announced that she would be singing JS Bach's Ave Maria. In his most confiding tones, Rieu let us know that "with the passion she brings to this piece, it becomes like a prayer". You don't say? I wonder if that was the composer's intention.
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