What to do now the Olympics are over
Sport Review #290
Two glorious, glorious weeks of Olympic games finished last weekend - since then someone will have said to you ‘I don’t know what I’ll do when they’re over lol!’ approximately five times a day. Frankly, real life compared to glittering international sporting spectacles sucks, and while the athletes will swiftly be on to the next thing, you are stuck with it. Here are a few ways you can transition back to normal, but I’m warning you, it’s not pretty.
Recreate the excitement of the velodrome for yourself - go out to shed. Brush cobwebs off bike. Look for pump. Swear. Find pump, use pump, go to bike shop for new tube or patch repair kit if you’re feeling adventurous. Achieve two inflated tires. Get on bike on driveway. Try to test brakes. Smack into recycling bin. Change gears. Put chain back on bike. Put bike in car and drive to bike shop, where the guy will tell you you definitely 100% need a new bike and they now cost $2500 sorry. Leave bike unlocked at the park and ride and drive sadly away.
Catch up on your shows - DW, there are still many seasons of Parks and Rec waiting on TVNZ for you to plough through.
Go to the rugby - lol, no, if you’re looking for sevens or indeed women’s rugby there’s nothing really like that happening here any time soon.
Latch on to a minor sport - in all seriousness, get stuck into volleyball, athletics, gymnastics, kayak cross and all these other sports we become aware of every four years and swiftly forget. There’s a whole lot of athletes chipping away and not getting in the paper or on the telly that could use a few more supporters to help them get coverage or indeed sponsors.
Catch up on the highlights - go to Sky Sport Now menu, look around, get very frustrated, log off.
See if you can compete at the next one - We are at the start of another Olympic cycle, so if you want to be part of it, now’s the time. You’re unlikely to paddle alongside Dame Lisa, but Flag Football will be there at LA 28, and there’s a local set up - this might be your best chance. Let me know if you see any roles for substandard newsletter writers advertised, yeah cheers.
Start an argument about the Halbergs - just don’t. It’s not interesting, and a rower will win.
Get back to business as usual - let’s get really honest for a second, the Olympic Games are a smorgasbord of avoiding reality, enabling you to gleefully abandon all the rules on getting enough sleep, eating properly, doing work and fulfilling your responsibilities as an adult. “Sorry I’m late for the Teams, I stayed up watching the fencing.” “I can’t come to your coffee catch up, the reason is I am watching the triathlon.” This pinnacle of sporting and civic achievement is the best excuse going to wholeheartedly tell the world to naff off and really LIVE. On the couch.
Sport Review is sorry to tell you this precious time is now Over, you have 3,452 unread emails and you should probably try and rebuild relationships with your workmates and family and go for a vigorous walk. Apologies, unsubscribe if you need, I respect it.
Thanks for reading - Richard
This week's best NZ sport content
Right - the Olympics. Dylan Cleaver hands out the end-of-games awards, then has Heath Mills in for some typically well reasoned arguing about why athletes should be looked after better in this multi, multi billion dollar exercise. Rowan Simpson does the per capita table bit, Dana Johannsen wrote about Cycling NZ coming back from tragedy and soul searching to grab some medals, while Suzanne McFadden celebrates the achievements of our women athletes. [The Bounce, Top Three, RNZ, Locker Room]
So the All Blacks’ poor crowd at SKY stadium was either exactly the same as they always get or emblematic of a complete lack of vibes due to hubris and looking like shit next to the Olympians ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [RNZ, NZ Herald]
Football - Dan Slevin watches a cool-looking play about Gareth Southgate and England, while Bonnie Jansen has the inside story on how Auckland FC plucked Alex Paulsen from the Phoenix [Sportsfreak, NZ Herald]
Video nasty
Crazy scenes.
Long read
Football managers are famously either sacked or about to be sacked - but what do they do after that? Thanks to the Sport Review tipline for this one [Guardian]
Recommendation
Four hours of chat (part one, part two) about Pulp Fiction is my kind of thing - the Rewatchables podcast do justice to the 1994 epic that started just about everything [Ringer]