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Olympic Rant #15 The Mailman delivers

OLYMPIC coverage by the U.K. newspaper the Daily Mail is ranging from traditional adolescent-male nonsense to the downright weird. Extremely talented GB cyclist Victoria Pendleton is physically attractive and this has not passed across the Mail eagle eyes without notice.

The Mail loves pedalling Vicky

Condoms in the athlete’s village were gold for newspapers throughout the world but the Mail brought to the yarn its personal touch – horny adolescent male meets Monty Python.

The story should have been a few pars in length: 150, 000 complimentary condoms are available to 10,000 athletes. But of course, the Mail banged on and on, mainly in pics but with a few choice words, with the stamina born of erecting thousands of innuendoes to their mastheads.

'

The oh, oh, Ohhh-lympics! As record 150,000 condoms are handed out to a host of super-attractive athletes, could London 2012 be the raunchiest games ever?

·                     Athletes will receive 15 condoms each for the 17-day festival

·                     Victoria Pendleton among the glamorous female stars offered condoms

           ' 

By DAMIEN GAYLE and RICK DEWSBURY

' 

The phenomenal outpouring of prophylactics means there will be 50 per cent more available to athletes in London than the 100,000 handed out at the last Olympics in Beijing in 2008.

                     '

The Mail loves to re-work information already supplied as simple equations such as 150,000 is 50 per cent more than 100,000. It certainly pads out the story and maybe, for some readers, adds gravitas.

On the internet edition of the paper we next have two sexy pictures of Ms Pendleton and four pictures of coloured condoms. 

Then more basic maths which readers apparently cannot get enough of: 

  ' It works out at nearly 15 each for the 10,500 competitors taking part in the Games, with Durex ready to deliver more if the sports stars exhaust their ration.   

                                                                                                                                                        ' 

A bit of an interview with an athlete describing randiness in the village. 

Then another sexy image of Victoria Pendleton, this time in evening wear beside with a cycle. The caption reads: Racy: Sprint cyclist Victoria Pendleton is one of the most glamorous of the British athletes. She has even posed nude in the past.

Now a photo of cyclist Jess Varnish  beside pic #4 of Pendleton.  This time the caption is: Bicycle babes: Cyclist Jess Varnish said she would pose naked if she was as glamorous as her gold medal champion colleague Victoria Pendleton, right.

A barrage of photos from various sports including what look like two young-teenage synchronised swimmers and a playful photo of two young women which the Mail tagged: Intimate: Jenna Randall, 22, right, tweeted a photo of herself sitting by the pool, with her legs wrapped around teammate Katie Skelton, left.

The readers have not seen any numbers for a while so the next photo is captioned: Splashing: Team GB divers Tonia Couch, left, and Tom Daley, right, are dating. Perhaps they will make use of the 30 condoms they'll have between them.

Four buff lads attract the caption: Macho: Australian male swimmers Eamon Sullivan, James Roberts, James Magnussen and Matt Targett on Manley beach in Sydney.

How ironic the macho men from the Mail spelt Manly Beach wrongly.

Four Swedish athletes would be the appropriate way to finish this fantastic report and the Mail does not disappoint. Caption: A recipe for romance: The Swedish women's swimming team will be staying in the same block as Team GB footballers. Let's hope they all behave themselves.

That was good light-hearted entertainment if you ignore the sinister overtones.

But let’s move on…to Victoria Pendleton.

             ' 

Victoria Pendleton rode tearfully into the sunset last night with her dream of a golden goodbye indelibly tainted by a final clash with her biggest rival. 

                                                                                                                               '  

From the first par, the reader can sense a poetic effort rising from the Mail

'She failed to trounce her Australian arch enemy Anna Meares – a win that would finally have laid to rest the controversy, competition and cat-fighting between them.

                                                                                                                                                            '

Ah, cat-fighting the last of the three Cs.

'she was beaten to gold in the next race by a powerhouse performance from the 28-year-old Australian.

Whatever the result, the crowd still adored Vicky, Vicky, Vicky!

                                                                                                                               '

And so to the big finish

'This was Last Night of the Velodrome, a Land of Hope and Glory for the people and one last hurrah for Queen Victoria.

                                                                '
An Australian ran first against Vicky, Vicky, Vicky but Britain did dominate the cycling. The Velodrome had morphed into a Jewel in the Crown of Empire. Well I’ll be a Dutchman. 

The Mail totally lost it in the euphoria of counting almost 40 GB medals before the Games were half over.

I have the feeling this report must go down in the history books of journalism. I am just not sure why.

Here is an edited version because the whole is too much.

'Kings (and queens) of the sitting-down sports:

Two thirds of first 37 medals came from 'sitting down sports

With gold medal contenders including Victoria Pendleton and Chris Hoy still to make individual quests for glory, Team GB could well be on for its best Games performance in 100 years. 
        '

There’s Queen Vic again.

'Statistics revealed that of Team GB's first 37 medals, 66 per cent were in sitting down sports.

Star performances in equestrian, sailing, rowing and cycling have all contributed to Team GB's impressive third place standing in the overall medals table.

By contrast, the two leading nations, China and the USA, both excel in non-sitting down sports.

At the same stage the two nations had over 121 medals - with a sitting down element of just 7 per cent.
                     '

Has anyone out there a clue WTF the Mail is on about?
                                            

Got to be good readin’ because it’s so hard to see.

Bernie Dowling, August 8, 2012.