TwoMacs Podcast

TwoMacs Podcast Ep12: The Power and Perils of Sports

• Ronan McSherry & Martin McGuinness

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Sport has the power to let us forget our troubles for a while as we bask in the excitement of human endeavour, courage and competition. 
However charlatans, shysters and cheats also taint great competitions. The TwoMacs recall fantastic Olympic memories and heroes going back decades, as well as the darker side with those who cheated their way to the podium. We also recall cyclists whose glory was a lie, boxing fixes, a few dodgy GAA refs and a battle to end all battles in Croke Park, when on-field decisions resulted in Derry supporters and the Gardai engaged in mass hand-to-hand combat.
Tune in for a captivating exploration of the highs and lows that make sport an integral part of our lives.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the 2Max podcast again and the whole gang's back again Oliver's back on the controls, rahaly, glennoa Rahaly and Craig Theatre aficionado Martin Calvin stood in Oliver was on his holidays and the Hall of County at a great time and interviewed Gerry Goodwin last week. So Martin McGuinness is back with me today and I'll just start this by saying, on the way over, martin from Stewartstown, okay, domiciled, what's domiciled mean?

Speaker 2:

It means you're living somewhere, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Like retired nearly no, no, I don't think so. Okay, so I'm living in Stewartstown and I was coming across in the old police station there, which is just land there by the looks of it, but somebody threw lovely flowers on it a couple of years ago during lockdown. But I see now it's a lovely kept town, Stewartstown. There's a display of five towers and displayed like the Olympic rings, with the colours. Town Stewartstown there's a display of five towers in display like the Olympic rings, with the colours of the Olympics and flowers on them.

Speaker 2:

I noticed them the other day, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I thought they were very nice. You know, I just thought it was very topical, very nice, and they do green, blue, black, red, yellow yellow, green, blue, black, red, yellow. I think it represents that every flag in the world has one of those colours in the flag. Perhaps I'm not sure I have noticed recently. I've always noted that it's raining down with sport. Can I tell you a little story about my father?

Speaker 2:

Go ahead go ahead.

Speaker 1:

Well, no, not before we get going, because we are going. My father's departed 30 years ago. We had at times we had a fractious relationship. It had its moments. My stepmother was always very consistent and there wasn't much controversy a lot of the time. But when we fought it could be fractious at times. But I always noticed that when we went to sport there was never any friction, any anger, any anything. That it was always like a. Do you know that saying panini ex circus? Is that a bread and circuses?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

That it pacified us. You know, they say religion is the opium of the masses. Who said that? Marx, sorry, Marx. At some point I think sport is maybe the religion of the masses, or the opium of the masses too. Right that when we watched any time we watched sport, well, it was. They're my best memories with my father. Well, I was on the sofa watching Muhammad Ali, fa Cup Finals, european Cup Finals I'm talking the 70s or European Cup finals, talking the 70s, or whether it was going to Crowe Park or Clonus, I have nothing but foreign memories and we just seemed to be in a zone where, a bit like the First World War, when the Germans and the English apparently stepped into no man's land to stop fighting.

Speaker 2:

That's an interesting comparison.

Speaker 1:

Well, it wasn't World War, but there were moments. But anyway, and I've noticed recently, we're just, it's a deluge. I just I go from sport to sport anyway. The all iron horn final was incredible. The football finals this weekend with Armagh this will go out after the Armagh game, so hopefully they all had a great day. Club games all the time are just over. The euros. The Olympics is on us now. Apparently there's 240 hours a week or 240 hours in the next two weeks. On the BBC they were geo-black or whatever the hell you call it from RT here which is showing 14 hours a day.

Speaker 1:

I love the Olympics. I think there's something. I find there's something for everyone in the audience, young and old and everybody, even those people that don't really take an interest in sport. And I find, for me, I'm very fired by Irish competitors, even in the sport. Like Rhys McLennan will be on the pommel horse. I wouldn't know a pommel horse from a close horse, right, but I'd be transfixed hoping he wins the gold. Sure, absolutely from a close horse, but I'd be transfixed hoping he wins the gold absolutely.

Speaker 1:

And I remember I just have a memory going back again, stuck in the 70s perhaps, but there you go in the 1970 Ulster final in Cronus there was a boy called Sean Dre from a place called Bagelstown. He won a world championship medal but he was competing in the Olympics in Montreal in 1976 and we were me and my dad was at the Ul Olympics in Montreal in 1976 and we were me and my dad was at the Ulster final between Derry and somebody, calvin, and people were huddled around the radio listening to how he got on the Olympics. Now he was a rower of single skulls, whatever that is. I had absolutely no notion, no, anything about you know. But I was very interested and he came forth and there was a tinge of disappointment, I suppose. But to me the Olympics draws everyone into something that is supposed to be wholesome and good and joyful. I'm sure you've your Olympic memories too.

Speaker 2:

I have. Well, I suppose one of the first one is seeing Valerie Bortsov on the front of the Radio Times. This was in 1972 and Valery Botsov was not a woman, it was a man, a Russian man, and it was a colour cover picture of him running. You know, it was taken kind of full on. He was facing the camera and underneath it said something like the fastest man alive. He was a sprinter and in the Munich Olympics he won the 100 metres and he also won the 200 metres, you know, and I remember thinking that Valerie was a funny name for a man, but he was Russian, you know.

Speaker 1:

You can argue that all spinners are Russian.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, listen, if we start going like this I must go. But anyway, when I was thinking of that it reminded me of my mother for names, because she used to go on about names as if people in China or something should be called O'Hara or Murphy. But I remember you were visiting here once and she came out and she says there's a boy playing snooker and he's called Fu F-U. That's his name. And then she started to repeat it and say to you F-U, and God love her. She never thought that she might have been being offensive, you know, or insulting. I'm sure I wasn't offended.

Speaker 1:

Martin.

Speaker 2:

No, no. But anyway that 1972 Olympics, I think it always throws up certain characters. They become kind of household names, like there was Olga Corbett, I think, in in 1972 charming and incredible.

Speaker 1:

It was like she brought the gymnastics to everybody. Yes, the spins and all good, and she was so charming and petite and all that there, but she was one wonderful athlete, yeah and and and you get.

Speaker 2:

You become surprised that you know before the Olympics. If anybody had said what do you think of gymnastics? Yeah, I'd have been non-committal, I wouldn't have known but was that Floor?

Speaker 1:

oh no, she wasn't.

Speaker 2:

Beams and everything yeah, she was too, and then Mark Spitz, of course oh yeah, he was 72 as well, he was a swimmer yeah, he got seven seven goals in the pool, yeah. Mary Peters down the road oh yeah, mary Peters was she. I think she was pentathlon track and field, pentathlon and I don't know.

Speaker 1:

But, as I say, pentathlon anyway she was say she competed for Britain, although we would be, I suppose, more cheering for Ireland. But there you go, she won a gold.

Speaker 2:

God bless her she's a good age now and she's still about, I think yeah, well, I just remember, as I say, these characters coming up later on. I think it was probably there was another gymnast, nadia Comaneci. Yeah, and she was Romanian. But again, incredible.

Speaker 1:

I think she was the first to hit the perfect tens, was she?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, she was about 14, I think, and I just happened to look her up recently. She's 62. It's hard to believe. You know that's what happens. Yes, and then people like David Emery is one I remember, scottish swimmer David Wilkie can I tell you my first memory, which is quite that goes back earlier, doesn't it?

Speaker 1:

it's funny. You know it's the 1968 Olympics. I didn't even see it on television, it was 8 years, that goes back earlier, doesn't it it? Does go back. It's funny. You know, it's the 1968 Olympics, right?

Speaker 2:

I didn't even see it on television, is this? It was eight years ago. Oh Mexico. Is it Mexico, I suppose at altitude.

Speaker 1:

Does that make you float, or something?

Speaker 2:

It's meant to have some kind of effect.

Speaker 1:

And our kitchen was like that and there was three steps down into the living room and and there was three steps down into the living room and then if you opened the door of the living room you went down the hallway to the front door. It was on the main street in Coal Island and I came down and my father was stepping out from the oven, down the kitchen, down the steps, doing these big steps like John Cleese, through the living room, down the hallway, 26, 27, 28,. And then he says there was a man jumped that far last night. That's how far he jumped. He jumped from that oven to the front door.

Speaker 1:

Okay right, but he didn't jump from the oven to the front door. He nearly jumped out of the pit in Mexico.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1:

By the name of Bob Beeman.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, he's American Funny name when you consider the time Beeman. But anyway, and I've seen the footage often since and it was remarkable and he kind of big, long straight him, and the head going back and forward and he practically cleared the pit. He smashed the world record to pieces. I don't think it was touched again for 68, 78, maybe 16 or 20 years by Carl Lewis. Yeah, I just remember my dad doing that, you know, and at the time I did think it was quite funny the way he was going on but it's my first memory, although I didn't even see it on TV.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, he wouldn't the tennis court unless he, he, he.

Speaker 1:

He threw up a hole in the wall and ran out through Hackett's backyard, you know but then?

Speaker 2:

yeah, but I was just thinking.

Speaker 1:

I would. You know, we'll maybe get on to fraudsters and like Eamon Dunphy, I like Eamon Dunphy. Not everybody's cup of tea. I like Eamon Dunphy. He's straight, he's controversial. He can be crazy, like Bradley, he can be outrageous and maybe that attracts me to him. But I remember him saying that people come to sport to get away from the corruption, chancers and shysters. You know, to watch honest, human endeavour.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

And, in hindsight, it hasn't always been honest, no well, and there's been a lot of shysters and fraudsters.

Speaker 2:

Well, absolutely. Do you mind if I get highfalutin and quote a philosopher?

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

No.

Speaker 1:

I don't mind.

Speaker 2:

Here's Immanuel Kant, out of the crooked timber of humanity. No straight thing was ever made. So you know, you're always going to get that where people are going to try and pull fast ones, and what have you?

Speaker 1:

you know, yeah, you'd like to be an idealist and live in this world where you think nobody cheats and nobody's pulled a fast one. One of the earliest I remember, lassie Verne. Do you remember him? He was a Finnish long distance, I read. They say you ever hear that saying they say yeah, but they said he was practically a walking chemist shop. Sure, the amount of medical stuff he was taking to enable his performance, but it wasn't bad. I suppose it was legal, you know. But he won four gold in 1972 and 1976 at the 5,000 and 10,000 meters. But the thing was between the Olympics, he and 10,000 meters, but the thing was between the Olympics. He wasn't yeah, he wasn't doing the business. Now, what they said what he was doing was taking blood transfusions Right, some sort of a blood doping thing where you get a transfusion of red blood cells.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's what they did later on, I think.

Speaker 1:

And he admitted. You know what he admitted. I read this. He's what they did later on, I think. And he admitted. You know what he admitted. I read this he admitted. Why did he admit? You're not allowed to do this. He was taking reindeer milk and he attributed his success to reindeer milk. Very, very dubious story. But he actually got christened the godfather of doping.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

And I vaguely remember Lasse Verne was an incredible athlete. Finland's not a country you'd associate with. You know blowing everybody away at athletics. It was often the Kenyans and the Americans.

Speaker 2:

Sure sure.

Speaker 1:

Certainly not, you know. But when you read that years later I suppose it's a wee bit disappointed, you know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but I think it's been going on from well. You know, certainly probably as long as there's been sport, people have been trying to get an unfair advantage on their opponent, you know, by taking performance-enhancing drugs. We were talking about soccer there recently. I know that there was a campaign to stop the in 1970, the England team. There were people trying to keep the in 1970 the England team were there were people trying to keep them up all night with noise outside the hotel room and all that kind of stuff. Obviously it wasn't. I don't know. You can't attribute that to the Brazilians. It was before the Brazil match.

Speaker 2:

But no, the cycling is a big one, I think, for the the. There's an american called tyler hamilton and he won a gold medal, uh, in 2004, 2004 olympics, and he said later, when he kind of came clean, he said that he got more satisfaction giving the gold medal back than he did in winning it Because he was brought up to kind of do the right thing. But he'd become part of this culture where doping was just. You know, if you wanted to win, you weren't going to win unless you were doping. You know, if you wanted to win, you weren't going to win unless you were doping, you know.

Speaker 1:

See, I can't understand why people I don't know, I suppose it's ego and you're a hero but one of the most cynical cases I came across was a fella called Boris Onishenko from Russia. He was in the modern pentathlon. One of the skills or one of the competitions was, like that, sword fencing crack, and they used a thing called an EP, e-p-e-e, but he hada modifier on when you pressed the E button and it clicked a hit.

Speaker 1:

Right Rather than have to push it into the body like it got through and it was in the air at one stage and it was registering hits.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

So he had modified this thing before he even got to the Olympics. Yes, which I thought was, it's just so usually cynical, you know? Yeah, and he became known as Boris the Cheat. He was banned for life, supposedly banned for life in 76. But apparently after the Olympics he was called before the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Is it Leonid Brezhnev?

Speaker 2:

Leonid Brezhnev. Leonid Brezhnev.

Speaker 1:

And he got a personal scolding.

Speaker 2:

Yeah for being caught.

Speaker 1:

I would think it was probably for being caught and letting the side down and showing them up. But that's you know, that is so cynical.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

But you were talking about the side. I suppose the granddad of them all or the daddy of them all was Mr Armstrong was it.

Speaker 2:

I'd say he's one of the most kind of infamous you know, especially as he denied it for so long.

Speaker 2:

And there was an Irish journalist called David Walsh who had kind of sued him for a number of years and Walsh was kind of vilified as well for doing it. Like at the time when Tony Blair handed over to Gordon Brown, tony Blair's spin doctor, alistair Campbell, thought he'd love to. You know he wanted to interview Lance Armstrong because Lance Armstrong was his hero and David Walsh was writing for the Sunday Times. So Alistair Campbell goes and interviews Lance Armstrong for the Times, the sister paper of the Sunday Times, and he more or less begins by saying you know, journalists have said an awful lot of bad things about me and I know they say an awful lot of bad things about you, lance. And he's more or less saying that there are shits, these journalists and this hero you know. Remember, on the last podcast I talked about the film Liberty Valance.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And the closing line where the man reveals that he didn't shoot Liberty Valance and the newspaper man doesn't want the story, that he didn't shoot Liberty Valves and the newspaper man doesn't want the story. And he said he said, he said the line when the legend becomes fact, print the legend and in a way it was like that for Lance Armstrong. Here was someone. The story was so wonderful and inspiring. It was this young Texan who'd come to the Tour de France, I think for the first time in about 1994. He gets cancer, testicular cancer and he has to go away. You see these photographs where he's bald and thin and I think he has to have surgery on his brain and my god. And then he comes back and then he wins it in 1999, it's just an incredible story and everybody wanted to believe it.

Speaker 2:

But the Irish journalist, david Walsh. He rang his editor in London and said the sports editor list David Walsh. He rang his editor in London and said the sports editor and said, listen, I can't go along with this. And the sports editor said really, david, because everyone's I think he was vilifying.

Speaker 1:

He was very courageous wasn't he.

Speaker 2:

It was very courageous. One guy from Scotland said something like David Walsh has a cancer of the spirit. You know he can't, but anyway. David Walsh, though, was coming out of a past which included a certain swimmer.

Speaker 1:

Michelle Smith Exactly. Oh, I just remember it must have been the early 2000s. There was a feature Used to be in the Irish news every Saturday Of a different footballer and it was, like you know, one of those on the spot Question Q&A's Most memorable match, your favourite, your most difficult opponent, favourite players, etc. And it says Most inspiring book Seemed a bit loaded, you know, and invariably it was Lance Armstrong, etc. And it says most inspiring book seemed a bit loaded, you know, but, and invariably it was Lance Armstrong it's not about the bike, my journey back to life. And they had all read it. It was published in 2000 and they had all read this. Just before we talk about Smith, mrs De Bruin, he was a nasty piece of work. Armstrong, was he not?

Speaker 2:

Well, he was like nasty piece of work, armstrong, was he not? Well, he was like Tyler Hamilton said we all, we all wanted to win. Tyler Hamilton was was also an American cyclist and he was in Lance's team for a while and they were all kind of doping and but Lance, as I say, um, denied it. But but he said that they all wanted to win, but Lance had to win.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

He needed to win and um, and, as I say to, to win, um, like seven times is is kind of excessive, you know. And David Walsh says like he won seven times from 1999. And what brought him down? And he was away with it and he had his seven championships and all that, but he came back, he couldn't leave it alone and he back, and that that was.

Speaker 1:

It was he said it's a bit like that. What he call it was too good to be true.

Speaker 2:

It probably is, you know yeah, yeah, it reminds me of a little bit every heart, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I know cancer horrendous yeah, and it's diseases affected. So many of us are not so many family members, but uh, yeah, it's both of us. You know, if that is a journalist to stand up and say hold on you know he has kind of been vindicated.

Speaker 2:

I think there was a film made of him with Chris O'Dowd playing David Walsh, called the Programme.

Speaker 1:

I would say similarities with Michelle Smith De Bruyn. Do you know the way you're commissioned to mention John F Kennedy during the podcast? I haven't mentioned him yet, have I? No, you're not going to get him into this one.

Speaker 2:

Well, I suppose, he's in now.

Speaker 1:

I'm kind of commissioned to say I was in America, but anyway, I remember 1996 Olympics, right, and Michelle Smith, where were them Olympics?

Speaker 2:

were they in Atlanta, atlanta in America.

Speaker 1:

I had just come out of America a year earlier. What's the connection at all? But suddenly this Irish girl with fiery red hair and freckles like the Queen of Ireland, a kind of Like a mythic figure Like Gráinne Weal.

Speaker 2:

Gráinne Weal yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, symbolism of Irishness. Sure, you know who fought, you know, did a wee bit of research, and apparently Paddy Pierce. He used Gráinne Weal as a symbol of Irish republics. In his lyrics were all Shade of Aholwia you know, all right, okay, and it's referenced in plays and she had this three-man, red hair, freckles.

Speaker 1:

There was an interview with her, three goals and a bronze medal and there was a US swimmer called Evans was calling her out for cheating and I remember being so angry. You know, I kind of fell in love with this figure, you know, because she was interviewed by the world's press and the next thing a question came from Sadefield that's Gilliga, and she started to count. She says Gilliga. You know, she was chatting away in Irish and all and I just thought this was wonderful. You know, there was voices here saying saying what's going on? You know, apparently in the RTE studios, among some of the athletes saying what's the crack here? She came out of nowhere and they're saying that she had a late bloom or a cheat. She was in her mid, like 26 or 27, between Seoul 88 and Barcelona 92. She represented Ireland in seven individual events and never advanced out of the preliminary heats. Yes, but during that time she hooked up with this boy called de Bruin.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, a.

Speaker 1:

Dutch monarch de Bruin, and he was a discus thrower who had been banned. Yes, she actually used the phrase that he was the wind beneath their sails. Right, he was guiding her, but what was he guiding her with, you know? And they were married in 96. And the woman, somebody we might talk about later, ben Johnson, say that, ben Johnson, probably the most infamous cheat of the whole lot, yeah, she had times she knocked 11 seconds off some of her times. Now you're talking about, like young Griggs up the road knocking 2 seconds at the age of 19, or 2.5 or .7 seconds. She knocked 11 seconds, you

Speaker 1:

know. And Gary Atul, who was a two time Olympian for Ireland he was a swimmer said it was about her when he met her. It was a complete metamorphosis. The Michelle I remembered had been round and feminine and carried not a lot of excessive weight, but some. I looked at her and said, my god, what have you been taking? And then later on that she never lost the medals, she never was stripped of them, but she, she supplied tests, some that smelled of whiskey, apparently urine samples, but she supplied a sample and apparently if she had that much whiskey in her system that was in this sample, she would have been dead. It would have been fatality it wasn't humanly possible to have. So she was tampering with the samples.

Speaker 2:

She was trying to mask the drug, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And her denial system was incredible. You know, I remember Gabe Bourne at the Late Show Centre. He cited the times, the improvement he says you wouldn't need an outboard motor to produce the times. But she had her denial and I don't know she let me down anyway. I know a fellow from Rathcoole just outside Dublin, oliver's madam, I'll not say his name, jim and he was saying how he was furious and still would be angry and how they all came out with their flags to wave her as she came along on the bus with the medals and all, and there's no doubt that she was at it, you know yeah, well, you know, half the population was getting up at the early hours of the morning to watch this swimming that they'd never really followed before you know but still kind of on a denial, even after this happened.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think Jimmy McGee wrote a piece in the Sunday World or something where he named Aaron's medalist and he left her out and her solicitor sent a letter of complaint. Yes, funny thing is she's a lawyer herself, a very, very bright girl. You know, she's a lawyer and maybe not, maybe I'm very naive. Is a lawyer not about truth and justice?

Speaker 2:

No, Well, I don't know. Sometimes it's just about truth and justice. No, well, I don't know. Sometimes it's just about winning and making sure that your way of looking at something triumphs over someone else's.

Speaker 1:

Yeah and there is a. You're not seeing an IRT. Well, a lot of people don't even see IRT during this Olympics, but when the swimming's on, I think it's one of the first. Gary, too, will be of the first. She'll not be. Gary, too, will be wielding. Yes, She'll not be brought in to give an analysis or as a pundit or anything. She's totally discredited. But there's still a huge body of people who believe her yes, and don't want to believe otherwise.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah. Well, it's like that line I just quoted about wanting to believe the legend. You know, can I say a wee poem? You can, of course, because I'm going to get literary after so.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, I'm going to say a wee poem. There's a wee starter. It was written in the 1930s by a man called Peter Dale Wimbrow Sr. All right, and I don't know. You see some people. I know people would say, like you do what you got to do and that's it. I just wonder what people like we'll talk about Ben Johnson maybe afterwards, but Michelle Smith people that get when they go to the bathroom at night and look in the mirror, what do they see? Do they see a fraud or I don't know.

Speaker 1:

It's called the man in the glass. I'm sure it could be the Woman in the Glass too, but the man in the Glass. When you get what you want in your struggle for self and the world makes you king for a day, just go to the mirror and look at yourself and see what that man has to say. For it isn't your father or mother or wife whose judgment upon you must pass. The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life is the one staring back from the glass. He's the fellow to please. Never mind all the rest, for he's with you, clear, to the end, and you've passed your most difficult, dangerous test. If the man in the glass is your friend. You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years and get pats on the back as you pass, but your final reward will be heartache and tears if you've cheated the man in the glass. Some people doesn't seem to bother with a cheat or not. You know.

Speaker 2:

Well, that Taylor Hamilton that I mentioned. He said that for him the truth was the only way to go forward and he described it as almost like a dam breaking. The Americans launched a grand jury kind of investigation into cycling and Tyler Hamilton got a subpoena and he went and testified and he was on the stand for something like seven hours. But he said it was great to get this all out and not to be carrying it.

Speaker 1:

But as I say.

Speaker 2:

Lance Armstrong was interviewed by Oprah and David Walsh was asked by someone what he thought. Did he think he was sorry? He says no, he's not sorry, he's sorry, he got caught. There's not sorry, he's sorry, he got caught. But there's a difference between being sorry and as like. Even um armstrong cast himself as as the victim because he said one day he said I lost 75 million in endorsements from sponsors. Yeah, who pulled? You know people like Nike and that. Who'd said right, we don't want you. And even the international cycling body said Lance Armstrong has nothing, you know, to do with this sport anymore. You know he's nothing to give to this sport. So it was an incredible fall from grace, you know.

Speaker 1:

Can I tell you a joke from 1988?

Speaker 2:

From 1988?.

Speaker 1:

Topical 1988. Okay, what is the fastest man and the fastest animal got in common.

Speaker 2:

No, go on ahead. They're both cheetahs, alright, okay.

Speaker 1:

Do you remember Ben Johnson? I remember Ben Johnson.

Speaker 2:

yeah, Ben Johnson was a cheetah he was, he was and I don't know some of those things. He was taking steroids, yeah, and sometimes the like. There are things you can take and it doesn't register on your body, like, for example, those cyclists who were taking EPO. It doesn't register on your body Like, for example, those cyclists who were taking EPO. You can't look at them and say, god, they must be taking something. But Johnson, you could. You could see his kind of build and how you know the pack of muscle and all that and his shoulders and what have you.

Speaker 1:

It was gravely between him and Carl Lewis was on, maybe a close third but not really really a challenger for first place. Linford Christie from Britain, but Johnson, with those muscles on top of muscles and the eyes were still on his head like a Maximilian Dux's rabbit and do you remember him powering to that line Like it was an incredible race.

Speaker 2:

I know, and he knocked the world record. Canadian, wasn't he? He knocked the world record, didn't he? I'm not sure if he did that.

Speaker 1:

I think he did. Yeah, I think he did.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, it was quite something. They were great runners. I know we seem to be focusing on kind of cheating and that, but there are also inspiring figures. I know we mentioned some of them earlier people, the gymnasts and that but I think of Moscow in 1980, steve Overton, sebastian Coe, for example, incredible, incredible runners and kind of you know, pretty clean cut, even though the papers kind of cast one as a.

Speaker 1:

Overt would have been cast as a bit rough and ready and he never did anything outrageous or controversial. But Steve Crom subsequently became a Tory Lord or something. Rough and ready and he never did anything outrageous or controversial. But steve crumb, yeah, and subsequently became a tory lord or something oh, sebastian co you mean or sebastian co. Sorry, steve crumb wasn't was recent, I think yeah, yeah but co was like a, a tory lord and uh yeah, it's like an, an ovet came, came across as, as a rougher sort of edge, you know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think he was from maybe a more working-class background and he didn't like kind of interacting with the press. He just wanted to run and he didn't really have much to say after that, whereas Coe liked to be, he was very obliging and liked talking and all that kind of thing. So he was cast as this clean cut guy.

Speaker 1:

I liked the other one. It was a fabulous rivalry, wasn't?

Speaker 2:

it absolutely. And there's so much of that in sport which kind of it's almost it's a blessing that they come at the same time. You know, and you know we see it in.

Speaker 1:

We said you know recently about Eubanks and Nigel Benn, nigel Benn we thought they hated each other. The crowd were whipped up.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

But I saw the documentary where they hugged each other, practically kissing each other on the cheek. This is like 30 years later. This is we had them, them. We had them in the palm of our hand. We'd done it. It's like they were. They were a team yes and the whole world was watching this and it was fantastic. You know, yeah, yeah, coe and Ovech was a great rival. He didn't didn't win, kind of win each other.

Speaker 2:

It was a race, in a way that was in in, yeah, yeah, in Moscow, I think Coe was expected to win the 800 metres and that was on the first and Ovech took the gold in that. And Ovech, he'd won something like the last 45, 1500 metre races. He'd been in and he was expected to take the gold in that, but Coe got the gold in that.

Speaker 1:

Tenebix throws up great memories and this one, I'm sure, will too. Great, great memories, you know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah yeah, I'm just thinking I'm not so Great. I'm very dubious of a lot of boxing. And for about the fourth time, which I think we've got to say this time, oliver's brother went to the Olympics yes, tommy, and boxed for Ireland in 1984 in Los Angeles. I remember the excitement around here. Sure, I can't say it. Anyway, I remember Frank McGeer saying to me I sat in the Tommy car, I rang him and he says you met Carl Lewis and Carl Lewis says you tell Frank McGeer I was asking about him. So I remember him and over in the shop that time. But it was great excitement and every Olympics Tommy gets some sort of a mantle on his wheel showing it to the press and social media, and many of us can show one of those and that is the ticket part.

Speaker 1:

Tommy was the first world medalist that's what I mean.

Speaker 2:

I remember watching a documentary about the Ko and Overt rivalry and Sebastian Ko's father was his trainer, peter I think his name was. But after Coe had lost the 800, peter was being interviewed and he was saying second is nowhere. He says you know, it was terrible. And then they spoke to um, they spoke to steve over his manager, and all this manager was a completely different point of view. He was saying you know, whatever you get, it's great, like to go to come away with a medal. You've got, you've trained, you've gone there and done your best and and so and I would be more into that- I would, I would even be, and I know you know you want to win a medal.

Speaker 1:

The tipping part there's a wee girl, Flanagan from Ruski, ran in the last Ruski, Ruski, beside Gortin.

Speaker 2:

Oh, sorry, I thought you were back to Russia, you know.

Speaker 1:

Ruski Gortin ran in the last Olympics, I just think, to get to that level yeah sure you know young Griggs didn't get this time, but he's only 19 and if he keeps going the way he's going he'll get there. Sure. And I was going to say that. I'm going to say now a shout out to Peter Donnelly, the Arnder playing in the quarter final of the rugby sevens. Now, by the time this goes out, we'll know they did well, but he's coaching the Irish rugby team and there was great photographs went up on Facebook last night of Peter Donnelly at the Olympic rings in Paris in his Fianna Tap and Peter's up the road on weekends coaching the kids in Cullinan. So it's wonderful to see somebody local at that level. He's the coach to Irish rugby. It's a seven, a side competition, you know yeah.

Speaker 1:

I was just thinking about. We kind of started out there in boxing. There's been some, some very. I found the Michael Conlon thing quite harrowing, you know yeah, the I think, I think that was 2016 16 in Rio, in Rio, in Brazil, yeah 2016 in Rio in Brazil.

Speaker 2:

yeah, that was outrageous and I think there was a report came out in years after it, maybe 4 or 5 years after it, you know finding many of those officials not doing the jobs. They questioned about 9 bouts, but Collins was at the quarter finals, conlon was at the quarterfinals stage, bantamweight, and he was fighting a Russian called, I believe, vladimir Nikitin. Good man, yeah, well, anyway and anyway, slapped the jaws off this boy.

Speaker 1:

Well, apparently that morning was told he wasn't going to win.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I heard that too and, as I say, the decision went the Russians' way.

Speaker 1:

He beat him so badly. You see the photograph of Conlon and the boy holding his hand up and the boy's face is beating up him.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I know, and he couldn't even, he wasn't even well enough to progress to the semi-final yeah, but he got a bronze medal and he got a bronze medal, yeah, which is which is outrageous.

Speaker 1:

I remember Conlon. When he was presented, conlon held the two arms out, with the bird or something you call it putting the finger up. Yeah, it was outrageous. It was awful when you think that lad had trained for four years. This was you know he was aiming for this. He was the number one seed and just to be obviously it was the Braves or something been given to the judges yeah and their palms have been greased or whatever, but I think Kelly Taylor might have been on the receiving end too.

Speaker 2:

Was she, she was. That's just the way it is. Before we come to your double standard, ronan.

Speaker 1:

I don't do double standards.

Speaker 2:

Well, listen, I think you're doing this, but I just want to get literary with.

Speaker 1:

F, scott Fitzgerald and I'm going to tell you about a trip to Manchester and then maybe we can get.

Speaker 2:

But we're doing alright, right right In 1919, the World Series in America was fixed. It was the Chicago White Sox against the Cincinnati Reds. The White Sox were expected to win, but a number of the team had been given money, paid something like $8,000, to throw the game. You know, and anyway, there was a character called Arnold Rothstein, and he actually appears in Boardwalk Empire. Now, in the Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald, a wonderful novel, arnold Rothstein appears as Mayor Wolfstein, and Gatsby is this kind of a character who's made a lot of money and he mixes with shady people like this Wolfstein.

Speaker 2:

Anyway, the story is being told by a guy called Nick Carraway. He's the one who tells the story. So they're in New York and they're having lunch with this Wolfsheim character. Nick Carraway doesn't know who he is, but anyway, nick Carraway and Gatsby are in their early 20s. This Wolfsheim character is a bit older, so anyway, I'll let you hear a blast of this, okay, yeah, this is Wolfsheim talking. You sit here and discuss your sports and your young ladies and your.

Speaker 2:

He supplied an imaginary noun with another wave of his hand. As for me, I'm 50 years old and I won't impose myself on you any longer. As he shook hands and turned away, his tragic nose was trembling. I wondered if I had said anything to offend him. He becomes very sentimental sometimes, explained Gatsby. This is one of his sentimental days. He's quite a character around New York, a denizen of Broadway. Who is he anyhow? An actor, no, a dentist. May I wolf shame. No, he's a gambler.

Speaker 2:

Gatsby hesitated then added coolly, he's the man who fixed the World Series back in 1919. Fixed the World Series, I repeated. The idea staggered me. I remembered, of course, that the World Series had been fixed in 1919, but if I had thought of it at all, I would have thought of it as a thing that merely happened, the end of some inevitable chain. It never occurred to me that one man Could start to play with the faith of 50 million people, with the single mindedness of a burglar blowing up a safe. How did he happen to do that, I asked after a minute. He just saw the opportunity. Why isn't he in jail? You can't get him on sport. He's a smart man and now one of the players on the Chicago, and it became known as the Black Sox scandal, the idea being that the Chicago White Sox had become black through fraternizing with gangsters and that you know, but one of the players on the Chicago team was Shoeless Joe Jackson. Who, kevin I think Kevin Costner tries to rehabilitate him in Field of Dreams or whatever.

Speaker 1:

Build it and they will come.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, if you build it, they will come. They will come, he will come. Okay, he will come. But there's a song too, called Say it Isn't so, joe, and it's meant to be that when he was in court in Chicago and they were all banned for life, these eight players, they were banned for life, but a wee lad's supposed to have run up to Shoeless Joe Jackson and said Say it Isn't so, joe. So there you are, but money again.

Speaker 1:

I think the world is, you know, when you think of it. This is and we'll maybe get a bit more upbeat after a few minutes but the M&M's world is sport, it is. It is. The road is littered with corruption, chancers and chasters, you know. But having said that, it's been a great human endeavour. Can I tell you about my trip to Manchester? Ok, because we were talking about boxing. Yes, and I used to go to all of Paul McCluskey's fights. Doody, you call him Doody McCluskey, from Dungiven, and don't even ask me what weight he was. He was brilliant. He was like a cobra, the way he moved his head and all you couldn't. You couldn't hit him, and some his fights were always exciting. It was in the King's Hall and the Odyssey and I remember being one in Letterkenny and Friesen and that big centre and Mahrefelt and everything you know and he was class. He was brilliant. He became the European champion. But in 2011, april 2011,. He got the big fight, amir Khan in Manchester Arena and I headed over with Am I allowed to name the other person?

Speaker 2:

Many people don't even know him Jacob Kane I knew from Dungevin.

Speaker 1:

Me and him headed over to watch the fight. I thought I'm going to follow this through. And there's this huge arena. Half of it was Irish, from Dungevin and South Derry, and the other half is Amir Khan from Pakistan.

Speaker 2:

he was yeah, it's amazing.

Speaker 1:

It was a funny cultural mix, you know, but there was no hostility, it was a great atmosphere. Doody came in and, oh God, I loved him. He just was great, great, exciting boxer and pretty nice fella, you know. And during the fight there was a clash of heads. Now Doody was supposed to be in the ring for two rounds. Amir Khan was to whip him. He was going off to America for something or other fights or something. Duty was to be baked into the corner and that was it. But after six rounds he was still there. Now Khan had won the fights but Apparently the plan was Ropa Dope, just hang in there and then unleash hell, which he had done before.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and there was a bit of a clash ahead and there was a trickle of blood went down. Listen, there was a trickle of blood went down the side of McCluskey's eye, the side of his eye, a wee trickle, and the boy jumped onto the ring, doctor, waved his arms, get out of there, fight over. And I remember the confusion and everything. I actually messaged somebody who was watching Sky Sport or something at home Barry O'Donnell, sports editor up the road and I says what's happened? It was just confusion, I didn't know. And somebody close to me says Keanu's been disqualified for using the head. But I think it was the clash of heads and we would have took that. We were excited, you know you don't want to finish in a disqualification.

Speaker 1:

but and then, apparently the referee had stopped it because of a trickle of blood down the side, or the doctor? Yeah, it was Rick Morton. It was absolutely horrendous. It was awful, awful and this was his biggest night. This was his big, big night. Barry Hearn was a promoter. He described it as a disgraceful decision and afterwards I've just looked this up and he says I've been in the game for 25 years, I've seen thousands and thousands of fights and I've never in my life seen a fight stop for such an innocuous cut, especially bearing in mind it's a world title fight. I can't tell you Paul was definitely going to win, because I don't know, but what I do know, and we've been robbed of a great fight, we've been robbed of a proper conclusion. They never got a rematch.

Speaker 2:

They put him scandalous, scandalous.

Speaker 1:

You know, one of the best is I worry With boxing. You're not putting points. I know you can cheat In sport and football and Football and all, but you are putting the ball Over the bar and stuff. But this is George Smith. But this was I actually feared, I'll say now, I'll say it now. I did fear for Fergal McCrory Going to fight that, that boy Lamont a couple, a few weeks ago in America.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was a super it was a super featherweight in Washington Lamont.

Speaker 1:

Roach, lamont Roach, in Washington, super featherweight McCrory. Fergal's a great lad, you know, and my fear was it would go 15 rounds and Fergal beat him. A hometown decision. You know, I was going to say fortunately, not fortunately, unfortunately he lost. But he lost Farns Square and he lost a very, very, very good fighter. Yeah, fergal was very, very courageous and he gave it all and he's a great lad, but you're nearly rather that than you know what happened to Doody, or what happened to Doody or what happened to Michael Conlon. You know, boxing is it's fraught with that, it seems to be fraught with that. And I've heard of somebody, apparently local, conrad Cummins, was down for an eliminator for an Olympic fight and the judgment was very, very dodgy. Yeah, I suppose sometimes I don't know.

Speaker 2:

I know it's hard to come back from something like that.

Speaker 1:

You know, I would say well, he's retired now, so but he gave us some, gave us some great nights. Yes, yes, were you on about double?

Speaker 2:

standards. I was on about double standards because I was thinking of Maradona and his go the hand of God, which you don't see anything wrong with that. In fact it kind of gives you a wee lift Against England in the World Cup 86. And yet Thierry Henry's hands you think is an awful piece of work.

Speaker 1:

Well, he handled it twice Guilty as charged. What am I going to say? And apparently at the time, but I don't know if it's true now, some lads have said to the British soldier in the street that, uh, mcguigan got beat with two hands, as Barry McGuigan got beat. Yeah, maradona beat the whole England team with one hand. So yeah, it was a good line. But, yeah, guilty as charged. I didn't mean Maury Donovan doing it, yeah, yeah, I don't think he planned it, but I suppose Terry Henry didn't plan it either. Against put Aaron out of the World Cup pretty much yeah, yeah, hand of God.

Speaker 2:

It was a wonderful kind of phrase, and there's this mural in Buenos Aires, I think, or certainly somewhere in Argentina, and it shows a hand coming down from heaven and covering the eyes of the referee. So it's as if there's two hands of God here, one covering the eyes of the referee and then Maradona knocking the ball over Shilton.

Speaker 1:

You know Well, they certainly did a lot of gurning about it since, but then I suppose he gurned about Terry Henry, you know yeah yeah, well, I suppose the England thing was a bigger occasion in the sense it was in the World Cup, wasn't it?

Speaker 1:

I think in the sport of the moment, joe Broly lashed into Sean Cabana for pulling Conor McManus down and yeah, it wasn't a great thing. But same time I remember how much I was involved with a team and they scored a goal in the last couple of minutes and we were defeated in a pretty big match.

Speaker 1:

I wish one of our players had pulled the person down yeah, I don't like to see it against your team, but yeah but I think some of the stuff we've been talking about is more premeditated and pre-planned drugs and yeah, and premeditated and preplanned drugs and so on and all that, yeah, yeah absolutely, but I think it's very difficult to be impartial when you're involved in sport. Well, I suppose yeah.

Speaker 2:

I remember Ron Atkinson saying I never comment on referees and I'm not going to break the habit of a lifetime for that prat. You know, and they can have such an influence whether they're judges or referees. You know I've heard you like even going to matches at a local Gaelic ground. You know people tend to give decisions. If you know one of the locals who belongs to the club is running a line or something, he'll tend to be more generous to his own side.

Speaker 1:

I do think a lot of club games the referee doesn't play a blame, but a notice to the linesman. Or I did on part of the game and I said something give or did something. Or said something or did something. The referee didn't play the bend, it's been a notice. I suppose they nearly expect that, but people, people kind of find it funny. But covered a lot of ground here, martin, I'd like to talk about GA here and the craziest match I was ever at okay, this is we're going back to 1970s oh yeah, was it in Croke Park in Croke Park and I'm going to get my dad into the mix again.

Speaker 1:

My father was there and we started following to Rome. Well, no, we followed them. Well, they started doing things. 72, they got the Ulster final anyway. 73, they were winning the division 2 and it was very exciting and often he would watch the half of the senior match. Now, the senior match was like Kerry, offaly, galway. They were like the man City, chelsea, liverpool, where we were at the whatever the lower tier match you know, and Taron won by. One time he scored, I think he fisted a goal to win, beat Wicklow or somebody in the league semi-final. We were all excited.

Speaker 1:

It was Derry against Kerry and there was a man by the name of Paul Kelly from Dublin refereeing and the performance he gave that day was just outrageous and he sent off two Derry players for very innocuous tackles. I remembered half time. That time was the old stadium with the pillars. If you threw an apple you could hit the field with it, and I remember at half time they were throwing apples and oranges down onto the field of the referee. And because both teams were red and white, the throne supporters were red and white caps too, because there's a couple of lads from Eglise that would be hitting their 70 these now, and I remember they were through a few things, you know, and I remember my dad saying it's half time here, we'll hold on, there's going to be a bit of crack here.

Speaker 1:

So he proceeded and that was a great derby team. They weren't far away, that team, you know, sean O'Connell and all was playing. But anyway, what I do remember about free out in the side lane and somebody said something. However, the referee contrived to put him in the 14 yard line in front of the post. Kerry tapped it over. It was a draw, I'm not kidding you. Paul Kelly went to the side lane under the hobo stand. He blew the whistle and he ran like thunder down the tunnel and a crowd of dirty boys were wranglers on bobber boots and the wranglers up above their boots. Remember that, the parallels and all.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, the style, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And the next thing I seen, paul Kelly was dragged back onto the field and the punches were raining on top of him. The yarder came wailing in with the batons and all. Now that time was a very, very volatile time. Yeah, there wasn't a great. There was a bad enough feeling between North and South, which may be added to you know, but there was a lot of anger about it and it was a very, very difficult time for people in Derry and people in the North. They felt beleaguered and they didn't feel like. You know, there was a great affinity down there and we're not going to get any justice anywhere.

Speaker 1:

But I looked up a couple of reports. It was the National League and there was one reporter who says people. But I looked up a couple of reports. It was the National League and there was one reporter that says people were set upon With bottles, sticks and fists In the most violent scenes I've ever witnessed. That was in the Independent Right and Jill O'Sullivan In the Cork Examiner. The story. He did the story In the Cork Examiner and there was a picture With a guard, a sergeant, scrambling on his knees With punches Raining, and scrambling on his knees with punches raining on top of him.

Speaker 2:

I tell you, it was a raid of about 30 people. Yeah, your dad knew.

Speaker 1:

He was up on the top deck. He wasn't wrong, yeah, but there was another report. A referee, paul Kelly, was lucky to escape relatively unscathed from a concerted attack after he had blown the last whistle by a mob of spectators. For several minutes thereafter, garda Stewart, the linesman and even Director General Sean O'Shacon were set apart with bottles, sticks and fists in the most violent scenes I have ever witnessed at GAA headquarters. I'm glad it was there. It was crazy. And the subsequently dirty were fined £500 and ordered to replay. Was the draw anyway, with the same referee. I don't know if they paid the fine or not, but they refused to play In the minor match. Just as a prelude. No, not a prelude. An afternoon, what's an afternoon?

Speaker 2:

Anyway.

Speaker 1:

I was at school the next day, the Toronto midfielder was Ian McMahon, my religion teacher, and he said we had the match yesterday. He knew I, my dad, took us to the matches and there was a boy, john Casey, in my class. His dad was Jimmy Casey and he was the treasurer of Tyrone. He used to be at the matches and he says what about? What did your father think of the fight? And this is religion, like. He says, daddy says he should have kicked him round the Hogan stand and Ed McMahon just kind of gave a very smile and shook his head. He says I don't know about that. What could he say? It was original like or he. I told Ian about this last year. He said good, laugh at that. There, you know, but they were cheated.

Speaker 1:

But oh God, there was some, it was a riot, they just you know, I was working in a building site in Dungiven about 1981 or 2, 7 years later and these boys said see that boy there, his brother McGonagall, I think he was his brother spent a night in a cell in Dublin, the night of that Dublin, or that Kerry right, kerry, derry match. So yeah. I've seen a few matches where I'm not gonna you know, because if you can't start naming matches you'd be sued, but I would think of two matches where, I believe, colleen was robbed yeah one was underage and one was senior where the referee blatantly done them.

Speaker 1:

You know, I'm not saying a nap, there's a nap, or what you see is a nap referee, dodgy ref, but to me it was just blatant cheating and it's. But obviously you can't say what matches and such you know.

Speaker 1:

No, no, but yeah, it does, it certainly happens very, very disappointing for people who have trained so hard to get there. Yeah, yeah, you know I remember a match just finished, my GAS, but 1978 78 was playing with Gautian it was next year and Gautian at the time and we played from Ra out in St Patrick's Park in the quarter final of the minor championship and you think, I think it was a replay, but you're thinking we have a chance to get in the minor final, which would have been fantastic. You know, we actually beat Cullinan in the first round. I'll stand over Mark and Brian Conway, anyway, but I remember that match. Do you know that? Saying from Maya Angelou Maya Angelou.

Speaker 2:

Maya Angelou, that's what it said, isn't it? That's what it said?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the American poet, I've learned that people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. And I remember, after the match, thinking that referee done us and looking over and seeing the referee getting into the car with the rabbi's and I remember how he made me feel. My heart sank. I just thought we were done. We had a chance to get in the semi-final championship. We had just been done.

Speaker 2:

And I remember how he made me feel, you know yeah, well, it's a bit like Conlon being told on the morning you're not, you're not going to progress, no matter what happens.

Speaker 1:

You know but that's a lot of getting up that morning.

Speaker 2:

I'd say so, I'd say so.

Speaker 1:

I'd love to tell you a wee story before. I don't want to hog it, but I shouldn't find this funny, but I do. You know they say it's one of the, you know, the greatest disgraces in cheating. I just find this so bizarre at the 2000 Paralympics right.

Speaker 1:

I'll read it out, but perhaps one of the most shocking and oft forgotten cheating scanners Took place at the 2000 Paralympics, involving Spain's intellectual disability basketball team. The team won gold in Sydney but was later found to be fraudulent, with 10 of their 12 players having faked their disability. Imagine faking intellectual disability.

Speaker 2:

I know, do you know? It's shocking.

Speaker 1:

The incident had a number of devastating ripple effects, with Paralympic organizers deciding to suspend the entire intellectual disability classification at each of the next two games, leaving athletes with legitimate disabilities on the sidelines for eight years. Now, here's the best for me, and the two Spanish players who actually had intellectual disabilities had to forfeit their medals, just like their teammates. Yeah, it's just, I wouldn't even show off that medal. Here's the medal I want for the intellectual disability.

Speaker 2:

I know.

Speaker 1:

If you aren't Sure, sure, you know maybe I'm threading it to politically incorrect territory here, but I just it's wild, wild.

Speaker 2:

I know there are crazy. There's the the Keanu O'Connor story too, about the horse being doped rather than the rider, which is a kind of crazy thing too. Was that the Olympics as well?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I remember he won his gold medal and Aaron had done well in the box. And there was, there was Ken appearing a bit Facebook, and that that's Aaron. That's Aaron for you. You know always the best at fighting and riding, so make us take that out. Right, you're looking forward to the Olympics, ah yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, I'll certainly look forward to being amazed or startled, because there always is something there is always something I'd say if you went through every Olympics, you would think of great performances and great whatever you know what about Usain Bolt?

Speaker 2:

we never mentioned him. I remember when he came about for ages afterwards, you were going around, you know, doing that Usain Bolt thing where he put up his hand, you know, like as if he was going to shoot, and I kind of came in behind you doing the Mo Farah thing with me.

Speaker 1:

I remember doing the coffee shop. I walked in and I did the Usain Bolt and you did Mo Farah the M in the head, and some did the same boat and you did Mo Farah in the head. Some of the customers were looking at us. I wonder why will we sign off with the Olympic oath? Go on ahead. It's an aspiration and who knows?

Speaker 2:

in a way, we've kind of displayed how difficult it is to meet these standards, but it's good to have the standards.

Speaker 1:

It was last updated in July 2021, and the representatives for the athletes, judges and coaches each recede the following lanes respectively In the name of the athletes, in the name of all judges, in the name of all the coaches and officials. The athletes representative then completes the oath. We promise to take part in these Olympic Games respecting and abiding by the rules, in the spirit of fair play, inclusion and equality. Together, we stand in solidarity and commit ourselves to sport without doping, without cheating, without any form of discrimination. We do this for the honour of our teams and respect for the fundamental principles of Olympism and to make the world a better place to sport. It's a difficult world at the minute. Hopefully, the Olympics makes the world a better place, martin.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely yeah, and, as I say, it's good to aspire to something.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely so. We'll get on the starting blocks.

Speaker 2:

All right, okay, on your marks, oliver. Yeah.

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OLIVER CORR

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