Du Toits day is tomorrow

Firstly just a quick reminder of yesterday, Khotso "Crocodile" Mokoena claimed silver in the long jump. Sorry couldn't resist. Wednesday will see the assault on what would be the most incredible medal in Olympic history. Natalie Du Toit will swim in the 10km open water swimming event at 3am SA time - be sure to set your alarm clocks for one of sports greatest moments.

Du Toit lost her left leg in a motorcycle accident when she was 16 and after conquering the paralympics in 2004 and competing in the able bodied Commonwealth Games in 2002 (finishing 8th in the 800m final) she set her sights on becoming the first amputee to qualify for the Olympics. Tomorrow I have no doubt Du Toit will fulfill her destiny and if you think I'm blowing smoke up your ass - she finished 4th in the able bodied world champs in Seville earlier this year! Now this would be a story to rival that Phelps fellow ...

Sifiso Nhlapo will also be in action in the BMX qualification with the final on Thursday. Oh what a story it would be to have 3 medals by Thursday.

Blade Runner Again

I think that we all know how I feel about Oscar "Blade Runner" Pistorius. Found an interesting debate on iafrica.com about the issue which raises some good points and is worth the read. That doesn't make the anti Pistorius lobby right though!

The reason the Boks lost

Several articles on the net and in some local papers have suggested that the reason the Boks lost on Saturday was down to the tomfoolery and splat dash attitude they took into the game apparently epitomised by the Sasol advert which ran in Saturdays papers. Lets take a look ...

The add that caused the loss

Clearly an unhappy team
Thank goodness John Smit didn't play, who knows how many we would have lost by then
Aaaah The Beast what a poor test he had

Seriously guys the reason we lost was because of our gameplan/poor execution as far as I'm aware the boys didn't piss the night away celebrating with Percy on Friday - too me this looks like a worthy tribute to an even worthier player. Honestly someone pays these people to write ...

Finally

Khotso Mokoena you little beauty!!!!!! Finally what has been a torturous week for South African sports fans got it's silver lining.

Mokoena soared to a silver medal this afternoon (SA time) in the long jump. The former world junior champion in triple jump secured the silver with a jump of 8.24 metres after briefly leading from Panama's Irving Saladino.

Mokoena who is the current world indoor champion secured the first medal for team SA at this games. I'm sure he'll come home to heroes welcome and rightfully so. Here's to hoping we add to the haul, as the Chinese, Yanks and Brits have proved winning is contagious, lets hope team SA all get the fever.

Note: My favourite for gold Sifiso Nhlapo is up on Thursday and I'm also tipping Natalie du Toit for a medal.

Black Out at home ...

It's bad enough that Eskom can't provide us with electricity but to be blacked out at home. We lost 19-0. Enuff said. Somebody had better go home and have a darn good look at themselves. That's all I have to say on that ...

The Spirit of the Olympics Part III

Seriously dude not cool! This is how not behave at the Olympics. Ara Abrahamian and Sweden take a bow, for trying to destroy the Olympic spirit.

Blade Runner can't hear either ...

AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME. We may not be lighting up the world at the Olympics but just wait for the Amakrokokroko, why does this country consistently produce paralympic teams that punch way above their weight level?

Our country is not only home to the arguably the two best paralympians, Oscar Pistorius and Natalie Du Toit, but also claimed 15 Gold medals in Athens, 13th place overall and a staggering tally of 35 total medals. Which begs several questions why don't we fire the whole of SASCOC and replace them with DISSA? Why on earth don't we as South Africans make more noise about our paralympians? And where the hell can I get a Amakrokokroko t-shirt!

I'll leave the last words to Oscar "you are not disabled by the disabilities you have, you are able by the abilities you have."

Togo 1 South Africa 0

Togo with a population of just under 6 million people, that's about the same as the FNB stadium on Chiefs vs. Pirates derby day, won it's first ever Olympic medal this morning.
The 27 year old Benjamin Boukpeti won the K1 Kayak Single bronze medal with a shock performance - throwing up more of that Olympic spirit I'm always going on about. So now great sporting nations like Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan (yes that is a serious country) and Togo lead South Africa in the medals table. which actually isn't that difficult considering we're sitting on a big fat toilet seat!

I'm claiming the whole Southern African angle from now on, Kirsty Coventry won us (liberal use of the word there) our second silver medal in the women's 100m backstroke. Whom I kidding a country with an estimated inflation rate 0f more than 9 million percent can produce an Olympic medals and we can't.

Come on boys and girls raise your game! Rowing semi's on Thursday come on Di Clemente and Keeling.

That Boy Phelps.

Okay generally I'm not easily impressed by sporting achievements, records are there to be broken and all that, I mean honestly we come from a country where people with one leg and no legs compete side by side with the able bodied. But the mens 4x100m freestyle final this morning was amazing to watch.

I'm generally not that big on Phelps or the Americans but to see a race where the top 5, yes that's correct the top 5 teams broke the world record is once in a lifetime stuff. Imagine swimming a world record time and finishing 5th! That would f&$k me right off.

Never mind Phelps the swim by 32 year old Jason Lezak to record an "unofficial" world record of 46 seconds flat was incredible. Do this go down to your local Virgin active pool and try and swim 4 laps in 46 seconds seriously try and swim 2 laps in that time, freakin' amazing.

If you do one thing today watch this video, seriously do it.

Note: the video is only available to SA viewers I'll try and find one for everybody soon.

The Spirit of the Olympics Part II

This captures the spirit of the Olympics better than any Nike Ad ever could.

Andrew Cronje is a member of Team SA's hockey squad in Beijing and has put together this amazing collection of a few thoughts and pics from Beijing. Cronje will probably never be a household name but reading his blog just shows what the Olympics means to all the "little guys" out there. Andrew Cronje go you good thing! Check it out seriously the man is a legend.

Update: Unfortunately our hockey boys went down 5-0 to the Netherlands on Monday but I'm guessing even that won't spoil Andrews Olympic memories

The weekend round up

For those of you who have better things to do than lie on your couch with beer in hand and chips on stomach for an entire weekend (if that's possible). To keep you in the loop around the water cooler and so you don't embarrass yourself at next weekends braai, the sasportsblog team brings you a wrap up of the past weekends sport.

No doubt it was a big weekend of sport and we can't blame you for losing your focus momentarily. Obviously the opening ceremony of the XXIX Olympiad was Fridays highlight. Mention seen Natalie Du Toit carry the flag brought a tear to your eye and something about the Team SA's shocking green shoes should keep you in the conversation and for added effect Kirsty Coventry as a Southern African medal winner (silver in the Women's 400m Individual Medley) should go down like Klippies and Cola in Pretoria after a Bulls victory.

Saturday saw the Boks return to winning ways with an empathic 63-9 mauling of the hapless Pumas. Depending on the type of people at the braai you can swing from the rebirth of the Springboks, citing wonderful performances against the much vaunted Argentinian scrum (be sure to mention The Beasts performance, a simply shake of the head and mutter Beast should do the trick) and smoothness returning to the backline (Fourie Du Preez's calming influence on Butch the debate), to the why Argentina even bothered sending a side and how it has robbed us of Jacque Fourie and Bakkies Botha for Saturdays big clash against the All Blacks.

Sunday saw the emergence of a new and perhaps unexpected challenger to Tiger Woods crown as the most dominant golfer of his era - Irishman Padraig Harrington, after he triumphed at the US PGA Championship by two shots. If anyone had said a golfer would win 3 out of 6 majors in 2007/2008, all the smart money and the considerably less intelligent money would have been on Tiger, but enter the Irishman! Oh what a tussle awaits when the stripped one reenters the fray! But once again the discussion here will centre around will Sergio Garcia EVER win a major, it's looking less and less likely as his mind increasingly resembles Steve Harmison's in the closing holes.

Monday (well Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday too) saw the implosion of the SA Cricket team handing KP (God how I hate that name) his first victory as England captain. The first innings collapse was pretty pathetic. De Villiers and Amla gave us a little hope on day 3 and 4 but in the end we where comprehensively beaten. Oh well at least we won the series 2-1. Here the conversation will inevitably turn to what a p%@ss Kevin Pietersen is and rightfully so.

Finally the weekend also saw the start of the season in England with the traditional opening fixture the Community Shield. Man Utd won he game 3-1 on penalties but seriously if your party gets to this sort of talk it's time to leave or else divert the conversation the way of the the draw for the 2008 MTN 8 knockout - the Pretoria derby of Sundowns against Supersport and the big Soweto clash of Chiefs vs. Swallows - be sure to pepper this conversation with the question to start an endless argument will Supersport (and what the hell throw Ajax Cape Town in there too) be able to repeat last years form?

Then sit back and watch the lads argue it out just don't blame us if the evening ends with boys having to be separated by wives/girlfriends/lovers!

Welcome Team SA

Friday saw the opening of the Olympics in Beijing. It was a jaw dropping opening ceremony that almost made us all forget about about the pollution/political problems that have hassled the games. Team SA led out by the amazing Natalie Du Toit.

If for some reason you have no idea who Natalie is you can read her story here. The mere fact that someone with one leg managed to qualify for the games is amazing add to that the fact that she is one of the medal favourites in the women's 10km swim and you can understand just what a remarkable person Natalie is.

Seen her carry the flag out was a moment that I'm sure bought a tear to many an eye and deservedly so, lets just hope that the performance of Team SA matches the opening ceremony! The 2004 tally of 1Gold, 3 Silver and 2 Bronze should be firmly in this teams sites. Hopefully we'll be able to increase the colour of some of those bronze and silvers - 3 golds would do us nicely! My biggest tip for gold BMXer (if that's the correct term) Sifiso Nhlapo

P.S. Dig the green shoes guys an' gals very Sefrican

The Spirit of the Olympics

Awesome new release from the guys at Nike just in time for the Olympics. The main reason that I like this ad, besides Oscar "Blade Runner" Pistorius, is the way it captures the spirit of the Olympics.

If we're honest we watch the Olympics more for the drama than the winners, sure watching Phelpedio, or whatever he'll be nicknamed, accumulate 8 gold medals is interesting but it's really the spectacular blowouts (Paula Radcliffe in 2004, Colin Jackson 1992 and many more) and the tremendous triumph of human spirit (probably best epitomised by Derek Redmond and others like Eric "the Eel" Moussambani) that draw us in, that's the reason we all love the Olympics!

Ask anyone who won the 10m Air Pistol in 2000 and I'm guessing you'll draw a blank but I can guarantee you that Eric the Eel will at least elicit a wry smile. Enjoy the ad and Blade Runner closing it out! Watch out for him in 2012 ...