Greek tragedy (in more ways than one...)

Well, i've finally calmed down enough (i think) to update you on the events of yesterday and the farce of last night. It was without doubt the worst opening ceremony in history, which is a shame really because the setting in the ancient stadium was magnificent...

More on that later though. Saturday morning saw the relay squads head down to the main stadium for some last minute relay preparations. The final teams for Tuesday's heats have not been announced yet but i think management have got a pretty good idea who these teams are going to be. One notable absentee from these teams however, and indeed the rest of the games competition, is Ben Brand. I've mentionned on the last few blogs that he's been struggling with his calf/achilles injury and, sadly, a visit to the local medical centre has resulted in doctors' orders of 4 weeks full rest. To his ultimate credit, Ben is still being as bouncy as ever (well, personality wise anyway), and i'm sure a disappointment such as this will only drive him on to big things in Aland in 2009.

No other significant injuries to report, but the strong wind in the stadium is causing a few athletes problems. Rachael Kelly, for example, will be forced to make a decision as to which way round her blocks will be only moments before the gun goes as the wind is causing havoc with early race stride patterns. Also, i've never really though of Rach as someone who would be a 'dirty' athlete, but now that she's

1) been called sweaty by a local bus driver; and
2) told a group of us she felt 'dirty' in her training gear

i'm beginning to see her in a whole new light!!!

On to the opening shambles. Now this being my fifth games i've become pretty accustomed as to what to expect at these things... you hang around for 20 minutes, get marched into a field to warm applause, some local school kids do the Macarena or something equally as imaginative, speeches, home, bed. Not this time. I think we must have been kept waiting for around an hour this time as our ultra organised Greek friends ran around like headless chickens trying to get things sorted.

Being bored after about 30 seconds, we (along with the Basketball team) tried to lighten the mood with a limited but loud selection of Manx songs. You'll be disappointed to learn however that the chart topping classic about the Laxey Wheel was only brought out once. The bookies favourite for 'Supporter of the Week' is now undoubtedly young Mikey Haslett though, who sang himself hoarse, embarrassed himself at times yes, but really got into the swing of things in general - how his voice hasn't gone this morning i'll never know!

Eventually we were marched into the old stadium to lound cheering and applause. This is one of the best moments of the Games for me, as it means that the faffing around has ended and the business end is about to begin. The stadium announcer was about 3 days too fast but no matter, i'm sure the Rhodes public were oblivious to the fact that we were not in fact Sark. We were seated at the far side of the staduim and once everyone was in the main event started.

What. A. Bloody. Shambles (sorry kids) We were subjected to 50 minutes of Greek drama, allegedly telling the tale of how the world began but after about 5 minutes all we wanted was for the world to end there and then. I was sat next to Rach (thankfully clean by this stage) and we set about providing our own commentary to proceedings as, from what we could make out, the female narrator kept referring to Eeyore and Appolini (possibly a god, possibly an Italian footballer - who knows. Rach provided perhaps my favourite quote of the games so far though when she said.

"For gods sake, this is why all the venues aren't finished isn't it - they've wasted all their time and money on this crap!"

I won't go into much more detail as i've just realised how long this is - you really did have to see it to believe it though. Once the event had finished we still had the speeches and water to come which was too much for most islands. Rather sadly in my opinion, the speeches were delivered to a half empty stadium with the other half streaming out of the gates, half in disgust, half in agony (the stone seats weren't exactly comfortable, to put it mildly). We stayed for Brian Partington's speech (who sounded pretty cheesed of himself) then bolted, returning home around half 11. Not exactly the ideal preparation for our athletes competing today (Sunday) i'm sure you'll all agree.

I'll update you on some fine half-marathon action tonight, along with an update on how our atheltes got on this evening. As a final note though i'd just like to let you know that Andrew Duncan appears to be losing his battle to win John's heart, but i'll keep you posted...