Let the games begin

Some Olympic sports only need one moment on the box. I came to Olympic weightlifting after Graham May's slow fall forward at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch made weightlifting, normally a sport only a hernia specialist could love, into ‘must see' television.

Even better is the lens gets everything. For me the Grimacing Ones are rock stars, leaving the graceful and elegant floundering in clouds of the sticky powder dusted on their hands. One rule holds. Big is better, and no one does big like weightlifting.

At the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne Water Polo was the hot ticket, after the Russians and Hungarians turned the pool red with blood, when the fury over Russia's brutal suppression of the Hungarian uprising exploded.

For many New Zealanders, including myself, yachting finally got interesting at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Russell Coutts won a gold medal, despite suffering an un-lanced boil on his backside.He dared not take any treatment, lest he trip over the drug testing.

The New Zealand television commentator rushed up for the interview. In a magical moment Coutts went open-eyed in horror as it dawned on him the interviewer actually wanted to have the cameras dwell on the boil; as in, drop his shorts so the nation could share the fullness of the moment.

Sanity prevailed, the shorts stayed up and Coutts wandered off to the medics. Whether this contributed to Coutts' later reticence with the media is still unknown.

The pole vault is a moment belonging in a movie, racking up the tension as the runner sprints to attack the bar. The crowd is silent. The question hangs over them like a cloud. Is this when ‘It' will happen? Mostly it doesn't. But in Sydney in 2000 it did, and every time this moment is replayed, which is often, all males feel a special Oneness with the unfortunate.

Here it is below. Let the Games begin.