Cleaver's Games: March 19

Opinion

I had my first brush with royalty yesterday and I can confirm they are human like everybody else.

Heading to the grandstand to watch the second transition in the women's triathlon, the Northern Advocate's Tim Eves and myself unknowingly took seats in a spot reserved for 'Games Family Only'.

As the athletes came in to swap their bikes for shoes I heard a posh, but in no way effeminate, voice over my right shoulder.

There he was, the Earl of Wessex, the Queen's third-favourite son. Good old Eddie to his Wanganui Collegiate teaching buddies.

Anxious not to look like a ridiculous child, I made raised-eyebrow signals to Tim and initially he presumed I was making a pass at him. That's not the done thing in Kamo.

Once he'd established my motives were honest, we both turned. And there it was.

Hanging loosely from the princely left nostril was snot. There's no other way to put it.

One was not sure what protocol to follow.

So we left... quickly.

* The disgrace of Soulan Pownceby acting as comments man at the boxing on Friday night lay not in the fact that he's a convicted manslaughterer.

There are only so many ways and so many days he can repent before a humane society has to let it go and let him get on with whatever sort of life he has left.

It's not even the fact he should be preparing for a fight without distractions. He is old enough and ugly enough to know what works for him.

No, the real disgrace is that he is allowed to use the media to develop new skills, to build his profile, when he absolutely refuses media requests otherwise.

Pownceby is the most cosseted athlete in this team.

Dave Currie and the rest of the Games' management have ensured he is the athletic equivalent of the boy in the bubble - no 'fleas' can penetrate this bubble.

The NZOC are suitably unimpressed and it is hard to believe Pownceby is manipulative enough to understand the distastefulness of the decision.

But that's no excuse for whoever decided it was a good idea to hire him.

* Tamati Ellison was a case in point that too much haka is not necessarily a good thing.

On about the ninth of 13 renditions of Ka Mate, Ellison snapped the chain on his piece of precious metal.

* My personal medal tally stands at five after catching Hayden Roulston in the points race, Sam Warriner and Andrea Hewitt in the women's triathlon, the men's cycling pursuit bronze and Bevan Docherty's silver in the triathlon. Still looking for that elusive gold though.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY