KEY POINTS:
A good week for ...
The discipline of the Red Army - which defeated the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai Chek and overcame all manner of adversity during the Long March - has finally met its match: Cockney ticket scalpers. George, from London, told the Daily Telegraph: "The cops aren't a problem, we just bung'em. You know, drop a few notes on the floor and walk off and let them pick them up. Keeps everyone sweet, doesn't it? They're not a problem here cops, good as gold in fact."
It's never an ideal day when Australians enjoy sporting triumph. But SuperShorts was surely not alone in smiling at the scoreline from the hockey in Beijing: Australia 10, South Africa 0.
Thank goodness those hard-pressed Premier League soccer clubs are finding a way to make ends meet. With the new season starting this weekend, it's been revealed that all 20 top-flight English clubs are paying minimum wages to backroom staff. The clubs in the league last year had revenues of £2 billion ($5.3 billion) and spent £600 million on players, while the cleaners and shop staff were on £5.25 an hour. That's £2 below the London Living Wage which Mayor Boris Johnson says is the minimum to avoid living in poverty in the city where Michael Ballack chose to rent rather than buy because of the high house prices.
It's been a great week for peace and understanding in the rarefied Olympic arena as Georgia and Russia go toe-to-toe in the real world of tanks, bombs and bleeding civilians. Russia's Natalia Uryadova, beaten in the beach volleyball final by a pair of, er, Georgians, had this to say: "We were not actually playing against the Georgian team. We were playing against our Brazilian friends here." True enough, the Georgian pair, Andrezza Chagas and Cristine Santanna, were Brazilians until very recently. Santanna said: "I feel like a Georgian. I have a Georgian passport and a Brazilian passport. I don't want this to be a war between us. I appreciate them and respect them as players."
A good week for keeping your mouth shut if you were the whistleblower in Cardiff. Sadly - and inexplicably - the touch judge in Sunday's Cape Town test, a Mr W. Barnes, declined interviews with the New Zealand media in the build-up to the match.
Our unstoppable star rower Mahe Drysdale is guaranteed victory. Suddenly, on the eve of the finals it emerges that food poisoning might just scupper our hopes and cruelly rob New Zealand of the deserved title. Right, that's the excuse in the bag.
A bad week for ...
Somewhere between the fake firecrackers and the fake little girl singing, there's a lesson to be learned about modern Olympiads. Deception rules: It's okay to deceive at the Olympics if a greater interest is at stake. Chen Qigang, the general music designer of the ceremony, explained it thus: "The reason was for the national interest. The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feelings and expression."
Extend this "national interest" baloney across the whole Games and it becomes acceptable to pump an athlete full of drugs and pretend they're clean in the pursuit of a greater good.
The story of the fake singer was cheerfully revealed by China's state broadcaster as an illustration of how well prepared the whole show was. A little accidental press freedom does no harm.
John Ray, of Britain's ITN, could tell you more about Chinese press freedom. The journo was given the bash, dragged along the ground by Chinese police and detained after he tried to report on a pro-Tibet protest near the main Olympic stadium. Nothing to see here - move along folks.
All this Super Saturday business better stand up. At time of writing New Zealand are below such Olympic superpowers as Azerbaijan, India, Tajikistan, Togo and Zimbabwe. Yes, Tajikistan.
There's nothing like an international festival of sport to remind us of the truly prehistoric attitudes to race in ye olde Europe. Spain, the nation that so far tops the Beijing drug testing table now gives us a basketball squad that makes squinty eye gestures as a tribute to their Chinese hosts. Factor in the Spanish baiting of Lewis Hamilton and the monkey chants they throw to Ashley Cole and this looks like a country seriously in need of a wee chat.
* Send your Good Week / Bad Week items to supersport@nzherald.co.nz
