A man’s attempt to explain the Omnium Olympic cycling event to friends down the pub has entered it’s third week, with no signs of it reaching a conclusion any time soon, despite the 4-yearly festival of sport in Paris having long since finished.
‘Look, let’s just recap on what we know so far, its actually quite straightforward’, said a flustered Mike McBride, getting out his flipchart and marker pens again.
‘There’s 4 events. You start with the scratch. Er…all the competitors form a big circle on their bikes, and one of them does a special scratch and then nods to another cyclist, who has to copy it, add their own and pass it on’.
‘Then there’s the tempo’, continued McBride unconvincingly. ‘So… er…in this one, everyone rides round the track while different pieces of classical music are played. Each rider has to guess what tempo it is, and they enter this - using the correct Italian terminology of course – on a little computer screen which is attached to their handlebars.’
‘Following that there’s the points round. Self-explanatory, that one’, said McBride, to an increasingly small audience.
‘And to finish, we have the elimination’, announced McBride. ‘Donald Sutherland announces the start of the event, and every cyclist is competing for their own district, trying to hide and survive as long as they can without being killed.’
‘The first film of this was ok, but I thought the prequel was a bit derivative to be honest. Chris Hoy is a great actor though’, said McBride.
‘Now, who was it who wanted to know what the hell was going on in any of the sailing events?’.
