High life | 11 August 2012

Gstaad

If the London Olympics do not go down in history as the Crying Games, I will perform a sex act on Vladimir Putin in Piccadilly Circus as the clock strikes 12 next New Year’s Eve. Olympic winners’ tears made the place look like Niagara Falls at times, and with the floods up in Scotland I feared for the safety of cattle and other animals.

Winners cried much more than losers, which makes the Devil laugh, according to an old proverb, and makes me wonder what is happening to the Brits. Take, for example, the lightweight women’s double skulls. The event was won convincingly by two nice British girls who broke down and cried so much they had to sweep the place for tears in order for the medal ceremony to take place. For three quarters of the race two Greek girls — one of them very pretty — led bravely until passed by the British boat. Then, literally two yards away from the finish line, two Chinese robots nipped them for the silver. During the ceremony the two winners cried and cried, the two Chinese robots looked blank, and the two Greek girls laughed and waved and looked happy and nice. So there’s something wrong with this picture. We Greeks are supposedly emotional human beings. The Brits are known to be phlegmatic and have a stiff upper lip. Maybe the winners were Greeks wearing blonde wigs, and the bronze medallists British, although everyone agrees that the robots were Chinese.

I don’t know what makes grown men and women cry when they win something they’ve been training hard for most of their lives, perhaps because the last time I blubbed a bit was when I had fought my last judo match one year ago.