Olympic Spillage

When pole vaulting goes wrong, some very good natured vandalism and the scenes in Bray for Katie Taylor.

A pole vaulter’s worst nightmare

We have often wondered how you get into a sort like pole-vaulting. We can see why people would have a natural desire to see how far they could jump, or far they can fling a metal ball, but the act of clearing a very high bar using a long stisck has always puzzled us.

Not only does it look like you would suffer many, many, many painful practices until you got the hang of it, we always feared that the pole would one day snap. It does, rarely, happen and Cuban vaulter Lazaro Borges, a silver medallist at last year’s World Championships, suffered that fate yesterday.

As you can see he was lucky enough, and, armed with a new pole, he did clear the height at the next attempt. Sadly he didn’t make the final but we’re not surprised that his confidence was a little shaken by what had just happened.

The worst act of vandalism, ever

You may have heard that the lads across the water have come up with the idea of painting a post box gold in the area near where each gold medallist on Team GB lives. It's a nice idea and there is even a website, where you can get the location of all the golden post boxes if you want to go on a tour and see them all.

Anyway, one of the biggest British heroes of the Games is Jessica Ennis. The Sheffield native delivered (no pun intended) in the heptathlon and was duly rewarded with a gold post box in Sheffield city centre.

We then heard that somebody had ‘vandalised’ the post box. We were shocked and appalled and wondered, what have they written on the box? Something foul and offensive?

No. Apparently, ‘Go Jess’ was scrawled into the gold paint. Surely a message of support on a box designed to celebrate Ennis, is many things, but it is not vandalism. The box has been re-painted by the postal service but we reckon this won’t be the last time a golden post box sees a bit of damage.

If Bray was this busy yesterday...

Half of Ireland is expected to descend on Bray this afternoon to watch local star Katie Taylor box for gold at the Olympics. Based on the crowd that was in the town yesterday, it should be the place to be at around 4.45 today.