athletics – Rob's blog

Perth City2Surf 2010

admin — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 07:00:26 +0000

Last weekend I joined a record number of 40,468 people in the Perth city to surf event, from the city centre to City Beach, a distance of 12 km. As a sign of my increasing age, I had opted to join the walkers of the 12 km event, pushing my 3 year old and 9 mth old in a stroller. It was still a brisk walk to complete the course in 2 hrs 10 minutes, with plenty of people still behind us, and the sore feet to show for it.I would have just beaten the marathon runners!

I’m glad I was not in the half marathon event, as the lead out cyclist took the runners the wrong way, requiring the leaders to backtrack quite a bit. I cannot imagine they would be too happy about that.

As usual there were plenty of characters, people dressed up like the one pictured. It was a fairly warm day, so he would have been feeling the heat. As would have the two dressed in Storm Trooper outfits. All done to raise funds for a worthy charity.

Fast Dollars for Fast Food

admin — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 06:28:17 +0000

Nathan Deeks, an Australian Champion racewalker, appeared in a full-page color advertisement for the fast food restaurant McDonalds, saying that he eats ‘Maccas’ after his events, including at the Olympic Games.

I know that he was probably only trying to earn a few sponsorship bucks in return for all the effort he puts into his training, but as a sporting role model, it was such a disgusting thing to promote eating undoubtedly unhealthy food.

I don’t mind that he had the occasional fast food snack, but it is not right for an athlete representing Australia to say it so publicly. It does not say much about the dietitians at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) if one of their athletes comes out of there with this attitude that this is OK to do.

A few days later, a very similar-looking ad was published (obviously on purpose), with an ex-Australian Olympian and NBA star Luc Longley, promoting healthy eating, saying that he never considered eating junk food before or after competing. The ad was a welcome response to the McDonalds one, which needed to be done, but I don’t think enough ho-ha was made of it.

The government spends millions of dollars trying to address the problem of childhood obesity, including trying to get more people active and into sports, and millions are spent on the AIS getting athletes including Nathan Deeks properly prepared for the Olympic Games. I don’t think he has done his long-time supporter (AIS) any good and hopefully, he got into trouble, all for a small financial reward.

Related Pages: Summer Olympic Games
See more about sports nutrition

Norman Black Power

admin — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 04:12:47 +0000

Australian sprinter Peter Norman recently passed away. His silver medal in the 200m at the Mexico Olympics in 1968 is still the best performance by an Australian male sprinter. Norman ran 20.06 seconds, which is still an Australian record. Despite his great performances, he is not a well known sportsman in Australia. However, many people have seen a photo of him receiving his Olympic medal, as he was part of one of the classic Olympic Games controversies. Norman came second behind American Tommie Smith, and in front of John Carlos also from the USA. Smith and Carlos were African Americans, and made their black power salute, raising their fists with black gloves on. All three athletes wore human rights badges, with Norman showing his support for their cause.