London Olympics 2012 – part 2

‘That’s your blue steel; expressionless; You have a face that one could look at all day’

“Ok, easy tiger”

Moments later my hair went red with embarrassment …

Seriously I’m not usually a red head ! I’m not ! (not that there is anything wrong with that if you’re a ginger reading this).

Big Tom said with authority ‘ you should have got a haircut, you look like you came on a motorbike’. I would get a hair cut but then I am off that age that I am worried it may not grow back. It is a serious dilemma that I am faced with at the moment.

Anyway . . . . rambling.

There was quite a bit of national attention this week post Olympic qualification – photo shoots, radio and television interviews. Aileen, Triathlon Ireland and I got through most of that on Thursday with a day of concentrated media. Most of the activities being highlighted on the various social media sites.

A journalist will interview you for maybe 15mins but of course is only able to use a small percentage of your chat – for example my mother Mary recently spent an afternoon as a guest of Wella and at the end of a 20min chat with a reporter she joked “maybe when the games are over he will find a nice girl and settle down” – and that’s all that was printed !! Can you imagine the slagging I got !?

The unofficial goal as always when doing interviews is to drop a quote or song lyric – disappointingly though I was unable to work in ‘it’s a marvelous night for a moondance’.

Some of our interviews were light hearted which was refreshing.  Here are some answers to questions that didn’t make the news :

“Yeah I still have those pink shorts , but they are only worn during private shows these days”

“The womens race is first although I fear losing energy watching it ! In Madrid I spent about 90mins shouting and cursing at the TV with an often elevated heart rate. Don’t be feckin handing out the water ! Go straight through ! Do you know how difficult it is to hold in a pee for 34mins ? almost impossible . . .  almost !”

‘I would have Muhammed Ali, Roy Keane, Thandie Newton, Russell Brand and maybe Bono – Thandie would be the waitress and Bono is only allowed to talk or offer an opinion when Roy says so’

“I think the Mcdonalds there is free”

‘I don’t really have regrets apart from getting injured of course ! mmmm and maybe those 3 dreadlocks I had for a while. . . yeah I regret those’

‘This time 4 yrs ago I was in Limerick and funnily enough I haven’t been back since until now’

Post all the interviews, photos and the relative hype I was able to sit down and zone out with my brother and family in Dublin. Even with all the excitement of the day I think my favourite 5mins was a cup of tea and cup cake sitting watching my big bro reading to Tiny T . .

I seriously need to man up ! ASAP.