HOW TO SPEAK OLYMPIC ...............

                                         

                                     OLYMPIC SPEAK !

                                            DO YOU KNOW YOURS ???

ARCHERY  -  FISTMELE

Fistmele is, in Archery , the distance between the bow handle and string

when the bow is drawn. ( You may also hear references to a competitor's

"Kisser" - a thing which shows the right vertical distance when drawing a bow. )

ATHLETICS  -  FARTLEK

    ( Fartlek - I kid you not ! ) It's an Athletics term

    of Swedish origin for a sort of practice running workout

    where the runner can vary the speed they , well, run at.

 BADMINTON - BACK ALLEY

 The area between the rear boundary and the long service line on a 
  Badminton court. Sometimes rudely, and wrongly, defined as where
 Badminton was played before legalisation in 1322.

     BASKETBALL - KEYHOLE

       Not what you watch Ladies' through, but the end part of the court ,

  

       including the foul circle, the free throw- line and the foul lane. It's called 

      the Keyhole because it used to look like one in the old days but does not

      any more .

BOXING - CHIN

Term of praise in boxing , as in " The boy's got chin". Not 

the bit the other chap just punched, but the ability to stay

upright despite it, even when seeing stars or indeed nothing

 at all. Allegedly "chin" is born not made. The opposite of 

 " glass jaw ".

    CANOEING - BEAM

      Not the expression on the face of the gold medallist in the canoe sprint where he tries his best to look 

      humble, but the width of the widest part of his boat .

                                          

     CANOEING - DRIVE FACE

       Drive Face is normally the expression that people put on when they turn into the gravel driveway of

       someone who is much richer than they are. In slalom canoeing, through the drive face is the curved

       , front bit of the paddle which is used to go forward. The rest is done by the back of the blade, which

        you may hear called by it's technical term, "back of the blade".

       

       CYCLING - BABY HEADS

         If the commentator refers to these during a cycling race , he'll be wincing . Baby heads are smallish 

         rocks, though bigger than 'death cookies', which mountain-bike riders often sample - usually with 

         their teeth when they have a crash.

           

         CYCLING - THE PITS

        The pits is a track cyclist's description for what he or she considers a particulary poor performance.
        Also fenced -off areas of the infield where mechanics work on the bikes.

         CYCLING - GROUPO

         You're thinking: an Australian person too old to be a groupie who hangs around road cyclists 

         hoping for a bit of slap - and - gravel. But actually it's a set of drive components - brakes, cranks, 

         gears and so on . 

          BMX - BEARTRAP

          Almost as nasty as it suggests : what happens when in BMX  cycling


          your foot slips off the pedal so the other pedal whizzes round and 


          smacks you in the shin.    

EQUESTRIAN - SLOBBER BAR

A slobber bar is where the equestrians gather after the event

to commiserate with, and blame, each other. Also , or actually

, it refers to a metal bar between the shanks of a curb bit.

 FENCING - COUP DROIT D'AUTORITE`

  The fencing stroke which parries then forces through


  an attack. It's the opposite of  ' parade insufficent ' or


  ' Mal - parry' - a parry that doesn't work so that the


   attackers blade makes contact .

FOOTBALL - OFFSIDE

We must mention football, (Why no David Beckham ? confused.com) , so let's
stick to the offside rule which is the thing a woman feigning interest in the game asks
a man to explain just once more, thus spoiling his enjoyment of the match while adding nothing to hers.
                                                           (SEE DIAGRAM BELOW)

GYMNASTICS 

THE FLOOR  - In Artistic Gymnastics what they call the floor is actually ..........
the floor. But it's officially a piece of apparatus. And there's more : exercises
performed on the floor are called.....floor exercise.  Whoever's in charge of Gymnastics is really going to
have to work on being a bit more obscure or where will it end ???

TOSS - Astoundingly and rather disappointingly an action in Rhythmic Gymnastics in which the Athlete
throws something into the air and catches it again. Cf'trap', where the something is caught , but not with
the hands. Minds : feel free to boggle.

HANDBALL - FALLAWAY

What they call it when a Handball player leaps into the air and 

while actually airborne twists to become horizontal in mid - air

and sort of flies round the defender to take a shot at goal. Do not

try this at home. Or if you do try this at home, make sure someone's

filming you so that they can post it on You Tube.

HOCKEY - BULLY

Naturally, the rough person in a hockey match with no

front teeth who is responsible for lots of other players

having no front teeth either. More formally, it's the call used to start the game, when players tap the 'flat' of their

sticks three times, then just go for it .

JUDO - JUSHIN

The centre of gravity of a judo combatant, and so one of it's

most crucial concepts. You may also hear the commentators 

speaking of "kansetsuwaza", where the combatants lock limbs,

and "O-Goshi", which is a combatants cry, the Japanese 

translation of "O-Fuck". ( Actually it's not. It's a Major Hip 

Throw. )

 SAILING - BROACH

 Since almost every aspect of sailing is conducted in an 

 otherwise-dead language based on the everyday speech 

 of 8th- century gurning rustics, it's hard to know where to 

 start, but this will do, and it's what the commentators will

 cry if a boat turns out of control, broadside to the wind 

 ( or waves ). Unlikely but possible.

SAILING - SAXBOARD

Well it's obviously another rowing term for gunwales, which

are pronounced "gunnels", while saxboard is pronounced 

"saxboard". In either case it's the top rail along the sides of

the boat, which is sometimes called a "shell",so that a shell's

saxboard is the same thing as a boat's gunwales.

SHOOTING - LEADE

The leade is the smooth section in the breech of a rifle, where you load the bullet, before the "lands" - the

ridges which make the bullet spin in flight. If you hear them refer to the "thrat", it's a not - quite - pukkah 

word for the same thing.

SHOOTING - NO BIRD

This is what happens when a shooting competitor spends all his time practising and never goes out. It is

also an illegally- launched clay pigeon. ( That's 'illegal' in that it's thrown before the player has called 'pull',

or not thrown, or breaks - not 'illegal' as in being fired into someone's face round the back of Argos when

he was eyein up your 'bird' innit ! )

SWIMMING - RIP ENTRY

It does make you think, some of these sporting terms. Still 

Rip Entry is, in diving, when you enter the water almost

imperceptibly, without making any splash. ( Incompatible

with 'lost move syndrome' where the diver suddenly finds

that he or she can't do a sequence of moves which two 

minutes ago was second nature. )

SWIMMING - SCULL

Scull is no relation of 'chin', 'kisser' or ' baby heads' ( qvv ) but instead it is sort of a paddling action of a 

synchronised swimmer's hands that is sppecifically designed to put a continuous pressure on the water in 

order to hold station ( or indeed propel the swimmer forwards ).

SWIMMING - WHIPPING AREA

As everyone knows, this is a swimming term referring to the competitors' equivalent of the Green Room,

where they can relax, either poolside or in a special room, before the race. Why ? What did you think it

was ???

TABLE TENNIS - CHOP BLOCK

" There's that chop block again " is nothing to do with 

butchery or Tower Hill; rather, a table-tennis stroke 

where the player just waits for the ball to come to his 

" blade " ( bat ) which he then chops downwards to

apply heavy spin to the ball as  it returns.

TAEKWONDO - CHAGI

Chagi is the Korean word fora kick in Taekwondo. There are 

lots of kinds of chagi. 'Ap','Yop',( the drink? ) 'dwi', 'naeryo', 

'bakat','cha chun bai' also 'horio'. These meaning: front, side, 

back, like axe, outer crescent, skipping, reverse turning. There 

are also many kinds of 'jireugi', which means punch. 'Jireugi ap'

'jireugi yop' - you begin to get the picture ???

TENNIS - GOLDEN SET

The tennis commentators will be yearning for this to happen.

A golden set is a set won 6 - 0 without a point being lost.

It has only ever been pulled off once, and that wasn't at an

Olympics - by Bill Scanlon of the USA in 1983. Could this

be the year? Almost certainly not.

TRAMPOLINE - FLUFFUS

A double somersault with a twist. One of those things in trampoline which, 

like everything else in trampoline , makes one feel as though one has shot

over the edge, screaming, and smashed one's teeth out on the rim . Can I 

go now ? I feel funny.

I find trampoline a bit up and down .

TRIATHLON - BONK

See also 'no bird', since neither have anything to do with sex.To 'bonk' is when a triathlete runs out of

puff,steam and oomph.Technically, it's actually the

glycogen reserves in muscle and liver which run out,

but either way it's a 'bonk', and you've 'hit the wall'

and are going no further for a bit, certainly not at the

rate you were.

VOLLEYBALL - FACIAL

A version of the popular indulgence, in volleyball a

'facial' is when a player raises her arm over her

head and smashes the ball into the opponent's side

of the court - and it hits someone smack in the

face. Also invigorating, but in a different way.

VOLLEYBALL(BEACH) - WHALE

A term of beach volleyball abuse ( note the nautical imagery )

for swiping wildly at the ball without any sense of tactics or real

purpose. But for the male spectators , with those skimpy little

outfits, who's looking for strategy or tactics ???

WATER POLO - BRUTALITY

Oddly enough for a sporting term, brutality, in water polo,

does actually refers to brutality, in which Player A tries 

deliberately to harm ( maim, kill, disable ) Player B, and

is sent off for the rest of the game.

WEIGHTLIFTING - SNATCH

Shh. stop it. This is simply, in weightlifting, pulling the 

barbell to mid-chest, then flipping it overhead. The other

one is called the 'jerk'- I warned you : stop it - which 

follows the 'clean', a rapid pull to the shoulders, then 

jerking the barbell overhead. There's also the famous 

though seldom seen 'prolapse' but it's usually left 

unmentioned apart from wincing by all involved.

WRESTLING - CROTCH LIFT

In wrestling, a 'crotch lift' refers to that nasty 

moment in which one combatant locks his arms 

round the other's upper thigh and then attempts to

perform a 'snatch'(qv) on the other poor sod.

Everyone winces, which is odd since in the 16th

century the phrase was part of a dance called

La Volta, and it was generally considered rather

sexy. How things have changed !

Now you know your 'bonk' from your 'snatch' and what they get up to down the 'back alley' !!!

I'm off to the 'slobber bar' as I have 'no bird' to see if I can get a good 'rip entry' with a beach volleyball

                                                                player on 'the floor'