Just before heading out of the door to Heathrow Airport this morning, I hear a BBC report of storm force winds about to hit southern areas of China, near Hong Kong where the Equestrian events of the Olympics will be taking place. Local authorities were telling people to move their cars to sheltered places where they might not blow over. Well, if the wind is strong enough to blow cars over, it sure as can blow horses over, and if it heads north to Qingdao, will surely blow boats over too.
With other typhoon warnings being talked about for the weekend – the beginning of the Olympic fortnight – how ironic would it be if the sailing were to be called off due to an excess of wind! It would be shades of Pusan all over again, when the 1988 Olympic Regatta was expected to be light but ended up being anything but.
A lot of athletes have been putting all their eggs in the light wind basket, and it would be a shame to have gone to all that trouble of dieting for nothing. One sailor who has had no such qualms is Aussie Finn sailor Anthony ‘Nocka’ Nossiter, who I’m told predicted the typhoons would hit Qingdao from months ago. Sounds like a great excuse to keep on eating the pies, if ever I heard one! Good on ya, Nocka. I hope your pie eating pays off, and that he and other sailors actually get to use their underused toe straps and trapeze wires.
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