ICE ICE BABY

Why oh why do we get worked up into thinking that GB will be anything but crap in the Winter Olympics? I blame Torvill and Dean for giving us an unrealistic hope that we may just be good again in the ice or snow. Having Todd Carty in Dancing on Ice just doesn't cut the mustard... we want MEDALS dammit, not songs from Cabaret and headbangers. Great Britain has now become the equivalent of Norway's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest ie. lots of build up, hope, preparation, naff outfits, but in the end... nil pwa.

Apart from Amy Williams shock gold medal in skeleton, we've failed miserably at winning anything. Our big hope was Nicola Minichiello and Gillian Cooke in the women's bobsleigh. BBC Sport's Clare Balding had whipped up some enthusiasm in doing a piece on Nicola and Gillian's training in England prior to the Olympics. The 'training' consisted of a second hand bobsleigh running on a rusty tram track on a farm in Yorkshire. Once the enthusiastic lasses had shoved it for 30 yards and co-ordinated their jumps into the bob, the carriage was prevented from derailing by a huge piece of elastic strung across two poles. It was roughly 7 seconds into Clare's report that alarm bells start ringing and you realise Oh Christ, here we go again....

During an event on the lead up to the Olympics, Gillian and Nicola were filmed from behind about to push their bobsleigh down the run when Gillian's pants split to show an expanse of spotty arse and black G string. Then it emerged that no-one had sponsored the girls (probably after seeing the training methods) so the girls bought their bobsleigh themselves for £9000 on, wait for it... a credit card. They'd have perhaps done better getting a tractor for their farm or at worst, trading it in for a Ford Ka on the UK car scrappage scheme.

So, last night and the inevitable happens. After much puffing out cheeks, leg stretches... helmet adjustments, high fives, hugs and genuflecting... they're off. A few turns in and at 80mph, they crash. Not surprising really when they only reached the giddy heights of 5mph on the 25 yards of rusty track somewhere outside Emmerdale.

If the dodgy training methods, lack of sponsorship and arse splitting weren't enough, I think I have my own theory on why the women's bobsleigh team failed so spectacularly...

If you want to sit in a tin box and hurl yourself down an ice tunnel reaching speeds of up to 90mph, you'd want someone to be a crack driver, someone who has 20-20 vision, nerves of steel, lightning reflexes and a touch of bravado bordering on an iron will to hold your nerve. You perhaps wouldn't want a boss-eyed 6th form head girl with a penchant for dodgy underwear. Ladies and gentlemen.. I give you.... Gillian Cooke - bobsleigh driver and the only contestant to have an airbag fitted to her G String. That's her on the left in the photo below.

And just when it couldn't get any worse for Great Britain and the cost of sending hundreds of athletes, trainers, team backups, BBC sports broadcasting, lottery funding etc etc..... Australia has won TWO GOLDS and ONE SILVER. Yes, Australia. The country with scorching deserts, beaches and kangaroos. It makes you want to puke doesn't it?