menu_open
Columnists Actual . Favourites . Archive
We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close
Aa Aa Aa
- A +

The Paris Olympics have been fine. Here’s how they could be improved

13 11
31.07.2024

Has anyone ever done a wee in the Olympic pool? I’d be so nervous I’d wee for sure, but maybe they train for this at the Australian Institute of Sport.

When I was a child they told you that every pool – backyard or Olympic - contained a special chemical which would turn blue on contact with urine. If any child dared to pee in the pool, their shame would be immediately obvious to the world, the bright blue chemical swirling around them like an accusing cloud.

Now picture him getting chased by a shark. That’s must-see Olympics viewing.Credit: AP

Mind you there was an omission, or is that an emission, that not everybody played by the rules, in either pool or sea. Again, a memory from childhood: whenever anyone mentioned a word such as psychiatry, someone would confide that “the ‘p’ is silent as in the term ‘surf bathing’.”

You don’t find the expression particularly amusing? Well, this was before the internet so we had to make our own fun.

Maybe we should be grateful that at least some of the competitors are swimming in the River Seine, which is traditionally a heavily polluted sewer. I assume they are allowed to pee as much as they like. It could give them forward propulsion.

Meanwhile, there’s news from the Spanish city of Marbella that visitors caught urinating in the sea will be fined the........

© The Age


Get it on Google Play