Guy Verhofstadt has tried putting a brave face on EU member states’ underwhelming performances at the 2020 Olympics, claiming if the EU were a nation-state in of itself its record would be more impressive:
Fun fact: EU combined has more gold medals than US or China #TokyoOlympics
— Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) August 5, 2021
I’d love to see the EU flag next to the national on athletes’ clothes.
Our identity is layered - we’re proud Italians, Latvians, Germans, Slovenians... and Europeans. Our sports should reflect that !🥇🇪🇺
Given this is the first Olympics since Brexit, Guido points out that were Britain still members the EU’s medal total would be a whopping 25% higher. We were always propping them up…
We’re also currently totaling the same number of gold medals as our nearest two EU medal table neighbours, France and Germany, combined. Guido will leave it up to Guy to tot up the Commonwealth…
Guido appreciates the BBC has the freedom to be biased towards Team GB, though spots the corporation’s sports voiceover chose to wish the first trans Olympian “all the success” before Laurel Hubbard crashed out of the competition, having failed to lift in any round. They also pityingly said that she’d given her “absolute all”. Ultimately Hubbard failed to achieve a snatch…
It seems the BBC had been reading from the Olympic’s official guide to wokery; taking their seats, sports reporters found every desk adorned with a “Guide for journalists covering LGBTQ athletes & issues at the summer Olympics and Paralympics”. The guide’s “terms to avoid” section included “Born male/born female. No one is born with a gender identity”. The Telegraph’s Chief Sports Writer Oliver Brown asks how it was allowed to be disseminated at an Olympic venue as a supposedly balanced document…
To any budding hacks, you can read the pamphlet in full below:
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has announced that the International Olympic Committee has agreed to delay the summer games, due to be hosted by Tokyo this summer, by one year to 2021. Feels like a lot longer than one month since there was discussion of London hosting the games if Japan was incapacitated…
Victorious Team GB athletes launched the first of the days renditions of “God Save the Queen” while departing Rio on BA’s specially chartered VictoRIOus 747. Team GB’s post-Brexit spirit seems fine just hours after Owen Smith begged for “a Britain we can be proud of once more.”
The former countries of the British Empire won 396 medals – 138 more medals than a post-Brexit EU. While the European Parliament invents an EU state to “win” the Olympics, the medal tally of a one-time actual supra-state leaves Brussels for dust. Former member countries of the British Empire accrued 76 more medals than the rest of the world (24%). In all, the Empire’s score of 137 gold medals trounces the EU’s, which after removing Great Britain sits at just 79.
Looking at other alliances NATO countries took a stunning 443 out of the 974 medals on offer (45%), while Anglosphere countries grabbed a whopping 288 – 30% of the world total. This is compared to Francophone states’ measly 87 (9%), even with Canada’s 22 (2%) generously included. Hoisting the colours appears to have been good luck; countries with Union Jacks in their flags took a massive 115 medals, of which 40 were gold!
On Page 22 of today’s Times sits a series of articles in contrast with the rest of the paper’s coverage of Team GB’s record Olympics haul. A bold headline emblazoned with the Chinese flag praises “China Heroes” such as weightlifter Long Qingquan and table tennis champion Ding Ning. A far cry from the front page headline of “Demand for new honours as Team GB beat China”…
Upon closer inspection, the gushingly patriotic articles are the efforts of a full page advertisement from the Chinese state’s official Xinhua News Agency. Xinhua today declared China “second in the overall standings”, despite Team GB coming second via the traditional tally of gold medals. Odd choice of paper for the bragging propaganda, since the proprietor has really gone off Chinese…
