Village boy becomes king of the castle
Jeremiah Spikehead could hardly believe it when he was selected to play volleyball at the Sydney Olympics. It was a dream come true: his chance to represent his country at his chosen sport. He got a big shock, however, the day he turned up at the venue marked down in his program for day one of competition. MORE...
Training wheels come the full circle
Our son Jack, 6, says he does not want us to put the training wheels back on his bicycle now. You see, he has learnt to ride without them.
I imagine this is how Tour de France multi-winner Lance Armstrong feels about training wheels. Sure, they were fine when he was learning to ride and could not balance without them.
But, dang, now he has got the hang of it, training wheels can really impede a hill climb or sprint in a big race. MORE...
Jerome O'Fury writes:
Yet another letter to Jelena Dokic's dad
Dear Damir Dokic,
I am writing to you on behalf of a low-lying atoll in the Pacific to invite you and your family to move here.
You left Australia and returned to Serbia because you thought the tennis establishment was working against your very talented daughter Jelena, going as far as rigging the draw of the Australian Open to make it difficult for her.
Now you say you are leaving Belgrade again, this time for England so Jelena can apply for British citizenship. MORE...
Following in my religiously experienced footy boots
I forgot to ask whether there will be any fully qualified nuns taking my son Jack's modified rules Australian football training sessions.
My wife Katherine and I have enrolled Jack, 6, in an Auskick program at Manuka Oval in Canberra, which is something of a coup for us.
Jack goes to a school where the main game played in winter seems to be rugby union. When he was in pre-kindergarten two years ago we got the horrifying impression that the rugby-mad headmaster made regular trips to the class just so he could keep an eye on the four-year-old boys he had identified as props of the future. MORE...
The heat is on for randy super-Olympians
The dark cloud of performance-enhancing drugs is hanging over the Athletes Village at the Sydney Olympics, but the question foremost in my mind is: is anyone testing for Viagra? MORE...
This message washed up on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra.
A cry for help from a rugby missionary
CAPTAIN'S LOG, 22nd of June, 1852: It is now 622 cursed days since we set sail from Portsmouth, England, aboard The Lady Tighthead Prop.
Our mission was to spread the word of rugby union to the uncivilised world. MORE...
New Olympic drug cheats will be full of beans
The year is 2028, just before the Olympic Games. A thick-set man in a trenchcoat and dark glasses sidles up to a short, fat bespectacled man in a quiet, seedy back-alley.
"Got the money?" he demands in a whisper.
"Yeah, $1000 bucks in unmarked $10 bills - just like you said," the man replies. "Got the stuff?" MORE...
Play it Ben: there's no check mate
When Ben Johnson finally come to grips with his disgraced exit from the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988, he might want to make a fresh start in a new sport, chess. MORE...
They don't call me Muscles for nothing
I do not think you should ever underestimate human ingenuity and self-belief.
Before Dick Fosbury, of the United States, used his revolutionary new flop to win the high jump gold medal at the Olympics Games in Mexico City in 1968, I wonder what he was thinking?
"If this doesn't work, I'm going to look like a proper goose in front of all these people," perhaps? MORE...
Ringing endorsements and Olympic dribblers
Somewhere deep inside Stadium Australia, a cell phone rings.
GORDIE DOUGALL: "Hello ... what is it? I'm very busy."
CALLER: "It's Bill Grumbleguts here. Remember me? The sports editor of The Daily Soothsayer, your employer? MORE...
No son of mine is going to play with hookers
My son Jack, 5, came home from school the other week with new, important news.
"Do you know which team I go for, daddy?" he asked.
This is the moment every father dreads.
It is the moment that his son announces allegiance to a team which isn't necessarily the team his father has spent his whole life supporting. MORE...
Lost, but not in love with orienteering
My friend Orville cannot understand why I do not like orienteering. It's because, I tell him, I never got the map-reading gene when I was born.
"But you ought to like it," he berated me. "You spend a lot of your time watching sport on telly and talking about sport and thinking about sport."
"What's that got to do with it?" I said.
"Well, they call it the 'thought sport.'"
Yes I know that. But to call it a sport draws a long bow. MORE...
NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it
Australian writer John Martin's funny takes on sport, Jockstrap City
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