The 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia’s Gold Coast certainly lived up to their unofficial title of the “over-friendly games” in the athletes’ village with the home team’s women proving their strength in sprints, long distance and team events. It was due to the Australian women’s powerful performance that many male athletes failed to turn up for their events due to exhaustion, while female athletes revelled in a display of their prowess, awarding themselves points for their off-track exploits.
Top of the unofficial points table came the Australian “ladies relay” team who later admitted to have received illegal hormone injections administered by the male members of the Kenyan marathon team. This led to a surprise gold medal for Vanuatu in the final event of the official games when all the Kenyan men failed to finish the 26 mile course.
However, the home team did not have it all their own way, although some would dispute that. The women’s pole vault, using equipment provided by Scotland’s hopscotch captain Hugh Mungous-Dick, proved to be a surprise when Bahamian sweetie Lotta Squeals came first, narrowly beating Aussie favourite Sheila Billabong to the loudest finish.
The following night, back at the open air athlete’s village pool, Sheila gained revenge for her unexpected defeat by winning the combined breast stroke and doggy style event, ably assisted by her partner Bruce Losis. Our sports editor, Paxton Quigley, cornered her shortly afterwards, but that’s another story. The following morning, Sheila granted the Spoof an exclusive interview:
“Oh Paxton, that was so good. Oh? You want me to talk about the combined event? Sorry. Well, you know that as an elite swimmer I am fine with the breast stroke but I rarely do doggy style, although that is how I learned to swim back in my home town of Iron Knob. Well, once I had got wet, there was no holding me back and coming first was easy, thanks to Bruce. That has been my favourite event so far. Are you coming back to bed, Pax?”
Wales convincingly won the mixed doubles with married couple Wanda Harden and Ivor Harden, giving their best in the final against Malaysian - Indian duo Choo Wang and Intu Deep. Wanda Harden spoke to the Spoof shortly after the Cardiff couple’s victory:
“Ivor had difficulty with this event. He was happy to compete with Choo, I mean she is a wiz with wangs and an expert in the women’s round, but when it came to Ivor’s round with Intu Deep he needed encouragement. I gave him a couple of cans of Foster’s and a helping hand before he rose to the occasion, but when Ivor had started he just flipped Intu onto his belly, used his imagination that he was coming from behind Choo again and he soon finished strongly.”
In previous Commonwealth Games, the tag team event has been a particular favourite. Unlike other events, men and women’s teams compete against each other and it is usually the women who come out on top, thus proving that they have more staying power than their male opponents. The Gold Coast event was no exception to the rule, with the grass-skirted, bare breasted ladies from Fiji and Tuvalu giving the suntanned Aussie sheilas and oiled Ghana girls a run for their money. Male opponents once again retired with fatigue and it was left to the spectators to join the competition in order to bring the ladies to a satisfactory finish. Unfortunately, due to this, the result was declared null and void.
None of the United Kingdom nations entered the men’s singles event, leaving the competition open to an Australian 1-2-3 in the final. Scotland team manager, Jock MacSporran, explained that he had not bothered entering any of his athletes knowing the Australian men would win easily “as they are all wankers”.