Olympic Stream of Consciousness: Gymnastics

Overall: very impressive. It's possibly a bit of a shock that Simone Biles doesn't win the Women's beam final, but Alice D'Amato from Italy does. Italy also take out third (Yaqin Shou from CHI is second). They sing their national anthem on the podium and it's charming. In the Men's Horizontal Bar final, four of the eight competitors mess up their dismount and three of them fall off. They are really trying complex routines. 

The Croatian bloke, Tin Srbic, lands hard on his elbow but he gets back up and tries to complete the routine, but his arm is now weakened and he falls off again. Again he carries on until he finishes with a great dismount and, according to the commentator, he receives, 'a lot of crowd support directed towards him in a troubled routine'. He finishes last. The Chinese chap (Boheng Zhang) finishes joint third with Chia-Hung Tang (TPE), in what the commentator refers to as a 'redemptive routine' - can commentators just define the meanings of words now? (I'm looking at you, Jim Courier and 'clutch'.) The silver goes to the Colombian, Angel Barajas, competing for the first time in an apparatus final.

I wonder why in the beam and floor exercises the women have to do all sorts of prancing and posing dance elements and the men don't, so I google it. Apparently the man should personify 'strength and power; the woman, on the contrary, beauty and grace'. It elucidates that synchronised swimming and rhythmic gymnastics (introduced in 1984) are the 'glamour events'. I grind my teeth. I still find something deeply disturbing about 16-year-old girls in full make-up gyrating and flashing 'sexy' poses. There'll be pole dancing next at this rate.

Having said that, Rebecca Andrade's (BRA) tumbles and jumps are fantastic to win her the gold in the Women's Floor Exercise, Simone Biles wins silver for the USA, and Anna Barbosu wins bronze for Romania in a routine with haunting music and choreography that links all her moves and difficult combinations together seamlessly. When the crowd clap along (usually out of time) to the music it must be quite hard to hear the beat/ rhythm. The commentators keep saying it's a huge programme, but the athletes can choose to do all the events to go for medals, so it's not like athletics or hockey, for example. Simone Biles (USA) wins the Women's Vault and she has a dazzling smile when she achieves a move. USA also take out the bronze, and Rebecca Andrade collects another medal (silver) for Brazil. 

Olympics: Thrills and spills

Well, it's all go isn't it? I'm going to miss these Olympics things.

Over the last few days we've had misplaced pole vaults (how, I ask you?), horses on drugs, comedy baton changes and people pulling on each other's ankles in the long-distance swimming. Gymnasts are underage and random horses are refusing to jump fences in the modern pentathlon - they're probably the ones who aren't on drugs.

People in Pac-a-macs are out on the track playing a bizarre version of curling, while others are staging protests about goals that shouldn't have been allowed. There's vomit and diarrhoea aplenty and dehydration, which seems a little incongruous with all that rain.

Call me an old purist but I'm finding it hard to get excited by the BMX - surely that belongs in the X-games? Whatever next - bungee jumping? Anyway, I have seen the fastest people on two legs, two wheels and in the water, with some amazing records being set and some phenomenal races being contested, so I'm happy with that.

Just one thing though: 'medal' is a noun, not a verb. Will people please stop saying they are expecting an athlete 'to medal' in the next event? Or is Usain Bolt going to get his chemistry kit out and start tinkering with it on the start line? Honestly!