Cleaver's Games: March 21

There's a tote in the Main Press Centre. Something lured me to it.


Before I knew it, and with the urging of free-spending journalist Mark Geenty, I put A$100 on Jamaican Asafa Powell to win the 100m last night. He was paying $1.18 and looked like money for old rope.

Soon after I went back and checked the odds and it had shortened to $1.15.

This made me confident, cocky even. So I cruised along to the 'G in a state of anticipation. That anticipation turned to a mild form of nausea when the gun went not once, twice, but three times for false starts.

The first to go was Powell's countryman Michael Frater.

Next was England's Mark Lewis-Francis. Finally they started and Powell jumped clear to win in 10.03s.

Relief lasted a matter of seconds before that turned to unadulterated terror when it was obvious Powell crossed from lane six to lane five, the lane vacated by Frater, before he crossed the line.

After much deliberating by officials - and calculating by me as to how I was going to fiddle my expenses - Powell was excused his misdemeanour.

It took me longer to forgive him - he had no right to mess with other people's money like that - but by the time he lined up for the final I was surprisingly calm. My serenity obviously rubbed off on Powell.

There were no start line jitters, no lane trangressions, just awesome straight-line speed. Easiest $18 ever made.

* Strange goings on at the badminton yesterday.

The team of officials for the bronze medal teams playoff between New Zealand and India entered the arena to rapturous applause.

Thinking this a remarkably sporting crowd, I turned to my right and saw a whole block of "volunteers" who had been shipped into the arena specifically to make the umpires feel good about themselves.

The Indians were feeling pretty good about themselves when they jumped to a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five bronze medal teams match by beating mix doubles "certainties" Dan Shirley and Sara Runesten Petersen.

As a small group of supporters chanted that dreadful "Let's go Kiwi, let's go" dirge, a lone Indian voice countered, "Go home Kiwis, go home".

Judging by the applause he received, most in the stadium thought the idea had merit.

* A few English journalists wandered to the Crown Casino's sports bar in the weekend to catch the Liverpool-Newcastle Premiership match.

When they got to this "sports bar" they found an old Alfred Hitchcock movie playing on the big screen and a replay of a pre-season AFL match on another.

They politely asked the barman if there was any chance of watching the soccer.

To their astonishment they were told by the barman of this "sports bar" that despite the fact they had all the sports channels available, they didn't show that sort of football in there.