Sporting personal injury without doing sport

I can feel it. I'm going to do myself a personal injury.

It's the Beijing Olympics and I am a huge fan. There is nothing I like better than for three weeks every four years, immersing myself in all sorts of sports that otherwise go largely untelevised.

Let's face it, you've got to be pretty dedicated to find coverage of women's weightlifting on Sky Sports at any other time.

But, once every four years we get to see the hard work and dedication of these sporting national heroes as they battle for Gold in far flung places around the world.

I love sport. Now, I'll admit I'm better at supporting than I am at participating. I did a bit of badminton with my partner recently, and the colour I go after a few rallies is enough to get the leisure centre employees standing by with a defibrillator.

I can hear the conversation of the spotty youths in shorts and polo shirts now, "Have you seen the women on court 4? She's so red. Should we get her some water?"

"A hospital bed would probably be better!"

Yes, if I exert myself, I go a very strange colour. And it seems to worry a lot of people. (My partner laughs fondly and tells me I look glowing.)

So, I tend to stick to supporting. My son is an athlete and I just love to exercise my lungs by screaming, "Go George, push on!" at him as he rounds the top bend and sprints into the home straight. Watching him win races and medals has to be the most wonderful thing ever. And at big meetings, as he edges into Gold medal position and crosses the line in first, I usually feel like collapsing in a small heap. My legs go wobbly and my heart pounds. It's a tremendous, if not slightly worrying, feeling as it is him that has done all the gut wrenching, pain inducing work.

At least, when supporting my son, I tend to be concentrating solely on the races, at home, watching the Olympics, I am usually doing something else, like ironing, or cooking, and this can get a bit risky.

Whereas the athletes risk personal injury all the time, as they push their bodies to the limits of exertion, I risk having a work accident as I try to juggle my working responsibilities with catching the moment we get Gold (in the office its about not banging my knees on the desk as I leap up to say "YES" as we beat the Aussies into second place though only in my lunch hour, of-course).

At home, trying to drain pasta whilst watching the cyclists pedal their hearts out in the velodrome is likely to result in severe whiplash, as I try to focus first on the sink, then the TV, then the sink again as the pasta slides out of the pan and onto the counter, then down onto my legs and eventually the floor, resulting in burns and scalds, then possibly a slip and trip injury.

Aagh, the dangers of Olympic supporting, it's not a thing to be sniffed at. Some of us really do risk life, limb and personal injury, just for that emphatic fist-pumping moment of patriotic glory and joint national experience of, "YES!"


Can I claim?