Anyone for stake and chips?

OLYMPIC gymnastics may not be everyone’s cup of tea — it is often more performance art than sport — but it has provided an awe-inspiring spectacle.

Some of the gravity defying moves the guys and gals have come up with at the National Indoor Stadium in Beijing would still have you burned at the stake for witchcraft in certain parts of rural Somerset.

But let’s face it, the real thrill lies in seeing things go horribly wrong.

It isn’t big or clever to watch someone whose lifetime’s training boils down to one 30-second routine stumble and fall to the seat of their pants before wandering off sobbing, but it is strangely satisfying.

There you go, crazily talented super-fit person — welcome to the regular slob’s world of soul-destroying disappointment...

Most athletes at the Olympics clearly aren’t like the rest of us.

Take Mark Phelps, winner of a record eight gold medals in the pool and the “winningest” athlete ever, according to various American news institutions.

While there are many who eat as much as the 23-year-old does every day — the entire monthly output of a regular dirty spoon café — most who fall into that category can’t even lift themselves off the sofa without the aid of a winch, let alone achieve buoyancy.

Phelps appears to share genetic material with both the gorilla and the dolphin, what with his massive, flipper-like feet and arms with a span big enough even to stretch right round the football head of Scottish cycling hero Chris Hoy.

While the freakish American’s prowess will soon become the stuff of legend, so Hoy and the rest of his band of pedallists have dominated proceedings for Great Britain at the Laoshan velodrome, giving hope to the hardy band of road cyclists that perhaps a new-found respect will mean they are not bashed off the public highway with quite such enthusiasm by car owners.

Hoy aside, one of the most notable British efforts in the velodrome came from Rebecca Romero, winner of the women’s pursuit. Here is someone who won silver in the quadruple sculls rowing in Athens four years ago, switching sports completely two years ago and achieving huge success once again.

Well done, Rebecca, but I do wish you had fallen off before the finish. While exceptional, such athletic success causes plenty of misery, as viewers across the land sadly stare down at their bellies full of food and very little fire.

Winning things certainly isn’t very British, either. So can we stop all this strange feel-good gold medal business now and get back to moaning about fuel, the weather and overpaid footballers? Thanks.

mattchambers@oldham-chronicle.co.uk