A Post In Honour Of Our Paralympians

Now that the 2008 Paralympics have concluded I thought I would honour our magnificent athletes by highlighting possibly the biggest - and least known - obstacle they have had to overcome in their quest for glory: SABC reporters with microphones.

Some noteworthy moments:

Monday, 8 September 2008
SABC reporter to Natalie du Toit (who had just won one of her gazillion shiny swimming golds and was trying to be polite in the face of another inane, rampant SABC reporter): "Natalie: how do you handle being so modest?"

Wednesday, 10 September 2008
SABC reporter to David Roos, men's long jump silver-medal winner in the F46 category (who lives in East London): "David: if you lived in Johannesburg do you think you'd be a better pentathlete, or something?"

Thursday, 11 September 2008
SABC reporter discussing the efforts of discus competitor Duane Strydom: "With a throw of 36.47 it was the best throw of the session and only good enough for 4th place."

Tuesday, 16 September 2008
SABC reporter to Fanie van der Merwe, gold-medal winner of the men's 200m dash in the T37 category, who obviously thought Fanie was representing South Africa at the 2008 Beijing Paranormal Olympics: "Mooi gedoen. Het jy geweet jy gaan die wêreldrekord breek vandag?"
(For the non-Afrikaans speaking readers: "Well done. Did you know you were going to break the world record today?")


Need I say more? Best not to, I think.

A full rundown of South Africa's results and participants can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_at_the_2008_Summer_Paralympics.