Real sports at the ‘worlds’

THE World Track and Field Championships have closed in Paris.
 No, don’t stop reading!

This is the second day (the opening ceremony was the first) on which all the nations of the earth come together in man’s common urge, shared since time began, to shave another 100th of a second off the world record for running 200 metres on an oval track that brings you back to the very spot where you started from. A truly noble purpose. In case you were not able to watch the ceremony on television as it goes out “live,” I am bringing you now the run-down of the main events so that you can relive them in your own time and in your own home. All timings are approximate based on Eastern Caribbean time differences and my personal calculations.

7.20 pm: Ceremony opens, with parade of World Athletics Commissioners down the track.
7.21 pm: False start. Commiss-ioners sent back to starting blocks. Slow-motion video replay shows that several commissioners had beaten the gun, mostly through being too old and deaf to hear it.
7.24 pm: Commissioners get away to a clean start.
7.27 pm: Commissioners bunched together halfway down the track, holding up the Sporting World Championships banner with the “Football” motto: “The important thing is not to win, but to take bribes.”
7.30 pm: Release of 10,000 doves over the Richly Franchised Stadium.
7.35-7.45 pm: Squads of cleaners remove dove-droppings from stadium floor. David Coleman says: “The doves are nervous, and —  goodness me! — Who wouldn’t be on this great day?”
7.50 pm: Commissioners’ parade nearly finished. Some lean on each other and are disqualified.
7.55 pm: Entry of lone runner with a torch (could have been stolen from Olympic Committee for Athens 2004), who has run all the way from somewhere just outside the stadium, thus completing the last link in a chain that stretched all the way back to McDonald’s in Athens.
7.56 pm: The lone runner circles the track in complete silence, lapping some of the commissioners, who refuse to leave the track unless bribed to do so. She is an unmarried French runner of mixed Asian and West Indian parentage with one child, symbolising viewers around the globe who couldn’t get a baby-sitter today.
7.58 pm:American TV announcer says: “She’s so far ahead that none of the other runners has appeared yet! What a display of running from the front!” He is taken aside and put right.
8.00 pm: News comes through that of the 10 doves randomly tested after the fly-past; six have failed an illicit birdseed test. Hemp, cannabis and other substances are said to have been found. “This is going to cast a shadow over the whole games,” says announcer.
8.02 pm: The lone runner climbs the steps to the World Bowl (borrowed from the Olympics committee) and lights the flame for “Saviour in Sport.”
Symbolically, thousands of Euro Dollars are released and flutter to the ground, where the commissioners collect them.
8.10 pm: The parade of nations begins. First is the French team, resolutely dressed in uniforms that have nothing French about them.
8.11pm: The French team is stopped on the track by the French immigration and customs services squad, for search and inspection purposes. This is in response to protest that the other teams have come through rigorous searches at the airport, and it is unfair if the French don’t as well.
8.15pm: French team declared clean as a whistle. “This is going to give the games the great send-off it needed,” says an emotional announcer.
8.37 pm: News come through that several commissioners have failed a random bribe test. They were offered bribes and failed to take them. They have been disqualified.
8.40 pm: News come through that the lone Trinidadian long distance runner has been disqualified for refusing to eat a Big Mac, the official greed symbol of the games. “This sends out a message that nobody wants to hear,” says announcer while chewing on a burger from Burger King.
10.00 pm: The Kuwaiti team march on to the Iraqi cum American national anthem. Testing of musicians shows presence of beer in many players’ blood-system.
10.20 pm: Random testing of World Championships flame shows presence of carcinogenic substances that is against international combustion agreements.
World flame is disqualified. “Oh, this is the sort of thing of which we want less rather than more on such a hopefully great day as this,” says American television announcer.
10.21 pm: American announcer is randomly tested and disqualified after traces of...  This article has been discontinued after traces of the truth in sport have been discovered following a random legal search. 
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