SPAIN STORMS TO VICTORY IN OLYMPIC EVENT

Report by Lindsey Henniker-Heaton

Bristol Real Tennis Club held its main social event of the year on Saturday March 24th 2012 when 75 members and friends attended an Olympic themed event.  Celebrating the forthcoming London 2012 Games, we decided to hold our own alternative event and invited members to form teams for an evening of eating, drinking and some not too energetic "games".  Each team selected a country and came dressed appropriately; tables were set up on the dedans end and the participants brought their own country oriented meal.

The court was excellently decorated by the social committee with Jackie Blackwell taking the lead, making some superb Olympic rings and medals to hang in front of red, white and blue sheets over the galleries.  David Pigott kindly provided several blow ups of various Olympic related photographs which, with posters obtained from the Olympic shop and many balloons and fairy lights, created a colourful ambience.  Thanks also to Kevin King, Lindsey and Lis Henniker-Heaton, Trish Morris, John Newman, Sallie Blanks and Richard Dixon for all their help in setting the court up for the evening.

The event started with a parade of all the participants, each following their country flag bearer and assembling in front of the Olympic torch which was carried in by Henry Mullan. 

Our Chairman, Julian Hemming, formally opened the Games and the eight teams went off to discover the challenges ahead.  Olympic archery became darts in the dedans, football required shooting a penalty at the grille, weightlifting involved raising the maximum number of children's wooden bricks above the competitor's head - without dropping any.  The only really energetic exertions came on the exercise bicycle kindly lent by the gym next door, but then there was a more restful equestrian challenge consisting of trying to complete three jigsaws (of show-jumping) within six minutes.  Curling (the one "winter sport" and played with KK's most biased balls!), hockey (dribbling around balloons) and basketball (with an extra large basket) completed the list of events.  Marshals saw fair play and recorded the scores for each game - many thanks to those who helped with that.  The "games" were interspersed with lengthy breaks for rest and recuperation ( i.e. food and drink).

A rapid totaling up of the scores was required at the end and Lindsey was able to announce the winning teams which were duly given their gold, silver or bronze medals by John Newman, who had taken the lead in designing and obtaining the equipment for many of the games.  In bronze position was a combined Scotland/Japan team (our President Trish Moffat was due to lead the Scottish team but unfortunately was only just out of hospital - she is recovering well however); in silver medal position was the team from Vietnam (led by the Newmans) but the GOLD medal winners by a considerable margin were Spain, led by the Hemmings.  Congratulations for taking part also go to Australia, Italy, Team GB and the USA.

Julian then formally closed the evening with particular thanks to Lindsey, Jackie and John for all their efforts in creating a thoroughly fun evening.  Now we wait to see if the real Team GB performs better in the real thing!