Knackered In Osaka

Well, we're back in Japan again after a brief visit back home to Northern Ireland, where we luxuriated in the pouring rain and generally unimpressive summer temperatures. Luckily, we just missed the brutal, pensioner-culling heatwave that hit Japan a few weeks back, but it's still plenty warm enough for us pasty-faced geijin. So it's a big hats off to the poor sods that have to run about in this sweltering heat at the IAAF World Championships taking place just down the road in Osaka this week. Especially this hopeful-looking chap...

We're still not savvy enough to understand much of what they're saying on TV, but we get the general drift. Much of the coverage is unashamed media lionising of whichever Japanese athlete is taking part, irrespective of how dismally they perform. In today's 100m semi-finals, for example, you would have thought that Nobuhara Asahara had smashed the world record judging by all the post-race close-ups. But no, he'd trailed home stone last.

But we're warming to the whole ganbatte (do your best - a big deal in Japan ) spirit of the thing. Post-race interviews with grinning athletes who have just been slaughtered but still have the demeanour of "well, I gave it my best shot and can't complain about that" are quite refreshing. Certainly a lot cheerier than all those former-soviet-bloc Anna Bolikovas with their Myra-Hindley-with-a-mullet scowls.

We can tell the genuine world class domestic contenders by the amount of pre-race advertising they feature in. Hammer thrower Koji Murofushi is obviously a real star, featuring in ads for FedEx, an energy drink and what appears to be an advert for combine harvesters.

The presentation team are a bit more MTV than BBC, although you wouldn't catch the likes of Des Lynam or Sue Barker shuffling quite so much paper about as the presenters here. Some of it even had scribble on it - a very poor show. Carl Lewis (seen, here, right) is looking a bit knackered these days too. The woman above was translating, and not chatting him up.

As this sports reporting involves just sitting on my bum watching the telly, I'll try to file more on the World Championships as the week progesses - hey, Japan might even win something and who knows what would happen then? Orderly rioting in the streets perhaps?