Dear Steve,
Firstly allow me to congratulate you on your gold medal in the pole vault at the Beijing Olympics last year, and your Commonwealth Gold from Melbourne in 2006. And it must be quite an honour to be a member of the exclusive '6 Metre Club', one of just 17 men to clear that height, in fact, with an indoor best of 6.06m only the great Sergey Bubka has ever vaulted higher.
With this in mind is it any wonder I chose you as Captain for my fantasy Athletics team for the Stockholm Super Grand Prix event on Friday? In a rather lack-lustre field you were the stand-out class act in the line up - a guaranteed 100 points, doubled as I named you my Team Captain!
So Steve, where did you finish the competition? What's that.....third???
This displeases me greatly...
I've now plummeted from 345th to 447th in the Fantasy Athletics rankings. That's one hundred and two flippin' places Steve! Some captain you were...
With three failures at 5.71m, only a third time clearance at 5.61m and two attempts to get over 5.51 and 5.31 for pity's sake, you were beaten by Sweden's Jesper Fritz (no disrespect Jes, but, WHO???) and Maksym Mazuryk of Ukraine. Oh, hang on there goes my phone...hello? Oh hi Doc, what's that you say? You, Happy, Grumpy, Sneezy, Dopey, Bashful and Sleepy all could have gone higher than 5.61... without the aid of a pole....hmmmm.
Was the beautiful 1912 Olympic Stadium not inspiring enough? Are you lulling the opposition into a false sense of security with just two weeks to go before the World Championships in Berlin? Perhaps it was the windy conditions? Are you sure you got your preparation just right? You know as well as I do that optimum performance relies greatly on the length and rigidity of your pole!
Whatever the excuse Steve, just know this, maybe you Aussies are comfortable with defeat but third place just doesn't cut it where I come from. You're off the team. Take your limp pole and get out!