Blog Posts by Cameron Roberts

The BBC, Olympics broadcaster in the UK, has replaced Australia on its medal table with Yorkshire.

The success of triathlon brothers Alistair and Johnathan Brownlee, and golden girl of the Games heptathlete Jessica Ennis, has added to Yorkshire's tally, giving it more gold medals than most countries.

The northern county is basking in the success of its stars with some mail boxes even being painted gold in the Ennis's hometown of Sheffield.

More than 30,000 home fans voted the Ennis gold medal as their favourite moment in a Yahoo! Olympics poll.

Almost 12,000 fans (32.5 per cent of those polled) voted for the Sheffield starlet's brilliant heptathlon win, whilst Andy Murray's men's singles tennis gold at Wimbledon took second place with just over 20 per cent of the votes.

While at home the criticism has been aimed at our swimming team, in Britain, it's been aimed at the BBC.

Despite a slow start to the Games, Team GB has wowed the home crowd, but the BBC is reportedly under fire from

Read More »from BBC won’t show Australia on medal table

Australian 4x400m relay runner John Steffensen has had a dig at his own team after its poor performance in the first round at the track.

In a post-race interview with the Nine Network, Steffensen said he had to do well because others didn't.

"It's a team effort and unfortunately you have to make up for some that aren't doing well," he said.

When pressed about his own performance and attitude, the Athens silver medal winner didn't hold back.

"I battled today," he said.

"I'm an inspiration to those out there in this world that are out there that may be battling and doing it tough."

His earlier public bitterness at being overlooked as Australia's lone individual 400m runner is well documented.

Yesterday his team mate, London 400m finalist Steve Solomon, was confident of Australia's chances in the relay as they attempted to qualify for a third straight Olympic men’s 4x400m final.

The 19-year-old said he was proud of his achievements at the Olympics and had proved his worth in the role.

Read More »from Steffensen takes swipe at own relay team

An Australian athlete’s photo of a bucket of condoms has caused a stir with London 2012 officials now investigating how they were smuggled in.

Aussie BMX cyclist Caroline Buchanan tweeted a photo from the athletes' village of a container of condoms with sign below.



It was an innocent tweet but it has since become surrounded in controversy because the condoms were made by Ansell, not the official supplier Durex.

Olympics organisers provided 150,000 Durex condoms to the 10,800 athletes.

An official spokesperson told local media an investigation is ongoing to determine who distributed the Kangaroo condoms.

"We will look into this and ask that they are not handed out to other athletes because Durex are our supplier," she said.

Organisers strongly control which brands are promoted within the Olympics precinct because of a number of sponsorship deals with companies like McDonald’s, Coca Cola and Heineken.

The trend of supplying athletes with condoms began in Barcelona during the 1992 Olympics.

The

Read More »from Inquiry into Aussie condoms at athletes’ village

The world's oldest profession is going strong during the Olympics despite government and police cracking down on prostitution before the Games.

Signs advertising "massage", "models" or "sauna" are plentiful across the notorious red light district in central Soho and even near the east London Olympic precinct at Stratford.

Street walkers around the city are clearly recognisable if you know where to look and they seem undeterred by the increased presence of police and civil authorities.

The crackdown on the brothels was aimed at improving the family-friendly image of the Games.

Police in the east London borough of Newham closed around 80 brothels in the 18 months to March with concerns raised at the time that more sex workers might take to the streets.

Prostitution is legal in Britain but maintaining a brothel and kerb-crawling are not.

One sex worker told Yahoo!7 she was initially expecting a downturn in business because people were told to get out of the city for the Olympics and many

Read More »from Prostitutes cashing in on Olympics

There are some Olympians with awkward names or even worse, those who live up to them.

Who could forget Misty Hyman from Sydney 2000, North Korea's Yoo Suk Kim, Canada's Kelsey Titmarsh or even our very own darling Lorraine Crapp?

Volleyballer Destinee Hooker, China's Dong Dong and Japan's Yoshie Takeshita are all gold medal names.

But perhaps the most apt to come out of the London Games so far is Vania Stambolova.

As Vania took her mark in the women's 400m hurdles, the Bulgarian was solely focused on making the finals.

Destiny took a different option with Stambolova stumbling over her first hurdle.

Getting up seemingly uninjured she then proceeded to walk off the track without finishing the race.

There is probably some irony in this result but more likely just really bad luck.

Read More »from Stambolova stumbles at first hurdle

Just outside the Olympic village along a wide stretch of unattractive concrete near the Stratford train station stands a line of fans at the Games for one main reason: trading pins.

While most people chase rare stamps or mint-condition packaged Star Wars figurines, these guys brave the sun and the rain, holding onto the hope of finding their holy grail.

There are traders from all over the world but two American men stand out. They have more than 50,000 pins between them.

Pin badges start from STG6 ($A8.80) in the official London 2012 Shop but the traders don't have much interest in the commercial ones, according to collector Leonard Braun (pictured above).

Leonard, a retiree from Los Angeles, stands out from the crowd wearing his cargo vest littered with memories of Olympics past.

His interest in the ritual stemmed from volunteering at the 1984 Olympics in his hometown.

"There are many forms of insanity and this is one of them," he said jokingly.

"The idea of collecting something

Read More »from Fans swapping a common pinterest

In the shadows of the stadium: The new location for the Olympic cauldron
Annoyed spectators have hit out at Olympics organisers after realising the cauldron would not be visible from outside the main stadium.

The centrepiece of the opening ceremony was lit in dramatic fashion during Friday’s extravaganza but won’t be seen for a week until the athletics competition begins.

The Australian-manufactured cauldron stands at more than 6-metres high and is made up of 204 flames in copper petal bowls, representing the participating nations at the Games.

It will be dismantled at the end with each represented country taking home a piece.

Sydneysider Jason, who was walking around the area today, said in 2000 the Olympic cauldron in his hometown was at one end of the stadium and visible from outside.

“It really added to the experience when you walked around Olympic Park,” he said.

“It feels like an oversight.

“For those of us who don’t have tickets to anything in the main stadium it is a pretty outrageous.”

His friend Alex, a Londoner, said it seems like after the opening Read More »from Fans angry over Olympic flame location

The home of cricket has been transformed to host the archery competition for the London Olympics and its stunning architecture is very easy on the eye.

Archery had its debut at the 1900 Olympics and despite a hiatus for 42 years has been an ongoing part of the Games since 1972.

The long queues down St John’s Wood Rd near Lord’s would generally be reserved for fans eagerly awaiting the gates to open for a five-day Test match.

But as part of the London Olympics, archery competition is taking place in front of the iconic pavilion, with arrows firing across the cricket pitch making their way 70 metres down the field to the targets.

It is an amazing sight. The history and tradition of the pavilion built in 1889 overshadows the field where temporary stands house the spectators for the archery.

At the other end, the futuristic media centre built for the 1999 cricket World Cup, looms 15 metres above the ground, hovering like an Olympic-ringed space ship.

You can’t help but think about more than aRead More »from Is Lord’s the best looking venue?