Blog Posts by John Edwards

Much has been made of Usain Bolt's love of football and his desire to play for Manchester United but have you heard about Yohan Blake's love of cricket and his bid to play in the IPL?

Easily an hour after completing his 200m silver medal run at the London Olympic stadium Blake meandered off the track and clearly sick of dissecting a 20 second race with a host of international journalists, made a beeline for the Indian contingent who hit him with a barrage of cricket related banter.

Blake was only too happy to answer.

"I want to show you that I am better at cricket than running," said Blake. "I am a really talented batsman."

"I am a T20 batsman. You guys need to see me in action. I am a bowling machine that can bat all day. I have played some cricket... that's my love, that's my passion, every day I watch cricket."

Blake made it clear to an enthralled audience he preferred cricket to the track.

"When I was in growing up I watched cricket with my father. I have grown up to love the

As a picture of Kobe Bryant and Stephanie Rice sitting next to each other at the Olympic velodrome made it's round on the web and set off whispers but the NBA superstar revealed a more innocent explanation.

One of the Game's biggest stars, Bryant, has been spotted at a variety of venues around the Olympics including the volleyball at Earl's Court - but Kobe says it's just him soaking in the Games atmosphere.

 SLIDESHOW - Quirky Olympic Moments

"I try to get out as much as I possibly can and go and see as many events as I can," Bryant said.

"I've had the pleasure of meeting a lot of athletes. I try and interact with them and learn how they train, how they prepare and how they deal with pressure."

"For me that's fun. That's the fun part about being at the Olympics. I really enjoy walking through the Olympic Park - I kind of end up in a speed walk right through but yesterday I got a chance to go see some events."

"I saw Chris Hoy and I also got to see Victoria Pendleton and Anna Meares

He earned around $52m last year, he has five NBA championship rings a gold medal and is a 14-time NBA all-star - Kobe Bryant knows what he is talking about and he sees a big future for Australia's Patty Mills.

"Patty Mills keeps getting better and better every time I face him, see him," says Bryant. "He's a fantastic player and really showed up to perform."

"He's going to be getting a lot more game time.

The Boomers, boosted by an in-form Mills, exited London 2012 in the quarter-final stage at the hands of the newest edition of 'The Dream Team'. Team USA pulled clear in the fourth quarter to win 119-86 to leave a scoreline coaches of both teams thought was not an accurate reflection of the game.

"Mills had one of the outstanding of Olympics of any player. We beat a very good team tonight," said USA coach Mike Krzyzewski.

"We knew we were going to play a very athletic, quick, well-coached team in Australia that was coming off a few good wins."

New York Knicks star Carmelo Anthony was

Cuba's Lazaro Borges got the shock of his life as his pole exploded into three pieces mid-jump at London's Olympic stadium.

He flopped to the mat but was unhurt as splinters rained down around him.

Photo Gallery: Inspirational Moments

Borges', spectacular pole break lit up an otherwise dour qualifying session for Friday's final where a large portion of the field were allowed to qualify for the final.

Australia's Steve Hooker will have a chance to defend his Olympic title after being involved in a union-style action by the all the competing athletes.

It is common for vaulters to band together to get as many qualified for the final as possible so following the athletes decision to not jump past 5.50m officials allowed 14 through - Hooker's one jump was therefore enough to progress.

"It just worked out that way that a large number of guys in our pit jumped 5.50 with no misses and so we decided if we grouped together we would all be going through to the final and we would save a bit of

Mitchell Watt fresh from launching a well deserved critique of negative media coverage out of Australia has devised a fairer medal system that could allay Australia's gold lust.

Watt bagged the consistent use of the word 'disappointing' when referring to Australia's highly achieving silver medallists.

Not one to read the headlines, Watt finally logged on to see what was being said about the Games after he finished competition.

"Every single headline was negative. It sounds like we are regarding this as a disaster back home."

Watt,  in the days after winning Olympic silver in the long jump discussed a fairer medal tally with his fellow beleaguered team mates.

"Why not hand out three points for gold, two points for silver and one for bronze," says Watt.

"I mean we have over 20 medals, Russia and Japan are in a similar boat to us. Then one country that has three gold medals and nothing else aren't going to be ahead of us."

"It's been frustrating to read the headlines. After I said what I

Our Sally has a tough road ahead to win the 100m hurdles at London 2012.

Despite being the Olympic silver medallist and defending World Champion Sally Pearson will have to see off challenges from Americans Kellie Wells and Lolo Jones.

When is Sally racing?

Pearson has registered the fastest time in 2012 but in the lead-up to the Olympics followed a doubt-inducing loss.

On a rain soaked Crystal Palace track Wells (above) bolted home in 12.57secs - 0.02 in front of Pearson to inflict only her second defeat in the last 34 races.

Wells followed up the win with a very focussed response: "I didn't come here to race, I came here to execute and that's what I did today."

Wells could become the US fairytale story of the Games after her revelations last year to Yahoo! Sports that she began attending athletics training as a way of escaping an abusive home life.

Equally threatening to Pearson is another American Lolo Jones (pictured above) - the self-confessed 29-year-old virgin.

She was cruelly

Australia's newest long jump star is somewhat of a miracle man when you consider he was not even interested in watching the event during Beijing 2008.

Watt has risen from what can be described as a 'fitness enthusiast' to Olympic silver medallist so fast that it's scary to think what four more years of training and experience could do for him at Rio 2016.

"It's been a crazy four years," says Watt. "I did track and field when I was younger; 13 or14-years old, then had five years off and started after the Beijing Games."

"I ran into an old friend and he asked me to come down to the track with him. I lived two minutes away so it began as a summer fitness thing."

"I tried a bit of jump stuff. Then, my coach now, went to Beijing, came back and asked if I wanted to give it a serious crack."

Coach Gary Bourne then said something that would forever stick with Watt and give him belief that he could be up among the best.

"I was 19 at the time and my coach said 'if you have talent it never

The most decorated Olympian in history, today, gave his frank thoughts on the state of swimming to a packed media conference in London.

If Phelps is correct the outlook for Australia is less than rosy.

Michael Phelps avoided direct criticism but there was enough to think he thought Australia were under-performing.

How has the American team maintained success where Australia has lost some of it's former dominance?

"I've been in the national team setup for 12 years now and the one thing I've always noticed is that as Americans we train as hard as we can to make sure we stay on top," says Phelps.

"This year alone, Ryan's [Lochte] made changes to swim faster. Missy [Franklin] has really thought out her events and routines. We are always thinking about how we can be the best that we can be.

"We take pride in being the best team in the world and we want to work to keep being that."

The Australian swim team was not mentioned when Phelps was asked to earmark the major threats to USA's