I want to put a hypothetical situation to you. Imagine you've worked for a company since you were a teenager. You work your butt off to try and improve, because the better you are the more money you will earn. Payment is sporadic and you have to travel often. Other people rise to the top faster than you, but you soldier on.

Then one day you find out a worker at the company has been caught cheating the system. Let's say it was insider trading. The media and public become interested in the case, but your bosses refuse to tell the media [and public] who the culprit is, although they know, for legal reasons.

For some inexplicible reason the media interest dies down quickly. Therefore the public interest dies down. But, due to some events in the past you are one of the names on the suspect list and have to endure people looking at you sideways. You know it isn't you, your bosses know it isn't you, but the public don't.

This is a real situation, involving the NZ Olympic Committee and NZ olympians. You may remember reports surfaced a wee while ago about an NZ olympian failing a drugs test?

I am not going to identify who the athlete was, what event they are involved with or their sex, and will not tolerate any attempts by commenters to try to.

My questions are; Is this fair on our athletes, particularly those who have had run-ins with the media and law in the past, when it isn't them? How would you feel in this situation? Should the athlete 'come clean' themselves? And finally, does this reflect poorly on the country, as it was one of our athletes which was sent to the games, representing us on the international stage?

Ahh, The Onion. Always on the money.

Gymnast Shawn Johnson Put To Sleep After Breaking Leg

You're pathetic. Admit it. You come on to this blog and others in an attempt to get some meaning out of your dumb little life. Maybe you go to a gym? Maybe you play sport on the weekend? Well guess what you tool. You're worthless. You won't ever make it into the All Blacks, Whites, Black/Silver/White Ferns/Sticks/Shirts. Wanna know why?

Read on...

While deleting old emails at work this arvo, I found this pic I'd sent out just after the Olympics began. That's part of the Australian Olympic team, just after they landed in Shanghai. Now, I'm all for a country celebrating its history, especially at the Olympics, but prison outfits? Really?

The contestants for the next season of Dancing With the Stars have been announced and in keeping the tentative sporting link alive [is dancing a sport?], Barbara Kendall [Olympic boardsailor], Josh Kronfeld [former All Black] and Lizzy Igasan [Black Sticks captain] are in the next series.

Early office speculation has Tamati Coffey [You know, the guy who wants to look like Vin Diesel and zap fat hairy quick spiders with laser beams from his hands] tipped to take it out, but who do you think will get it?

And you thought the closing ceremony was all about celebrating sport. Though I suppose they are still competing...

Yao Ming vs Geoff Kabush (Canada) in a skulling contest.

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An Olympics Athletes and Dicks of the Week special!

Download Episode 31 pt.2

Subscribe to the Dropkicks Podcast (iTunes users click here).

From the NZ Herald...

Up to 177,600 night owls managed to stay awake from midnight to 2am yesterday, to catch David Beckham make a surprise appearance during the closing ceremony.

A surprise appearance? His presence at the closing event was being reported by various other media sources for the last couple of weeks.

A surprise appearance for Herald readers, then.

Well it's here and not a day too soon. I personally tried these rules out last night and I can tell you that they are definitely worth enforcing, though maybe with beer not rum.

The three options are sip (a small drink for common events), drink (a mouthful for rare events) and vessel (finish your drink for OMGThatNeverHappens events). Reader submitted rules are marked with an asterisk.

• Every time a New Zealander is shown doing the haka - Drink*
• Every time a current medal winner/world record holder is mentioned - Sip*
• Every time a previous medal winner/world record holder is mentioned - Drink*
• An athlete is over 30 - Sip
• An athlete is over 40 - Drink
• An athlete is competing in their third consecutive games - Drink
• An athlete is competing in their fourth consecutive games - Vessel
• Slow motion high-def footage - Sip*
• Athlete gets a personal best - Sip
• Athlete breaks an obscure record - Drink*
• Drug cheats mentioned - Drink
• Athlete is a convicted drug cheat returning
  to international competition to win a medal or deny a team spot to
  some poor bastard who slogged his life away without the
  benefit of bull hormones pumping through his/her veins - Vessel*
• SPECIAL RULE: Margin of victory drink - at the completion of a race the players must drink for the same amount of time that was the margin of victory between first and second. For victories that are less than one second replace with a Drink.
• SPECIAL RULE: Medal Drink - If the team you support wins a medal, Sip for a Bronze, Drink for a Silver, Vessel for a Gold.*

• If the current world champ of a sport rests on his laurels and gets absolutely smoked (i.e. doesn't make the finals) - Drink*
• Mahe Drysdale is mentioned - Sip*
• Mahe Drysdale is mentioned but it's not during rowing footage - Drink
• Mahe Drysdale is mentioned and footage is shown of him vomiting - Vessel (in empathy of his pain)
• The winner of an event has a cry when they finish - Sip*
• The winner of an event has a cry on the podium - Drink*
• The winner of an event runs into the crowd and hugs their mum/dad/coach after winning - Vessel *



• ­The commentator says an athlete is "laying into their work" - Drink*
• Weather is mentioned - Sip
• Sporting or national cliche is mentioned - Sip*
• An inane question is asked of an athlete straight after an event is finished - Sip*
• The camera angle has you wondering where the camera is - Drink*
• During an event you have to Wikipedia the rules - Drink*
• During an event you suspect the commentators are reading the rules from Wikipedia - Drink
• The camera does a slo-mo down the body of some under-dressed athlete - Drink*
• The camera is showing the crowd or an inconsequential athlete while something exciting is happening elsewhere - Drink

The winner of our competition is Seamonkey Madness (send us an email with your details and we'll get the pack out to you)