“Inspire a Generation”, depress another.

While watching the Olympics I spent most of my time thinking of reasons as to why I am not an Olympic athlete. I am at the perfect age to be there running or throwing or kicking something to Olympic gold. There’s some athletes that look about 8! They only olympics they should be taking part in is on the PlayStation!

So after a long thought I’ve come up with some excuses reasons as to why I wasn’t taking part in the Olympics..

Swimming/Diving

Swimming was never a possibility, I can’t swim and I’m generally terrified of deep water. Just the thought of that 10m diving board makes me feel queasy. The PE teachers at school tried to teach me to swim but they asked me to get in the pool in my pyjamas, I said no and that was the end of my swimming career. However I do have a bronze swimming badge and a certificate for swimming 5m with a float. I know, Rebecca Addlington will be shaking in her shoes now.

As for diving, I don’t think me rocking up in my life jacket, goggles and nose thing would quite go down well. With myself never mind anybody else!

Throwing events. 

I am not built for Javelin, I am built like a Javelin. I think we only did Javelin and Discus once at school, the teacher probably saw how bad we were and decided that were rubbish and just give in. We did Shot Put a few times but it’d leave my hand and instantly hit the fall. There’s a build you have to be for throwing events and I am not it.

Football.

Now I slightly followed Womens Football before the Olympics, but I never thought I’d be arguing with someone on Twitter about who to take off, it’s been mad.

However, this is the one that I’ve sat all the way though going “that should be me that”. I loved playing football and played for my school team till I was 11 and then retired because girls couldn’t play in the boys team and you need more than 4 players to start a girls team. I even had a t-shirt that said: “When I grow up I’m going to play for Sunderland AFC.” My t-shirt betrayed!

So at the age of 23 I’d love to get back playing football again, so if there’s any teams around Sunderland reading this and you need someone who’d happily run about for 90 minutes with pretty perfect nails and a nice selection of hairbands then I am that person. @AshleighBaines <- tweet me.

Equestrian (Horse Dancing)

This is my new favourite sport. Dancing horses! What more could you possibly want? You may not know this, to qualify for a place in the GB Equestrian team you have to have said “Tally Ho!” at least once a day since birth. Unfortunately, I’ve only said it twice in 23 years. The world will never get to see a horse dance to Agadoo, which is such a shame.

I blame PE for my lack of Equestrian taking part. Whenever we had to take our horses to school it was always a mare getting it on the bus.

Running

Running fast was never one of my strong points. When we played ‘Nicky, nocky, nine doors’ I’d always get my friend to do the knocking so I could get a head start. But (yes, there’s a but), 800m was event, 2004 was the year, our school athletics day was the location. I trained every dinner time for weeks, I was going to win 800m for my house. The day arrived, it was throwing on the morning, running on the afternoon. After a morning of sitting about I was ready, the teacher called the 800m race and forward I stepped with 4 others. There I was mentally preparing myself for the next few minutes, eyeing up the competition. “I’ll beat her, she’s a smoker.”, “She’ll not do any good, she runs like an ostrich.” And then, the ‘Head Girl” who happened to be in the same house as me stepped forward and said: “I’m doing this race now.” What argument did I have against a head girl? So, off I trotted, I sat down and watched the race that I had trained so hard for. Now you’ll be thinking: “But Ashleigh, surely she took your place in the race because she was the next Mariya Savinova?” Not quite. She ran round with her friend and finished joint last. Well done her! When she was late for a lesson I’d announce: “ She’s probably running here, that’s why she’s late!” I know, off the cuff.

Hitting Each Other/Pushing Each Other Events

(Boxing, Taikwondo, Wrestling, Judo)

Hit me! Hit me! Don’t him me! I’ll hit you! I’d love to have a go at hitting someone, but as soon as they hit me I’d have to politely ask them to stop and then suggest we end this debacle with a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Plus, my nails would take a beating. Dislike.

That’s the same with Taekwondo. Imagine someone not just kicking you but trying to kick you in the head! Can’t be having that! What if they had smelly feet? Vile.

Wrestling was possibly the most bizarre event of the Olympics. I watched it once and there was Wrestling ring or chiars or event back stage drama. It was just two men in tight outfits trying to.. well.. wrestle each other. For Rio I’d like them to adopt some ideas from WWE: Walk on music, create some sort of story line, allow the wrestlers to use props etc. Make. It. Happen.

The London 2012 Olympics has also made me far too competitive. I found myself racing an old man down the crisp aisle in Sainsburys with a trolley, I even pushed the trolley forward at the finish line. It was like Chris Hoy in the Velodrome!

You never know if trolley pushing gets in the Olympics, I might get to Rio in 2016..

See you then!