Rio Snippets

COOL KENDERESKI

Tamas Kenderski is a very good swimmer. He just won a bronze medal the other day in the 200m butterfly, behind only Michael Phelps and Japan's Masai Sakato. And he is good-looking. To top it all, he speaks good English too... Or at least he thinks he does.

The 19-year-old Hungarian decided that he would not be needing a translator and would be answering questions in English at the press conference on his own. The first question was: "Having clocked a better time in the heats than Phelps how much of a disappointment was it to finish with only a bronze?"

The answer was a very confident "Yeah, sure."

And the whole room burst into a fit of laughter.

BANGLADESH IN HIGH DEMAND

A Turkish journalist at the Common Media Centre was asking whether this reporter was from Bangladesh. The reply in the affirmative got him very excited and he started asking whether he could get the contact of any of the seven Bangladeshi athletes representing the country at the Rio Olympic Games.

One might be wondering why on earth Bangladeshi athletes would become such sought-after names in the Olympic village when the country has never even won an Olympic medal of any colour. Well, that is exactly the reason, and that reason was exacerbated by a report on Friday's USA Today illustrating the sorry fact. The story further said that Bangladesh have for the first time got one athlete, Siddikur Rahman, who qualified for the games on merit. The demand for Siddikur among the journalists was especially high.