Notts athletes in the Olympics: when and where they'll be getting all sporteh...
Wednesday July 25
16:00: Yeah, we know - this has been and gone already, but the womens' football kicks off two days before the official start, the sort of illogicality that gets us twitching and calling for sedation. At the heart of GB’s defence for the opening game against New Zealand will be Nottingham-born Sophie Bradley, a former England U-19 captain now playing for Lincoln after spells with Forest and Leeds.
Thursday July 26
20:00: Again, not only does the mens' football start before the Games do, but it's not even in London. Eng-, er, GB, kick off their campaign with a match against Senegal at Old Trafford, so if you want to see Stuart Pearce as The Gaffer, hope you didn't miss it. And what do you mean, he’s not 100% genuine Notts? This is a man who is permitted to walk his cattle up Parliament Street, wash his clothes in the Market Square fountain, and eat swan on the Council House steps – not because he has the Freedom of the City or anything, but because he’s rock.
Friday July 27
09:00: OK, he comes from Grantham - home of Satan AKA the Iron Lady - but since he competes in the sport for which Nottingham is most famous (no, not Shooting; Archery), we all need to get behind lorry-driving Simon Terry in the Mens' Individual event, and not only because getting in front would be quite dangerous. The venue? Why, it's Lord’s, the home of, um, cricket. Then it's the opening ceremony - which will be just like the beginning of EastEnders in 3D. Possibly.
Saturday July 28
09:00: This is where it starts to get busy. Mr Terry returns for the Men’s team Archreh (with Little John and Will Scarlett, hopefully)...
10:00: ...followed by the first of four consecutive days of equestrian eventing at the beautiful Greenwich Park - home of the Royal Observatory - featuring Newark-born Mary King in the Dressage section (which is to the individual Dressage as the Decathlon 100m is to Usain Bolt’s event), followed by Cross-Country and Jumping. Aah Mareh picked up team bronze in Beijing and silver in Athens, and - having competed when five months pregnant in 1995 and recovering from a broken neck in 2001 - is clearly as nails as the things that keep the shoes on the horse.
11:00: The qualifying for the Men’s Artistic Gymnastics at the Millennium Dome will feature nineteen-year-old son of Keyworth Sam Oldham, currently the World Junior Olympic Champion for the horizontal bar. He rejected offers from Forest and Derby County in order to concentrate on gymnastics, don't you know. It's a crucial day for the lad, as what he does today will determine whether you'll see a lot of him over the next few days or he comes home early; the top eight teams go through to the team final (Monday July 30, 16:30), the top 24 gymnasts progress to the individual all-round final (Wednesday August 1, 16:30), and the leading eight proceed to the finals of each of the six disciplines. Oldham is considered to have a chance in high bar, pommel horse and floor (parallel bars, rings, and vault are the others).
14:45: Grace Carter and the Women’s Volleyball team play their opening pool match at Earl’s Court against Russia. We interviewed her for the mag, don't you know.
17:15: Women’s Football - GB vs Cameroon.
Sunday July 29
10:00: Here we go. As the top-ranked freestyler in the world over 400m and 800m, Mansfield-born Rebecca Adlington is perhaps the strongest Notts gold medal prospect at the Games. In Beijing, she became the first British double-gold winner in the pool for a hundred years. Put that another way: if Mansfield was a country, it would have finished joint 28th in the gold medal table in 2008. Repeating the trick will not be easy, however; she starts her campaign with the 400m Freestyle, following morning heats with a final in the evening (19:30).
10:00: Mary King, in Eventing Day 2 (Dressage).
18.20: Hucknall’s Sean Ryder appears for the GB Men’s Water Polo team in the first round-robin game against Romania. If he’s anything like his namesake, he’ll be a decent – if occasionally incoherent – interviewee, and might need to hide behind the bins if WADA, the anti-doping bods, rock up. GB and Romania will be splashing it out with Serbia, USA, Montenegro and Hungary in one of two, erm, pools.
19:45: Men’s Football - Psycho's Army vs UAE.
Monday July 30
12.30: Mary King gets back on the horse for Eventing Day 3 (Cross-Country)
14:10: Francesca Clayton reps the NG for the Women’s Water Polo against Russia, which is a huge deal for her and her teammates, seeing as while the male competition has been an Olympic staple for years, the ladies have had to sit on the sidelines (presumably kicking their feet in the water, looking well narked) until this year.
19:00: Three members of Beeston HC compete for GB in the opening game of Men’s Hockey against Argentina,who’ve wisely left at home the hombre who, in May, was filmed doing a Rocky impression on the WWI monument in the Falkands (or “training on Argentine soil” as the advert put it) and got The Sun’s knickers in a twist: Ian Lewers and Alistair Wilson, both 28, line up alongside Glenn Kirkham, a year older and winner of over a hundred caps. GB finished fifth in Beijing; can they get on the podium here? And will the podium be long enough?
22:00: Women’s Volleyball vs Algeria.
Tuesday July 31
10:30: Eventing Day 4 (Showjumping)
18:20: Men’s Water Polo vs Serbia
19:45: Women’s Football vs Brazil
Wednesday August 1
13:45: Men’s Hockey vs South Africa
15:30: Women’s Water Polo vs Australia
16:45: Women’s Volleyball vs Italy
19:45: Men’s Football vs Uruguay
Thursday August 2
10:00: Aah Beckeh returns in the heats of the 800m Freestyle, the event in which she holds both the Olympic gold and the world record.
11:00: It's the first day of Dressage qualification, featuring 56-year-old Nottingham-born Richard Davison - team captain in Beijing and a former British number one from 1996 to 2002. We're not sure what part of Nottingham he was born in, but seeing as the three major influences on his sporting career are Sandra Pearson-Adams, Barbara Slame-Fleming, and Lady Joicey Kottas, we're guessing he didn't knock about with them round the back of Top Valley Tesco.
18.20: Men’s Water Polo - GB vs USA
Friday August 3
09:00: Simon Terry returns for the Individual Men’s Archery finals
16:00: Men’s Hockey vs Pakistan
16:45: Women’s Volleyball vs Dominican Republic
18:20: Women’s Water Polo vs Italy
19:00: The Mansfield Mermaid (hopefully) defends her crown in the 800m Freestyle final
Saturday August 4
18:20: A relatively Notts-free weekend starts with Men’s Water Polo vs Montenegro, followed by...
Sunday August 5
14:45: Women’s Volleyball vs Japan
19:00: Men’s Hockey vs Australia
Monday August 6
09:30: The heats for the Men’s Sprint Kayaking: K-1 1000m begin. Enter reigning Olympic Champion and adopted NG-er, Dr Tim Brabants MBE. The 35-year-old emergency medicine specialist graduated from Nottingham University ten years ago, also bagged a bronze in Sydney in 2000, and - when not at QMC - can be found honing his water-borne specialisation: the individual kayak (the twin-bladed paddle, as opposed to the Hawaii 5-0 single blade of canoeing, where the racing stance looks as though you’re about to be knighted). Major prospect.
18:20: Men’s Water Polo vs Hungary
Tuesday August 7
10:10: Hucknall’s Andy Turner gets going in the 110m Hurdles heats. After winning bronze in the last World Championships - despite having had lottery funding cut - the 31-year-old is an outside chance of a medal. He’s certainly a handy all-rounder: having been offered trials with England rugby as a junior, he also spent two years with Notts County and says the first thing he’ll do upon retirement is join a pub footie team.
15:37: Final of the Men’s Gymnastics Horizontal Bar. Louis Smith - he of the Adidas ads - reckons our Sam Oldham will be better than him at this discipline, so keep everything crossed.
19:00: Men’s Hockey vs Spain
Wednesday August 8
09:30: K-1 1000m Sprint Kayaking final. Come on, Dr Tim.
19:15 and 21:15: 110m Hurdles semi-finals and final. Gwan, Andeh.
Thursday August 9
Unless the GB Women's Football team have made it to the final, it's the first Notts-free day of London 2012.
Friday August 10
09:51: Dr T. Brabants’ Nottingham Kayak Club colleague Richard Jeffries competes in the heats of Sprint Canoeing: Men’s C-1 200m, with the Semi-finals at 11:16. Born on the Isle of Wight, he walked away from his Sport Science course at Luffbrah to chase his Olympic dream, and is the last of the Notts contingent to step up.
Saturday August 11
It's the final of the Men's Football. Just saying.
Sunday August 12
All sixteen of Team NG will stroll into the Olympic Stadium before it becomes another sterile Premiership ground and will wave frantically at cameras and take photos, before thinking about Rio 2016 or hanging up their spikes, paddles, swimming caps, saddles or whatever they ply their trade with. Hopefully, they'll have a bit of precious metal round their necks, too.
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