Well it's all over for another four years.
I suspect we all stayed up for the final of the coxless fours to see Steve Redgrave win his fifth consecutive gold medal if nothing else. But I wonder if you feel like me that there are a few games that are out of place in the Olympics. If I was on the Olympic committee I would vote to exclude men's football, plus tennis and basketball.
I know that, with a few exceptions, sport is no longer truly amateur, but these archly professional sports don't need the Olympics. They have plenty of other opportunities for their stars to perform and in any case not everyone enters, which devalues the victory. Let's face it, the gold medallist for men's football, Cameroon, is hardly the world's best footballing nation.
I would retain woman's football for this is their premier stage, and anyone who thought women can't play football would have had their minds changed by some of the performances in this competition. Lots of really good football and excellent goals.
The commentators still make the same old mistakes about the Laws of the Game whoever is playing. In one of the men's games the commentator complained 'I know that he didn't intend to handle the ball but it definitely hit his hand and it should have been a penalty'. The simple truth is that if it wasn't the players intention to handle the ball then it wasn't an offence. Law 12 says 'A direct free kick is awarded to the opposing team if a player handles the ball deliberately'. This of course does not apply to a goalkeeper in his own penalty area.
One of the incidents in a woman's match in the Olympics, however, reminded me of the saying we had as schoolboys kicking a ball around the playground. Self defence doesn't count as handball. But is it true? If a player handles the ball protecting himself or herself when it is kicked at them, is this an offence? The answer is that it depends on how it happens.
Take a frequent situation in football. A team line up in a wall when a free kick has been awarded against them near their own goal. Male players in a wall will usually stand with their hands protecting their manhood. If the kicker kicks the ball low directly at the wall and it hits one of the player's hands, then it could not be claimed he had deliberately handled the ball. Ball to hand and not hand to ball.
In this Olympic woman's match, a player took a kick at goal but there was opponent m the way inside the penalty area. The opponent mindful no doubt that the ball could hurt, raised her hands to protect her chest. In doing so she charged the ball down with her arms. A clear case of self defence but the referee awarded a penalty. A tough call I thought but one I would agree with. The referee had to decide whether the handball was deliberate and, although the player was protecting herself, she definitely made a deliberate move to handle the ball. There is no self defence get-out clause in the laws of the game.
One other factor that a referee has to take into consideration is how far away the player was from the ball when it was kicked. Sometimes you see a ball driven in at point blank range and it hits the hand or arm of a player. Apart from having little chance of getting out of the way the player doesn't have time to think. Doesn't have time to deliberately decide to handle the ball. It is unlikely that a referee would stop play for this kind of situation.
Sometimes in circumstances like this the player gains control of the ball, but it still shouldn't change the referee's decision. The only criterion is, did the player deliberately handle the ball, not what was the outcome.
Dick Sawdon Smith