Colm O'Regan: I'm enjoying my Olympic-themed dreams, but the pole vault eludes me

I simply cannot imagine running with a GAA goalpost using it to push myself over the height of an average semi-detached

Comedian and Irish Examiner columnist Colm O'Regan pictured in Cork. Picture: Denis Minihane

I tell you this much about the Olympics. It certainly makes day-dreams challenging. My sports day-dreams normally are fairly hum-drum and cover a very narrow range of sports. I’m an All Ireland hurling winner, then football the following year. (I used to be a fantasy dual-star but the game has gone too professional for that.) Then I retire, join Cork City to win numerous trophies, stay loyal to Cork City for long enough to get a big transfer fee. And then join an unfashionable yet well-run professional club who I take to Champions League glory before retiring at 43 to be a really insightful pundit. Also I’m hot.

But the Olympics means I have to up my game. To make even larger leaps of fantasy. Literally sometimes. Running is relatively easy. We all run. And I am the first man in pretend-history to compete at every event from 800m to marathon. I bowed out of the sprint events aged six. Any time I’m running now behind someone jogging slightly slower than me, the commentary plays in my head. “And step by step O’Regan hauls in the Kenyan. This is extraordinary. My fellow commentators are on their feet” etc etc.

I can’t really swim in the deep end yet I just about beat the Chinese fella in the 50 metres freestyle. Long jump is another accessible event. You just run really fast and jump. Triple jump is unexpectedly hard to day-dream. Mainly because I just can’t imagine getting the energy for the last bit. For me the jump of the hop, skip and jump feels like trying to make dinner from scratch after a shite day at work and a delayed commute. I’ll win the high jump in my dreams but only if I can go over on my belly. I’d definitely put my back out with the Fosbury flop.

In the cycling events, commentators note my victory came despite being afraid to go up the slope of the velodrome. I might be fantasising but I’m not crazy. You’d break your arm going up there.

In gymnastics, I’ve wisely focused on the pommel horse. I get dizzy on the teacups at the fairground with my children, so I’m not doing any somersaults. Simone Biles getting the “twisties” really freaked out my imaginary self.

Elsewhere in track and field I give a good go at the discus, the hammer, the shot put and the javelin – based on the assumption that it’s just throwing stuff. I don’t pretend that I’ll break any records but it’s enough for me to win an imaginary decathlon gold. It will go nicely with my Greco-Roman wrestling and boxing triumphs. Because you better believe I’m in the boxing. Working out all my frustrations about people who tie bags of dogshite to a tree.

But of all the events -dressage included- that I can fantasise about, there is one that defeats me: the pole vault. I simply cannot imagine running with a GAA goalpost at full speed to push it into the base of a giant softplay mattress and using it to push myself over the height of an average semi-detached and even then possible whack my bits off the ridge tiles of the house — see the French lad, literally. 

I could just about manage canal jumping. That’s where you run to a pole that’s in the water and the climb it really quickly as it falls so that you get across the canal. That feels useful. It’s how the polder-dwelling Frisians used to get around (the Dutch people, not the cows, though we can’t say for definite they didn’t).

Next week I’ll reflect on some of the lessons learned from the Paris Games. But for now I’m keeping my Olympic dreams alive. Wish me luck in the 50K walk!