Five Rings 31/7

Blue - The Egyptian I know affectionately as Ramases, but whose fans call Alaaeldin Abouelkassem (presumably not in particularly snappy chants) took a fairytale silver in the men's individual foil event tonight.

Watching him this morning I had no clue that he was just 21 years old, that he had come from being such a completely unknown quantity in just months, or that his goal in 2011 was simply to qualify for the games.  I didn't even know that he was becoming the first African ever to reach an Olympic fencing semi final.  All I knew was that I watched him beat the four time world champion Peter Joppich of Germany and then World Number 1 Andrea Cassara of Italy was that he was pure bloody box office.  The guy celebrates like Goran Ivanesevic did the year he won Wimbledon.  A real star in the making and it should go without saying my hope for gold in 2016.

Black - First it was Bill Simmonds at ESPN, then Barbara Surk and Nick Toomey for Yahoo!, now Ben Dirs at the BBC has a piece on how handball is the unexpected star of these games.  I was so ahead of this trend.

Red - 

Gold - Returned tickets are being made available for sale at many Olympic venues.  In a system similar to that used at Wimbledon, spectators who leave events early are being asked to hand in their tickets, which can then be re-sold for just £5 (adults) and £1 (children).  Availability is obviously very varied, but the BBC reported today that 283 handball tickets were released in this way on Saturday.

Green - Almost every Olympic venue is surrounded by billboards in what can only be described as shocking pink.  Almost the only one to escape the fate is the Aquatics Centre, which has blue hoardings.  What did they have to do to enjoy that distinction?