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'Who says we can't play?': British papers
From tail-dragging despair to unabashed joy, Britain's newspapers rebounded, swelling with pride after five gold medals in one day erased the pain of the first Olympic week in Athens.
From tail-dragging despair to unabashed joy,
Britain's newspapers
rebounded on Sunday, swelling with pride after five gold medals in one day erased the pain of the first Olympic week in Athens.
"Britain's Greatest Day", the Sunday Telegraph summed up soberly, while the Observer gave a sassy "Who says we can't play the game?"
"The Athens Olympics were supposed to be an all-time low point in the history of British sport. Everyone said so. Instead, those who do (rather than those who chatter) have given Britain an array of medals," it wrote.
Copy strutted across the page with attitude, just as it had limped across the first five days of the Summer Games bereft of a single gold.
Heaps of praise went to rower Matthew Pinsent and his teammates in the men's coxless four, as the Observer praised the "superhuman effort" that led them to an eight-hundreds-of-a-second win over Canada.
Both the Daily Mirror and the Sun noted with awe the "Blazing Paddles" of Pinsent, now a four-time consecutive Olympic winner, and his crewmates.
The Sunday Times, so cheery now, could even joke about the Britons' dry run early on.
"Losing well is a virtue that we flaunt to the world, a British in-joke that sometimes masks despair. But yesterday, gloriously, we won in spades," it wrote in an editorial.
The Independent on Sunday concurred: "Britain suddenly had mighty reasons to feel good about itself again."
"Here we saw the best of British passion and character and an overwhelming sense that the highest level of sport doesn't have to be about cheating, grotesque wealth and hopelessly over-worked celebrity."
Celebrity and wealth certainly were not the main ingredients of this winning Olympic mix, as the medals taken Saturday were in several lesser-known events.
Ben Ainslie won in the Finn class sailing competition, while Bradley Wiggins took the individual pursuit gold medal on the cycling track.
Leslie Law was named the winner of the three-day equestrian eventing, after a successful appeal to the sport's court of arbitration. The German Bettina Hoy, formerly given the gold, was penalized for crossing the start line twice.
A trio of blond sailors dubbed by the media as "golden girls" -- skipper Shirley Robertson, Sarah Webb and Sarah Ayton -- took the fifth gold in the Yngling class sailing event as their win on Friday was made official.
Pressure was off distance runner Paula Radcliffe, who for a stretch seemed Britain's sole hope of victory. But The Sunday Times remained confident: "Britain's Olympic medal haul should shine even brighter today (Saturday) as Paula Radliffe runs for gold."
