Weather: Olympians complain of excess heat

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Sydney: It can be said with certainty that weather gods do possess a peculiar sense of humor. The heavenly agents presiding over Australian skies seem to be bent upon playing some practical jokes with the Olympic city, both permanent and transitory, residents.

For about four months the Sydneysiders have been cursing weather as the southern winters were insisting on staying for a bit longer as if intending to be witness to the first Olympic games of the millennium.

Beside cold weather the Sydneysiders were also wondering whether a "big wet" would ruin the lighting of the Olympic flame on September 15. The rowing teams, marathoners and triathletes across the globe were also bracing themselves for nightmarish winds and torrential downpours.

All the fears have been set to rest as the weather on the first five days of the Olympic competitions has been superb. While the brilliant sunshine has pasted indelible smile on Sydneysiders' faces, the organisers are beingbugged by another weather-related problem, which they could not have even conceived few weeks back.

The Olympians in Sydney are now complaining about the excessive heat!!

Their complaints do have some validity as the temperatures are running up to five degrees above the mid-September average and even the denizens of this Australian harbour city are beginning to whinge about the solar bounty made available to them out of turn by the quirky weather gods.

The turnaround in weather has also caused an alarming spurt in bushfires. Like their counterparts across the Pacific Ocean in western parts of the United States, who have been battling wildfires for months now, the New South Wales firefighters are bracing for what is predicted to be one of the worst southern hemisphere summer seasons.

Even as the Australian swimming and equestrian teams were busy harvesting gold in their respective fields, at least three major bushfires, Australian name for wildfires, were scorching south-western and northernparts of Sydney metropolitan area. For the major part of the day clouds of smokes could be seen from at least 30 kilometres.The Horsley Park Centre, venue of the equestrian competitions, is easily the hottest of all the Sydney Olympics venues and the horses had to be rehydrated at a regular interval. The spectators had to keep an eye for both the actions in the middle and snakes emerging from their hideouts because of heat too.

Before the opening of the Sydney games, Australian long jumper Jay Taurima had caused turmoil in the Olympic circles by saying words to the effect that the dark-skinned athletes would under-perform at the Olympics because of the prevailing, at that time, cold conditions.

He definitely must be looking some way to sue the gods responsible for regulating Olympics weather conditions.

India Abroad News Service