BBC sports commentators were left non-plussed last night and news researchers were sent into overdrive as a little known ginger bloke came from nowhere to take the Long Jump Gold for Team GB in the Olympic Stadium last night.
A spokesman for the BBC Olympic production team said "All our commentators and pundits were up to speed on track and field favourites Jessica Ennis and Mo Farrah but when footage started to come in from the long jump pit our first thought was that it was royal prankster Prince Harry having a go. We'd just sent our production runner Tamsin off to the clip archive to get some stock shots of William & Kate doing sporty stuff, so we could knock together a fluff piece on the princes getting into the spirit of the games, when word came through that it was an actual Team GB competitor. Fortunately we managed to find a copy of the team listings so by the time we switched to the track side interview we could at least put a name to him. To be honest we're a bit pissed off that a lower ranked Team GB player actually made it onto our radar, if we'd known he was in with a shout we'd have hyped him up in advance, sent crews out to interview everyone from his first school teacher to the chap at B&Q who sold him the sand for his long jump pit and, of course, had he only got a Sliver or Bronze we'd have been able to make sure that John Inverdale was well briefed to lay it on with a trowel, reminding him how disappointed his grandad would have been to know that his grandson wasn't, in the end, good enough to win an Olympic gold. Anyway since he did get the gold we've had researchers charging about like blue arsed flies on speed digging up whatever they can on Greg Rutherford so now we can all sound pretty expert on him, tho I must say, that James Hewitt seems to have got around a bit."
