Mexican Memoirs - Did I get it right?

Elton Tucker, Assistant Editor - Sports

Guadalajara, Mexico:

Hola amigos. Buenos dias.

Swimmer Alia Atkinson has taken a big load off my head following her explanation of what happened at the finish of the women's 100 metres breaststroke final on Monday at the Scotiabank Aquatic Centre or, to give it the correct Spanish name, Centro Acuatico Scotiabank.

I saw her touching (at least attempting to) ahead of her Canadian rival, Ashley McGregor, and thus earning a bronze medal. When the positions and times came up on the display screen I was literally shocked. Not that she came fourth but that the time difference was as much as fifteen hundredths of a second. That's a big difference in what seemed, to the naked eye, to be a very, very close finish for third.

Not sure what to do, I waited for some time until I got the official results on paper and in black and white. Before that, I had started writing the story but kept wondering whether I was reporting something very untrue, in fact, a lie.

Monday night I went to bed at about 11:30 and at 1:30 a.m. I was up again. Did I get it right? I turned on the light, went to my bag, got out the papers and checked the results again. It was all clearly there - McGregor third in 1.08.96; Atkinson, fourth in 1:09.11. I still could not sleep. If the times are right, why did it look so close? Were my eyes deceiving me?

Like 99 per cent, I think, of journalists I do not like to make mistakes. In this business a mistake is like a virus. It will spread. One becomes two, two become three and before you know it, you start doubting yourself and that can be fatal, especially in sports where getting times and scores right is essential.

Things have been going so fast here that I have forgotten to mention the relief I felt last Wednesday at reaching my destination, after leaving Jamaica, in just 14 hours. That's quite unusual in recent years.

My worst trip came in 2007 on my way to the IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Japan. I missed my connecting flight in the United States because of a defective aeroplane in Miami, and then had to overnight in San Francisco ahead of the 13-hour trip to Japan.

It took me two full days to reach Osaka, and once there, I was walking around dazed for days, smitten by jet lag. My feet were moving but my head was heavy and asleep.

Hasta mañana.