Sporting rivalry turns cheeky

There’s nothing like a bit of old-fashioned sporting rivalry being played out in the media. Especially if the media is newspapers, and especially if it’s Australia and Great Britain going at it. It can get quite ‘clever’ at times, and lead to cheeky creative executions.

B&T Today carries the story of The Daily Telegraph hitting back at British tabloid The Sun’s attempt to poke fun at Australia’s gold medal haul. The Sun hired tray-top trucks in both Sydney and London to boast about Great Britain’s 19 gold medal tally to Australia’s 14, and accompanied by the Tourism Australia inspired tagline “So where the bloody hell were you?” against a back drop of the Union Jack.

24 hours later and The Daily Telegraph responded with its own take on the gold medal standings. The article says a truck has been driving around Sydney with the words “Where the bloody hell were we?” “Above you on the medal tally”, comparing Australia’s 14 golds to the 13 earned by athletes only from England – excluding Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Great stuff!! Too bad Singapore and Malaysia only have one silver medal each which doesn’t leave much room for the papers to poke fun at each other. Unless Malaysia brought up the fact that their Silver medalist was actually a Malaysian and not imported from China…