Ulympiad

By Nisar Hussain

It is the year 2268, the Universal Olympics, known as the Ulympics, are about to start. The best of the best of Earth’s athletes are headed to Planet Zhel. They will compete against athletes from planets right across the universe. Unfortunately, their transportation ship suffers damage en route and has to land on the nearest appropriate planet for repairs. This ‘appropriate’ planet, Selkot, just happens to be banned from the Ulympics for unsporting behaviour and harbours a grudge, in particular against humans of Earth, who they primarily blame for the harsh banishment. So into their lap falls a ship full of Earth athletes, has their luck changed?
The Symarons of Selkot have planned their very own Ulympics to showcase their own athletes against mainly human rivals. What follows for the Earth athletes is a series of bizarre, rigged and twisted sporting events where the prize for coming second is death! For the athletes and civilian crew of the Earth ship ‘Lucky Lady’, it will become a fight to survive the near impossible to win games and also try to formulate an escape plan. Are they in need of a miracle? Their weapons of choice: intelligence, cunningness, teamwork, organisation, sporting skill and…humour! Will it be enough?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Aug 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9781528989220

Nisar Hussain

Nisar Hussain believes a lot of us are born with some sort of a hidden talent woven into our DNA fabric. It is for each and every one of us to realise and develop this talent. Many will go through their entire lives having never realised their gift but others will. Nisar has a vivid imagination (initially a slow burner, totally non-precocial) that slowly but surely developed solidly. From soldiers and battles crafted out of plasticine men in childhood to voraciously consuming the world of TV and film thereafter, he feels ready to become a ‘storyteller’ and leave a lasting contribution to the world of media and entertainment that shaped him.

Book preview

About the Author

Nisar Hussain believes a lot of us are born with some sort of a hidden talent woven into our DNA fabric. It is for each and every one of us to realise and develop this talent. Many will go through their entire lives having never realised their gift but others will. Nisar has a vivid imagination (initially a slow burner, totally non-precocial) that slowly but surely developed solidly. From soldiers and battles crafted out of plasticine men in childhood to voraciously consuming the world of TV and film thereafter, he feels ready to become a ‘storyteller’ and leave a lasting contribution to the world of media and entertainment that shaped him.

Dedication

To my family first and foremost. Also to the students of Allerton High from 2013 to present who continuously encouraged me to keep at it especially when I was suffering writers’ block for three years solid.

Copyright Information ©

Nisar Hussain (2021)

The right of Nisar Hussain to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528914369 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528989220 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2021)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

Acknowledgement

To my nephew at Infinity Designs who was instrumental in the cover design.

Preface

Earth: Year 2268

It was the obvious country to choose, the USA or simply America. For so long it had been, is being, and will always be the popular culture country of choice for all on Earth. It had been the dominant culture since the 1900s so seemed fitting. Thus, it was where the people of Earth elected to hold their trials for the upcoming Universal Olympics which went by the name of the Ulympics.

In the year 2268, things were very different. Voyager 1 leaving the solar system and the entire near solar planet exploration and landing was ancient news. Children read about them in history lessons or on the Science Channel on their personal screens. Now, we had interstellar travel and had discovered and regularly communicated/traded with many different intelligent life forms from many different planets in their own solar systems. Did you really think we were the only ones in the vastness of space all alone? Spin-on from the time of contact (nearly two centuries ago) to the present and talking to and trading with aliens was normal. So it was not long before someone suggested holding a Universal Olympics. That someone was, in fact, us humans. The idea was simple really. Everything you knew about the much-heralded Olympics on Earth was replicated on a much bigger scale. Instead of different countries competing against each other, it was different planets competing against each other. And that is it. Let the medium of sport bring us all together.

The Ulympics (The Universal Olympics).

Around a hundred years ago, all the inhabitants of all the planets in countless solar systems within reasonable travelling distance got together to take part in competitive sports games every four Earth years. They were called the Ulympics after our very own Olympics here on good old Earth but incorporating the U to represent the Universe. I say old Earth but comparing it to some planets taking part, Earth was probably in the mid-thirties if you compared it to human age analogy, some planets were much older, probably in their nineties or past the century. Of course, some were a lot younger, say in their teens or junior age. This meant there were a lot of technological and social developmental variations. Calling the games after an Earth event was a source of immense pride to all us humans, it was a gift to everyone out there and there were plenty of civilisations out there to impress. The age-old question we humans used to ask ourselves, are we alone, is anybody out there? had soundly been answered. Boy, we definitely were not alone and a good thing we were not. Even though thousands of inhabited planets were recorded by the year 2268, we still had not even discovered a fraction of them, or they had discovered us yet! It was yet another exciting age of discovery for humans but this time on a universal scale. Not so much New World but New Universe. Only this time around no one, bar one or two, said we might fall off the edge of the (flat) universe. Of the ones we had discovered, it turned out, about one in three had complex life on them. Some more advanced than ours, some less and some about the same. Naturally, to Earth, this meant the prospect of trade and new wealth! Trade was the reason the New World was discovered here on Earth and it was the reason why all these alien civilisations quickly formed friendships and alliances. Aliens, it turned out, did not want to take over and destroy Earth. They just wanted to communicate and trade just like us.

It took several decades to nurture the friendly relationship most of the planets had enjoyed with each other and one thing they were all proud to boast was that none had gone to war. It must be a first if we compared the situation to our own Earth history where war and peace had interchanged on a regular basis ever since humans started living in small groups and tribes. Happily, in the year 2268 Earth was at peace within (mostly). Maybe knowing the existence of other world civilisations had bonded the humans closer together, or to look outwards instead of inwards for development (power and wealth) and put to bed the undeserved notion that the Martians wanted to destroy us by zapping us with their ray guns.

Anyways, at this moment in time, all the participating planets and their prospective athletes were now undergoing gruelling trials to find the best of the best to showcase and partake in the games. There were some planets that were banned from entering. This could be for many reasons like cheating, aggressiveness, un-sportsmanship behaviour, warmongering, etc. These barred planets were not happy as in their eyes they had done nothing wrong, ‘We got punished for no reason’. Sounds familiar? Ask any school teacher and they will say they have heard it a million times.

What, you might ask, would a talented and ambitious athlete from one of the banned planets do to get into the games? Well, in the amount of time the planets had co-operated so far and interstellar travel had been enabled, multiculturalism on a planetary scale was still in its infancy. Yes, there was mixing and integrating but on a very small scale. Uprooting and setting up livelihoods in another country was daunting enough but doing it on a different (alien) planet was too much for most citizens of any planet. Furthermore, there was a shed load of bureaucratic forms to go through as well as the biosecurity and military security checks. The answer is some athletes from banned planets represented an adopted qualifying planet by becoming a citizen of that planet in past games. Ambition is a super-powerful force; it knows no bounds, rules, morals, ethics, or limits.

The choice of the host planet for the tournament was also a competitive process. A group of hopeful candidate planets pitched their bids and waited for the Universal Ulympics Committee (UUC) to decide on the winning bid. This time around a planet called Zhel had won the right to stage the games. You do not have to be human to start rumours of bribery and corruption, it was the same anywhere in the cosmos, so almost instantly accusations began to surface and do the rounds upon this decision. Mostly they came from the losing bidders or some freelance journalist looking to make a bundle but this was nothing new. (Something else that was not new was that rumours can sometimes be true—you never know). Earth was one of those hopeful candidates but, alas, not this time. We did host it sixty years ago, the 2208 Ulympics Games. Earth did okay in terms of medals. The people of Earth felt it was time to host again and had been bidding for the last three times without success. However, on a more positive note, we had qualified for this year’s event on Zhel.

The rules of the Ulympics had all the common sense ones but some new ones had to be devised to take into account the eclectic galactic participants. You see, different planets had different looking biological beings. We were all shaped by the environmental conditions that existed on each of our home planets, factors like air temperature/pressure, atmospheric composition, gravity, flora and fauna abundance and distribution, etc. Different body shapes meant different body mass, strength, fitness, endurance levels, stamina, etc. In order for athletes to compete fairly, strict guidelines were drawn up to match as good as possible, physical traits and abilities in any one event. Talking about physical things, these Ulympics had also included a very non-physical contest, the academic event. This was where the academic powerhouse athletes from each planet pitched their cerebral might against each other. Blood and guts it was not, but it did have a considerable following, pitching grey matter against grey alien matter—academic gladiators!

When Earth qualified, it was not with surprise. We had qualified healthily since the Universal Ulympics inaugural event a century ago. It came as a surprise to humans that of all the life forms discovered so far out there, we rated quite well pound for pound, physically and mentally. In terms of the technical prowess scale line, Earth sat just on the three-quarters marker point. Physically, we were just the right side of the half-way marker. Now, this makes good reading. It meant evolution had championed (for us modern humans) brains over brawn to adapt, survive and evolve. Remember the Neanderthals? What did this mean for humans and the wider cosmos? Well, it meant we had got a competitive challenge on our hands for all the physical sports events but always stood a very good chance in the academic event. Pity, it was only one event. Out there in space, it seemed brawn was the way for most life forms. A good skill set drew heavily from brains rather than physique!

So, the trials. This was the same for all athletes the galaxy over. You trained your body to the absolute limits every single day, had an energy drink, and then did it all over again. NO PAIN NO GAIN! Sorry to unleash that phrase but it was kind of appropriate.

For people of Earth, it was a time of coming together for all nations. Earth was not in an environmentally healthy state but still functioned. The population was about 22 billion and rising fast, there was very little wild jungle or wildlife left and the cost of food swallowed nearly half the working wage. Many countries had enforced a one-child policy to address runaway birth rates. But the games made people forget their daily grind and humdrum lifestyles to wish their fellow men and women the best against aliens. Maybe the early films of the 1950s and 60s about destructive aliens still brought out the us versus them in us. The trials were held in Atlanta, USA since they had already the infrastructure from the past which was still there today. So many sports facilities and recreational ground space had been reclaimed for housing or agriculture that sports arenas and grounds were a rare thing. The Atlanta complex had survived since in the past it was once used as an Olympic venue. It had some historical value. All hopeful athletes from across the world had converged here to vie for a place in the final small squad to go on the space ship Lucky Lady to Zhel. Yes, you have read right. There were only a small number of places available for Earth athletes. This was because of what you had read earlier. Humans, being the size and shape we were, to compete fairly with other-worldly athletes in events, only limited fair-match events could be found. But there was no need to worry; most of the common and popular ones, luckily, were in. For instance, the 100m sprint was split into two bands. Humans were in band A; this is the slower running race. Band B was the faster running race, typically this race had an average run time of around six seconds. Too much for humans even with hugely performance-enhancing (illegal) drugs. Plus there were events at the Ulympics that humans could not take part in. There were events that measured the highest height one could jump down from unaided and with no safety equipment, or how high you could jump up from a standing position. So, you get the idea why Earth had only selected itself for a finite number of events to compete for in the games. It did mean that the ones selected were going to be really winnable for the humans (probably).

The Earth trials were always a great source of entertaining news for the tabloids, gossip magazines, and the viewing public. This was because you got different nationalities competing for just the single final place in any event. Cue attitudes, tantrums, allegations of cheating, allegations of unfair and biased judging or inaccurate measuring, unsportsmanlike behaviour, brawling, etc. Remember reading about it earlier on? Some found the trials more entertaining than the actual Ulympics games themselves.

Chapter 1

The Earth Trials

The 100m Race (Men).

All the athletes for the 100m sprint were limbering up on the track field. There was still some time before the race was to run so it was an opportunity for the TV cameras and reporters to earn their pay. There was a hive of activity with every athlete talking and hyping up their chances of winning.

Blaze Harris, one of the three Jamaican prospects, squared up to one of the reporters vying for his attention. Blaze had a physique like an ancient Greek god statue with muscles and blood vessels ripping all over the place; he was one of nature’s finest examples, akin to a classical stonemason’s dream creation. Blaze was tall in height, 1.89m (6 feet 2 inches) but he was rather short of temper, so even bloodhound brazen journalists trod carefully when interviewing him.

Reporter (woman), ‘Blaze, how you rate your chances? You are the current World and Olympic champion but you did lose your last regional race with some questioning your motivation, your mindset, even your rocky private lifestyle.’

‘It was just one small race, that’s all lady. One solitary race. It’s my opponents, my enemies who are trying to upset my rhythm and preparation by bringing up all this nonsense from the past. But I’ve got news for them, it’s not working. In fact, hear this…I feel so ready now it’s not just humans who should fear me. I’m so fast the wind can hear me whistle, I give lightning a five-second head start in a running contest. If it’s a race…the winner is Blaze. You gettin’ what I’m sayin’ Miss Reporter?’

‘Loud and clear.’

Watching from a short distance away was one of the competitors in the 100m sprint. He was Vlad Covich. He had entered the race without representing any country. Vlad looked on with anger and jealousy consuming his face. Vlad’s ethnic origin was from Eastern Europe but he did not disclose exactly where. He was also fairly muscular but had a snarly mean look that one could never warm to. No one knew whether his skinhead cut hair was a result of the onset of baldness (a hard life) or his personal choice. He looked every bit eastern European though but, due to living elsewhere, his accent had altered so you could not pinpoint the exact country. He too was well-toned and tallish.

All ten athletes were near the starting blocks as everyone not involved had been cleared off the tract. So now, along with the competitors, only the officials were at the track lanes.

Blaze mentally prepared himself by jumping up and down on the spot. With him were the two other Jamaican hopefuls. Vlad came up to Blaze. Blaze looked at him; it was obvious Vlad wanted to say something to Blaze. He did.

‘What do you think about my little saying,—you’re a total craze if you think the winner is Blaze?’ remarked Vlad with a chuffed smile.

Blaze (calmly), ‘Nope, mine’s better and accurate.’

Vlad (no less friendly), ‘I’m gonna make history today, as the only white man to win in more than three centuries.’

‘There’s no law against wishing for a miracle. The word hope or wish is usually always in the same sentence as miracle. Have you ever noticed that? Hope! As in the opposite of certain! Vlad…aren’t you named after someone famous…Vlad the…imposter?’

‘Impaler!’

‘No, definitely Imposter.’

Vlad is perturbed by what he perceived as mockery of his name and himself.

‘You know why white men can’t beat you people in running. We do not need to run fast. Running is in your blood, in the cotton and mango plantations; you always ran from the white man’s whip and their dogs.’ He laughed in an offence causing way.

Blaze instantly lost his calm, fumed and threw the mother of all punches towards Vlad. It was caught in a cupped hand and stopped by one of the Jamaican athlete standing next to Blaze. Vlad had wisely ducked by then anyway.

‘Don’t Blaze. It is only a despicable and last-ditch attempt at getting you disqualified from the race. Don’t rise to it. Get your revenge on the track. Remember, don’t get mad, get even.’

Blaze made a half-hearted attempt to free his fist but then stopped. He appeared to calm quickly, he looked at his friend.

‘You are right my friend. Don’t get mad, get even. Come on, we’ve got a race to run.’

Blaze walked away from Vlad, who was left dumbfounded his devious little plan had not worked.

The runners lined up. There was total silence in the stadium. All eyes and ears were switching attention between the runners poised in the starting blocks and the starter pistol man.

It fired.

Immediately after the audio of the bang, the ten men in the race burst out with super-human speed. Blaze and one of his Jamaican colleagues were 1stand 2ndrespectively in the first few seconds. This remained the situation as the runners neared the finish line. Blaze crossed it first in a time of 8.356 seconds. It was a new running record. One of his teammates came in second. Vlad came in 4th. In the tenth and, therefore, the last place was Lenny, the athlete from Trinidad and Tobago. As he crossed the finish line, most of the other athletes in front of him had slumped down on the track catching their breath. He had to keep a keen eye out here and there to avoid slamming into any of them. This might be the reason that Lenny did not see and, therefore, stop quick enough as Vlad appeared standing straight ahead of him. Crash! Lenny piled into Vlad at sprint speed. Vlad was sent tumbling to the ground at a great speed quite a distance, Lenny however, remained upright.

Lenny looked at Blaze and Blaze looked at Lenny. Lenny winked at Blaze who acknowledged with a hidden greeting style clenched fist. Sure it was an accident but one that produced the desired result. Vlad was down and very much out.

The Archery Event (Gender Neutral).

Jessica Moorland (known to friends as Jess was from the host country USA) had a really tough task. In this event, she faced a few champions. Amongst them there was Iris Fromm (Germany, female), the current Olympic champion but not in good form of late, then there was Cooper Cannon (USA, male), the favourite and current USA and world champion. Also, a couple of ex-champions who still threatened to have one last blaze of glory. But Jess had belief in her abilities and had left her family in Wyoming with the parting words, ‘I’ll bring home the gold, you’ll see’. Jess, even though sports were her trade, had a very feminine non-sporty physique with shoulder-length dark hair and bright brown eyes.

Jess watched as the favourite, Cooper pulled back his bowstring and unleashed the arrow. The arrow flew towards the target and pierced it very near the centre of bull’s-eye. Jess looked on with some dismay, how was she going to beat that no matter how good she was; technically yes, but in reality really hard. The second and third shots landed very near the bull’s-eye too. Cooper muttered a satisfying but cautious yes as he walked away. Jess knew that by getting to this stage (the trials) meant she was hardly going to come up against people who did archery as a hobby or a past time. Here it was the real deal, professional people whose livelihoods depended on archery.

Jess’s name was called out. She was standing next to Si Chow, another female hopeful from China.

‘He good, yes?’ asked Si Chow.

‘He, very good.’

‘Your turn, you ready?’

‘Couldn’t be readier. Who needs nuclear reactors when I can split atoms with my arrows?’

Jess started to walk over to the spot and she heard Si Chow shout, ‘Good luck’. Her heart started to beat to capacity but that was of no medical concern to super-fit athletes. What was of concern were the total concentration and a single-minded determination to succeed. Cooper’s score was on replay in her mind but she was using it as a positive by saying to herself that that is what she had to beat.

Jess pulled back on her bowstring, aimed and fired. Just like Cooper’s, the arrow flew through the air and landed smack bang in the centre of the bull’s-eye. Jess jumped with joy, it was the perfect score! Technically, you could not beat that, just equal it. Then almost instantly she realised that she could better Cooper’s tally. All she had to do was get her second arrow extremely close to the bull’s-eye so that this second arrow would kiss the first. So, again Jess pulled back, aimed and let fly. The second arrow flew and…landed at the absolute dead centre of bull’s-eye. How? You might well ask when the first arrow already occupied that spot. Well, the second arrow had split the first cleanly in half, the two split halves made a perfectly symmetric pattern either side of the second arrow. Everyone watching was silent with awe and disbelief. It was pure Hollywood and Robin Hood. After the silence came the raptor of congratulatory laugh and applaud. It seemed like forever until Jess fired her third and last arrow; she herself needed a moment or two to get over what had just happened. The arrow flew like the wind and hit the intended target. This was, even more, something out of pure fantasy. It had actually split the second arrow cleanly in the middle! No Hollywood film had ever dared to do this on film fearing it might have seemed just a feat too far for audiences to believe. But this was no fantasy film, it was real and it did just happen. The applauds were even louder as everyone knew what they just saw was historic. Jess’s own celebrations were drowned out by the deafening noise.

After what seemed an eternity, things started to get back on schedule as the next archer (Iris) took to the spot. The look on her face told everyone watching what was on her mind; there is no chance of winning now. Silver does not get you a seat on the Ulympics bound spacecraft. Now it was just for pride not prize. Nobody else even came close to Jess’s score.

Jess was surrounded by journalists.

‘Jess, your performance was unbelievable. Everyone expected you to do well but not this well. What do you think?’ asked one of them.

‘I think…I’m gonna need some more arrows!’

The Hammer Throw (Female)

Yana Novokov (Russia) was the joint-favourite along with a Ukrainian, Lyubov Sirko, a real threat but somewhat older than Yana, Yana was the World champion and Lyubov was the Olympic champion. What can you say about Yana? She was definitely a presence standing 1.95m (6 foot 4 inches tall) and built out of what looked like flesh coloured granite. She spoke not too fast, but one tended to listen to her when she was talking. In contrast to her outward appearance, Yana had the kindest and gentlest of personalities and this trait vanquished peoples’ first impressions of her once they spoke to and knew her. To use the adage gentle giant was never more appropriate in her case.

Yana was down to throw first. Lyubov was down as the third thrower. Yana went as far back as the net allowed her to, stopped and breathed deep. Then, with one last gasp, accelerated, twisted and with all her power flung the hammer high up yonder. Hammers, being heavy, did not spend much time in the air. However, where they came down did matter. Yana’s hammer ball touched down with a heavy thud. Even before it landed everyone could see it was going to be the best yet, easily breaking existing records. Her throw was measured at 86.44 metres, a new record throw for this event. Lyubov and an unfancied entrant were still to throw. The crowd cheered as they knew it could be a potentially winning distance. Yana did not show too much emotion as she knew the other two were yet to throw.

The unfancied middle entrant threw her hammer ball. It failed to beat Yana’s distance. Half the crowd just clapped out of respect and half cheered because Yana was still in the lead. Again, Yana remained unfazed. There was still one left, one who could beat her.

Lyubov readied her hammer ball and with a burst of twisting acceleration flung the hammer into the air. The trajectory and velocity of the hammer ball in the air were crucial to predict a distance. Lyubov’s ball did not look like it was going to beat Yana’s. This was confirmed when it touched down a little way short of Yana’s record breaker. The immense roar of the crowd drowned out Lyubov’s own outburst of disappointment. Yana punched the air with sheer joy, the first time she had shown emotion. She was the new Earth champion and record holder. The prize—a place on the Zhel bound Ulympics team space ship.

As with all winners, Yana had to face the press.

‘Congratulations Yana on the Gold,’ said a journalist.

‘Thank you, it is wonderful.’

‘Tell me Yana, out there watching Lyubov, who was the last to throw, did you feel anxious at any time that it might not happen for you?’

‘What you mean anxious? What means this word?’

‘It means did you feel at any time that Lyubov was going to beat you and take the gold; were you worried that you were going to fail?’

‘How you say in English…hell no! Lyubov is older, I’m younger. She is yesterday, I am tomorrow. I felt as strong as a Russian bear out there. (She flexed her arms to show off her muscles). I should be competing with men, not women; women not strong enough to win me.’

‘So you’re saying you could beat the men if allowed to complete in the same event?’

‘Yes! I can beat them. (Points at the reporter’s cameraman). I could throw your skinny cameraman and his camera over there if you want to see my power.’

Reporter cautiously smiled. ‘We’ll take your word for it.’

The Shooting Event (Gender Neutral).

Kurt Cameron (USA, male) was a highly skilled marksman. He was already the National Champion in America but being only 25 years old, this was his first trials. Kurt looked like a Viking of old in that he had chin-length long blonde hair with a beard to boot.

Kurt steadied himself and aimed his gun at the target board; he was the first to start. He fired his first shot and eagerly lifted his head to see how he had done. The bullet hit just off-centre which meant it was a very good shot. Kurt, buoyed by this amazing first shot, fired off a string of near-perfect shots. He finished and surveyed the target. There was a peppered pattern at the centre where there was once a uniform black circle or bull’s-eye. Kurt and the cheering crowd knew it could potentially be the gold medal-winning performance. It all depended on the other rivals having any extraordinary good talent or skill.

Sergio Barrios (Spain, male) might well have been that talented arch-rival; he was the last to fire. No one previous had beaten Kurt’s points tally. He fired his rifle for the first shot, then stopped, looked chuffed and continued to fire. He took his second to last shot. It hit in the bull’s-eye area. Kurt looked worried. He should be. Sergio’s collection of shots looked like to have out-gunned Kurt’s in accuracy and points scored. With nail-biting tension, Sergio made ready to shoot his last shot. He took a little longer than with the others probably to put Kurt through maximum anguish. At last, Sergio took the shot. Just at that moment, there was a slight gust of wind which might explain why his last shot was off target. This would bring his average points tally to score down. Sergio knew this and immediately launched a protest to the nearby official. Kurt though was jumping about in sheer joy as he knew his points score would clinch it. It was not confirmed yet but Kurt had watched all the entrants shoot so the premature celebrations were not that foolhardy.

The official scores came up on the huge LED board once Sergio’s protests had been dealt with. There it was. Kurt’s name was at the top. He had won his first gold at the trials and a chance now to compete in the Ulympics for the first time.

Later Kurt duly faced the press.

‘Congratulations Kurt, on the gold. First, the National Champion, now the trial’s champion and Zhel bound.’

‘Thank you, that sounds good and it’s great to win it. I’m…over the moon, over the moon.’

The reporter smiled too. ‘Of course, you are saying that because now you can literally be over the moon, over the stars, you’re on the Ulympics ship?’

‘Yes! But it’s also how I feel right now too.’

‘Have you got anything to say to the watching American people and the world?’

‘Yeah (Cockily). You ain’t seen nothing yet. I’m going to go there and come back with more gold. Check this out, (Jingle) I’m a shooting star, who’s travelling afar, what’s he holding?, a medal made of golding.’

The journalist looked at him without smiling for a few seconds, no reaction. This prompted Kurt to say something.

‘I know the ending’s a bit naff, needs some work? I’ll work on it by the time I’ve won the Ulympics.’

The Long Jump (Female)

Charlotte Banning (UK) got to the trials because, back in the national trials in Britain,