A Sad State of Affairs

Monday's front page news of Australia's Sydney Morning Herald featured this piece of journalism.

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The world's best triathletes imposed themselves on Sydney yesterday for all the wrong reasons after mass road closures turned the city into a gridlocked nightmare.

The day began with super fit athletes chasing each other around the Opera House, Harbour Bridge and harbour, and ended with thousands of frustrated motorists cursing the fallout from their efforts.

The Roads and Traffic Authority conceded it did not anticipate the extent of the traffic chaos to hit the city.

The bridge was turned over to the event between 4am and 11am. But the heaviest delays, leaving commuters fuming in cars and buses throughout the city, were just after the bridge reopened, when motorists moved into the city and found a clutch of other roads closed.

A spokesman for the RTA's traffic management centre, Phil Akers, said the delays were worse than expected.

''For a weekend this was very heavy today,'' he said

The afternoon NRL fixture between the St George Dragons and the Canterbury Bulldogs at the SCG further added to the congestion. And on the central coast traffic banked up along the F3 after a caravan accident blocked two lanes.

As for the event itself, it was a disappointing day out for the Australian contingent. Paula Findlay of Canada won the female race, and the two favoured Australian athletes, Emma Moffatt and Emma Snowsill finished 13th and 42nd, respectively.

Javier Gomez of Spain overcame a bike crash to win the male race, and Brendan Sexton of Australia finished fourth.

The traffic centre said travelling by car from the CBD to Manly took two hours yesterday afternoon, against a typical journey of 40 minutes.

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Today's letters to the editor continue somewhat along these lines (click to enlarge).

Here's some samples...

THE BAD

"Who were the idiots who approved the Sydney Triathlon and managed to shut down the city for the day?...It certainly made a mess for the 31,000 people going to...the football"

"Surely it's time we removed those pesky, smelly triathletes from our harbour, bridge and opera hous where they cause so much offence to Sydneysiders...they can move to Olympic Park, where they can swim, cycle and run until theirs hearts content and not disrupt the traffic or scare the kiddies"

"A road is a road is a road (what the hell?- Josh). It is defined in the dictionary as a public way for travelling. It is not defined as a venue for sporting events" (V8 supercars anyone?- Josh)

THE GOOD

"Can I congratulated Events NSW for bringing the triathlon to Sydney. The incovenience caused was minor compared to the benefits such a spectacular event"

"Sydney hosts the world's top triathletes who compete on what must be one of the most stunning courses in the world, and what is the angle from Sydney's only quality newspaper? A whinge anout the poor old motorists who are stuck in traffic...how disappointing."

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People overseas, don't travel to Australia if you're hoping to do a triathlon, because you just might get strung up by 31,000 ignorant footy fans banked up in traffic, and have a picture of your lifeless cadaver taken for the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald. How very very disappointed I am to call myself Australian after reading this. Sometimes I actually call myself a Kiwi when I travel overseas, and I might just have to do it more often.

Get some banter going!