Strictly and Big Brother... and where else for Team GB's stars?
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Your support makes all the difference.The sight of Team GB members leaving the celebrity haunt Mahiki on Monday night after consuming a reported £15,000 worth of drinks should come as no surprise.
Since the Games, many of our fine athletes have been enjoying the trappings of a modern celebrity lifestyle, which provide a distraction from the grind of training. Things started when judoka Ashley McKenzie entered that place of ill-repute and fallen stars – the Celebrity Big Brother house. Yesterday it was announced that medal-winners Victoria Pendleton and Louis Smith had signed up to be contestants in this year's Strictly Come Dancing. Surely it is only a matter of time before Channel 4 recommissions the celebrity-sporting reality show The Games, so we can enjoy their talent for what it is.
What else can we expect from our Team GB? Billboards and TV adverts are a given, so are ranges of sporting goods. Then there are the "at home" shoots in the likes of Hello!.
Worse still, it wouldn't be a great surprise to see a few mixing winter sun with publicity with some set-up beach photographs. And don't forget the kiss-and-tells and the likelihood that at least one will pitch their own reality show.
We think we might prefer them when they were just "athletes".
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