Time Out by Simon_Doyle

Sport throws up more than its fair share of sporting siblings who frequently compete with or sometimes against one another.

Think of examples such the tennis playing Williams sisters Venus and Serena, footballers Anton and Rio Ferdinand, rugby players Tony and Rory Underwood, and cricketers Steve and Mark Waugh. Thankfully, all these lot ever had to do is go and perform to the best of their sporting ability.

But if you were watching any of the figure skating in the Vancouver Olympics you may have come across some pairings that made for potentially painful or vomit-inducing viewing. In ice dancing it's not uncommon for a pairing to be made up of brother-sister combos who then try to convince us all that they are in fact starry-eyed lover as the glide around the ice hand-in-hand doing their seductive dance moves.

Team GB had their own brother-sister pairing in the form of Sinead Kerr and John Kerr, while there were also sibling pairings for Israel (Aexandra Zaretsky and Roman Zaretsky), Japan (Cathy Reed and Chris Reed), and Germany (Christina Beier and William Beier).

So how easy would you find it to grind your groin into your sister in pursuit of Olympic or other glory? Surely, as soon as you gazed into your partner's eyes your natural body defence would kick in and think "no way, that's my brother/sister. This is just too gross."  

So that's why my real sporting heroes of the Winter Olympics are those brother-sister duos who manage to avoid puking up on each other as glide round the ice, backed by romantic soundtrack, doing their utmost to convince us they actually are lovers on the ice. That really has to the utmost sacrifice in pursuit of sporting success. I mean how many of you would make out with your own sister if it meant picking up an Olympic medal? On second thoughts, don't answer that.