Wonder who Britons are blaming for the poor show so far by their athletes in the London Olympics? It’s “curse of Cameron”.

Upset British fans are blaming it on Prime Minister David Cameron, claiming the whenever he has shown up to watch matches so far in the ongoing Olympics, the team Great Britain has lost.

Cameron was urged to give the rest of the Olympics a miss after jinxing a second British medal hope yesterday, British newspaper Mirror reported Wednesday.

The prime minister took the tube to Stratford to cheer on Tom Daley and Peter Waterfield as they went for gold in the synchronised diving.

The pair were leading the field until the TV cameras picked out Cameron in the crowd, grinning from the cheap seats. They went on to blow their chances with a messy dive which left them finishing fourth, just missing out on the medals.

The disappointment was the second witnessed by the PM during the Games, sparking jibes about the “curse of Cameron”, the report said.

He also turned out to support British cycling hero Mark Cavendish, who was favourite for gold in Saturday’s men’s road race but ended up finishing 29th.

Cameron was also at Wimbledon a few weeks ago to see Andy Murray throw away a lead against Roger Federer. And the PM was left red faced when he watched England get beaten by Germany in the 2010 World Cup alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel at a G8 meeting in Canada.

Last night the Curse of Cameron had not escaped the notice of Twitter users. Several people went on the website to brand Cameron a jinx and urge him not to watch other British medal hopefuls in the wake of Daley and Waterfield’s fourth place finish.

One, Jim White, said: “David Cameron watching Tom Daley, after being at cycling on Saturday. His desperate effort to associate with gold is turning into a curse...” Mike Forster said: “I blame David Cameron #jinx.”

Nick Barlow said: “David Cameron: please keep your medal jinx away from the Hampton Court area on Wednesday.”
But the pleas to stay away fell on deaf ears with a spokesman for the Prime Minister insisting that he will continue to support British competitors whether they like it or not. The spokesman said: “Like everyone else, he likes to show his support for British teams, whatever the sport may be.”

Asthma found most common among Olympic athletes
Asthma and airway hyper-responsiveness are the most common chronic conditions among Olympic athletes, and could be related to intense training, according to a study by the University of Western Australia. The results were based on data from the last five Olympic games.

In summer and winter sports there is widespread suffering from asthma and airway hyper-responsiveness (AHR) among athletes who take part in endurance sports. Its relatively late onset in many older athletes suggests to the experts that the years of intense training could be one of the causes.

“Inhaling polluted or cold air is considered an important factor which might explain the cause in some sports, but not in all,” explained Kenneth D. Fitch, researcher at the University of Western Australia.

He identified those athletes with documented asthma and AHR from among those who during the last five Olympic games -from 2002 to 2010- used inhaled beta-2 agonists (IBA), a drug frequently used by elite athletes as an anti-asthma treatment.

The results show a prevalence of around 8 percent, which makes these chronic conditions the most common among Olympic athletes.

According to the study, if there are many more asthmatic winter athletes compared with summer athletes it is mainly because in summer competition there are less individual medals in endurance sports. For its part, during the winter games the inhalation of cold air contributes to airway damage.

It also occurs inside skating rinks, where particles in suspension from the ice resurfacing machines can cause damage.

The Australian researcher wonders whether training harder than the other competitors in order to improve results could be the reason why many athletes develop asthma and AHR during adult life. The study was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.