It’s time to look north: this weekend, the ultimate obstacle race is back. An estimated six million of us will tune in to watch those finely tuned bodies powering themselves around the famously hellish course, with its exhausting series of hurdles. By the final straight, only the strongest will be left. We’ve already got our favourites. We’re already making predictions. And by Saturday evening we’ll know exactly who is going to be in the Gladiators final.
Apologies to any racing lovers offended by that joke. I intend no slight on the Grand National, the traditional high point of this sporting weekend, but the enforced hiatus between the semi-finals of one of my favourite shows has me revved up. I genuinely missed them all last week – Phantom, Fury, Cyclone, Steel – and it’s still hard to believe such massive, almost planetary, entities could get bumped off the schedule for an FA Cup quarter-final. Legend must have thrown a cosmic tantrum.
