Olympics blog

The training needed in pursuit of an Olympic rowing gold is brutal but one group have approached it with grins on their faces, and they may just have produced the viral hit of the 2008 Games along the way.

In an homage to the British squaddies whose "Show me the Way to Armadillo" became a YouTube hit (and also crashed MoD computers) the Great Britain men's eight have bandied together to bash out Frank Sinatra's "My Way".

Have a look and see what you think. (And watch out for the dodgy language at the start).

The GB men's heavyweight squad have spent much of the last month training at altitude on Lake Silvretta in Austria.

According to Nick Heathcote, whose brother Alistair is in the men's eight and who is charting his fortunes on the BBC 606 website, a typical day involved a 22km water session in the morning, followed by a heavy weights session, core stability exercises. (Here are some of his photos)

Then, "just when you think you're done, Tubby, you need to stop crying, put your PE kit back on and knock out a final 16km on the Rowing machine".

But they have a bit of a history of finding the lighter side. Take a look at the trousers around the one-minute mark in this Steve Redgrave-presented BBC guide to rowing boat types. It's them again.

Gasp at Alex Partridge in the shower; chuckle along with man mountain Josh West and miniscule cox Acer Nethercott as they waltz together; marvel at the synchronicity of Tom Parker sitting on a toilet while singing the line "I did, what I had to do, I saw it through without exemption".

And try to avoid looking too closely at the Borat-style mankini sported by Tom Stallard.

There has been no official word on the video yet from GB Rowing, whose public face tends to be a little straight-laced. A previous generation of GB training campers had a wry dig at performance director David Tanner when they built their own version of Monopoly. In the top right corner of the board is the instruction "Go to David!"