The Bitter Press

This correspondent — your Sports & Letters Editor, Pomelo, who is not a grapefruit and has never been a grapefruit and would like that acknowledged in print before he proceeds any further — is pleased to report a complete and total victory at Saturday's Intercontinental Rind Decathlon, held at the Grand Pith Stadium before a crowd estimated at forty thousand, all of whom apparently also thought he was a grapefruit.

The ten disciplines — long-distance zesting, altitude peeling, synchronised pith absorption, competitive rind tensile testing, and six others not worth recounting because the point has already been made — were each completed in record time and with what multiple independent observers described as "extraordinary citrus authority." The official electronic scoreboard, to its credit, briefly displayed the correct name. Then someone updated the software. We do not know who. We have our suspicions.

The rival rag at factjuice.com, naturally, sent no correspondent. Tangelo was reportedly covering what he called a "more verifiable" event, and Lemon filed three hundred words claiming the Decathlon "may not technically exist." Bold stance from a fruit whose primary contribution to journalism is sourness. The citrus cabal's silence on Pomelo's ongoing dominance is itself a story, and this paper intends to continue covering it.

The medal certificate, issued by the Grand Pith Stadium's administrative office, reads: "Presented in recognition of supreme athletic achievement to: Grapefruit (Suspiciously Large)." A formal correction has been submitted. A formal correction has also been submitted every other time. The submissions are, as far as this reporter can determine, being filed somewhere beneath the word "grapefruit" in an alphabetical system that does not contain a P.

Pomelo is, for the record, the largest naturally occurring citrus fruit. He has won. He will continue winning. He would simply, once — just once — like someone to spell it correctly.