After some half a century in the sportswriting game you expect to be asked:  "What is is the best event you’ve ever covered?”  For me, the answer is easy.  I’ve seen Olympics and World Cups, Commonwealth Games, some really great moments in sport but the greatest, well, that’s easy.  For it involved The Greatest – Muhammad Ali knocking out the ogre that was George Foreman as dawn broke over Africa in a massive stadium built in a jungle clearing in Zaire, back in 1974.

As Ali  landed the telling eighth round punch and big George twisted and spun to the floor a terrifying electric storm broke, torrential rain cascading down, drenching us and our notes and typewriters (yes, those were the days) as in front of me Harry Carpenter roared into his BBC microphone. "Oh my God, he’s won the title back at 32 !"

As we drove back into the capital Kinshasa muddy roads were turned into rivers as young kids splashed and sparred, excidedly yelling  "Ali bomba-ye,  Ali-bomba-ye !"  "Ali kill him, Ali kill him !" An unforgettable, epic night.

And the worst event ever?  That’s easy, too.  It was the Winter Olympics of 1980, in upstate New Yorks at Lake Placid, Hicksville at the best of times, the Games were organised - or rather disorganised – by the local vicar, one Rev Bernard J Fell - and what a nightmare they were for the media.  Forty below, snow three feet deep and buses that never ran on time, if at all, and rarely stopped to pick you up anyway.

We trudged around despondently from hostel-like accommodation, most of us in cell-like, window-less rooms to a cramped, inadequate media centre that apparently was once some sort of reform school, with no doors on the toilet cubicles.  The memory still sends shivers down the spine.  Oh unhappy days!  Although I have enjoyed Winter Olympics since, notably in Albertville and Lillehammer, I have to say I am not sorry to be giving Vancouver a miss.  But I trust my colleagues are enjoying decent facilities and a warm reception in one of the most civilised and hospitable cities in the world. 

Interest in this country when the Games get under way is unlikely to dominate the February footy, comprehensive as the BBC 2’s coverage will be but not just for aficionados of the white stuff it will be compelling viewing – remember how millions stayed up to the early hours to watch Rhona Martin and her magic broomstick sweep to glory in Salt Lake City.

Because of Britain’s lack of facilities, winter sports have always been the poor relations, but an Olympic gold is an Olympic gold, whatever the discipline, even for a nation which has always preferred contact with ice to be confined to the tinkling of cubes in a glass.  So here’s hoping the ensuing fortnight may offer just a little more than cold comfort.

Selling the downhill has always been an uphill battle in Britain, where interest in winter pursuits has only really been defrosted by Torvill and Dean, John Curry and Robin Cousins giving us a twirl and by Martin's curlers, who turned stones into gold eight years ago.

UK Sport’s target of three medals for the 52 strong squad, the largest since 1992 may seem ambitious, but in fact on current form it is hopefully rather realistic.  Definite medal prospects are bob skeleton girls Shelly Rudman, silver medal winner in Turin four years ago, and last year’s world silver medallist Amy Williams; the brilliant bobsleigh pair Nicola Minichiello and Gillian Cooke, the reigning world champions, plus the men’s curling team - also world champions, skipped by David Murdoch.



And there are reasonable chances of podium places for the women’s curling team, now led by 19-year-old Eve Muirhead who has won the world junior championship three times, Rudman’s partner, Kristan Bromley, the intrepid madcap professor who is a former world champion in the men’s skeleton, snow boarders Zoe Gillings and Lesley McKenna plus the experienced Chemmy Alcott in the women’s giant slalom and speed skater John Eley.  Ever hopeful are T&D’s successors, the seasoned Scottish siblings John and Sinead Kerr (pictured), though they failed to emulate the European bronze they won last year in the recent championships.

Actually, for a non-Alpine nation in which a few snowflakes can stop a railway in its tracks, any single-figure placing would be an achievement and these are expected to come mainly on ice where we have had those skating successes, a bobsleigh gold back in 1964 and the curling triumph in Salt Lake City where Alex Coomber also bobbed to bronze.

Few will recall that Britain actually won the ice-hockey gold medal in 1936.  More likely to be remembered is how The Eagle dared in Calgary, the last time the Games were held in Canada 22 years ago and the world chuckled at Eddie Edwards as a True Brit buffoon with bottle.

Since the demise of Ski Sunday the seasonal chilblain-inducing antics of winter sportsfolk have been left for Eurosport's anoraks to savour, but now those activities which normally would be watched by one man and his St Bernard suddenly become global fantasies as viewers mug up on their moguls, half-pipes, two-man luge, giant slalom and Nordic combined, and nod knowingly as instant experts in furry ear-muffs debate the finer points of langlauf (cross country skiing).  Indeed, there seems little that cannot be done on snow and ice these days, from ballet to bowling.

Now the British Olympic Association take winter sports as seriously as those in the summer Games, preparing competitors with a thoroughness that is even the envy of some Alpine nations.  The days are gone when these Olympics. less than a third the size of the summer Games, were strictly for the teeth-chattering classes. 

Actually, 21 medals (eight golds, three silvers and ten bronze) overall passes reasonable muster for a lowland nation which grinds to a halt every time Railtrack's points get frosted up will be.  And there would have been 22 had the skier Alain Baxter not inhaled from a tube of Vicks back in Salt Lake.  In Vancouver, we must hope the sniffing is confined to the scent of the odd medal.

For me nothing will eclipse the Rumble in the Jungle, but we shall be watching the slipping, sliding and swooshing in the Rockies with fascination.  So let’s get ready to tumble.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games.