"Watching a woman walk through a doorway and into a hotel lobby. What difference does it make to an Olympic Games?"

The question, put with some scorn by a seasoned observer of all matters Olympic, was rhetorical. But it has real relevance when that woman is Michelle Obama. And the answer will be supplied before the week is up.

The stir created by the First Lady’s arrival here in support of Chicago’s 2016 bid was huge, albeit that it is now in the vanguard of her husband’s planned visit on the day of decision itself.

Well before her elegantly-shod feet trod the plush floral carpet of the Marriott, venue for the 121st International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session – entrance via the back door having rendered the red carpet redundant – the President’s wife was already configuring the media.

Attempting to enter hotel’s main revolving door I was hindered by a charming fellow in shades. "Hi," he said. "How are you?" At this point I could have told him about my flight into Copenhagen, which had been pleasantly  uneventful, and about the charming volunteer who had helped me find a shuttle bus to my hotel.

"Could I ask you to stand over there please?" Oh, OK, it seemed that conversation was not about to happen...

The media cluster "over there" consisted of several reporters and a couple of camera crews, whose operators were busy focusing their lenses through the glass doors in front of them and onto the second group of more privileged – or perhaps simply more punctual – media representatives who were artfully arranged all over a broad staircase as if someone were about to take a giant school photo.

All in all it was a sensational bit of publicity for the hotel’s Hans Christian Andersen gift shop which lay between the two straining banks of observers. Who says fairy tales don't come true?

A little way down the street a Paramedic Ambulance had parked up – presumably in case anyone succumbed to over-excitement – and a group of 11 police motorcyclists had gathered in a car park underneath the giant banner advertising the 121st IOC Session and the XIII Olympic Congress.

Suddenly the media crowd had changed shape, and at their epicentre was a woman in a smart-but-sensible black-and-white outfit, first speaking, and then being – suggested is probably the most accurate word – towards an exit.

I can report the following words from the First Lady.   

"Chicago is a wonderful host city with great people, wonderful facilities. The hospitality is like on other.
 
"I'm so happy to be here, just so excited. We've got a lot of work to do and we are not taking anything for granted so I’m going to talk to some voters."


 

Sequestered and securitised somewhere  beyond the bar – which by the way offered club sandwiches at just a shade under £18 and coffee for a knockdown £6.50 – the First Lady proved as good as her word.

Pretty soon British IOC member Craig Reedie, not known to be wholeheartedly in the Chicago camp at this point in the proceedings, was being invited down the corridor for an Audience with Michelle. "Can I go to get my wife?" he asked.

Who is to say what the Obama effect might be upon the sensibilities of the IOC members upon whose votes the delivery of the 2016 Games depend?

Well, maybe an IOC member is best placed to address that.

Having witnessed Michelle’s media melee, the IOC member for the Caribbean island of Aruba, Nicole Hoevertz, denied that IOC members would now effectively mark down bidding cities if heads of state were not produced on cue. "I don’t think that is the case. For instance, if President Obama couldn’t be here because of the health debate back home we would understand.

"But it does add to the effect, and I believe it's very important for the Olympic Movement because it expresses the importance of the Games in the world. The Obamas being here is huge, because they are both real Chicagoans and they are two people making a real difference to the whole world."

Meanwhile the police motorcyclists arrived singly and at speed, sirens blaring, blue lights flashing, looking as if they had had a right good tear-up around the block, presumably on the basis of "If you’ve got the hardware, why not use it?"

A question, perhaps, that the Barack Obama will have to address during the nuclear discussion involving the Iranians which he will undertake along with others in Geneva before he arrives in the Danish capital.
 
Judging by the effect his wife has already created here, that arrival looks as if it will be mightily influential.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames and will be reporting regularly from the IOC Session in Copenhagen this week
  

Those of us now showing our age doubtless will recall the ditty trilled by Noel Coward around half a century ago in which he urged a certain Mrs Worthington not to put her daughter on the stage. An updated lyric might be: "Don’t put your daughter in the ring, Mr Warren."

Frank Warren, Britain’s leading fight promoter, insists he wouldn’t anyway. He’s dead set against women’s boxing, amateur or pro. So is my good friend Colin Hart, The Sun’s doyen of fistic scribes who says he wouldn’t touch the new latest sport to get Olympic recognition with the proverbial barge pole.

And world champion Amir Khan, who I saw bury his head in the programme at ringside rather than watch an inaugural women’s bout during the ABA championships last year, reckons girls should stick to swapping forehands on the tennis court.

They are probably in the majority in the ultra-chauvinistic fight game, but, like it or not, not women boxers will be doing their best to belt bits off each other when the bell rings for the London Olympics in 2012.

As someone who has also covered boxing for many years – starting with amateurs shows as a cub reporter in south London and incorporating epics such as the Rumble in the Jungle and the Thrilla in Manila -  I suppose I should be in the anti-camp but actually I am pleased it has got on to the Olympic agenda, not least because sportswomen these days surely are as much entitled as men to utilise their strength, skill and, yes, aggression, in an activity that demands the ultimate in fitness and dexterity.

So, would I want my own daughter to box? Well, we’re at the granddaughter stage now – my daughter Clare, who is actually a judo coach, has an 11-year-old so I asked her the question. Her answer: “Why not, if she wants to. Had boxing been more available to women when I was a judo player (she was a first dan black belt) I might have tried it myself. I don’t think at amateur level it is any more dangerous than other martial arts, or even horse riding and diving. You have protective headgear (which you don’t have in judo or karate or kick boxing), it seems well controlled and teaches self-discipline, confidence, and self-respect."

I became converted to women’s boxing some five years ago when I interviewed Amanda Coulson, then rated Britain's best female amateur boxer, having first got the gumshield between her teeth as a 13-year-old. Apologies for sounding sexist but she was a real head-turner, and like Laila Ali, who inherited her old man Muhammad 's looks and a semblance of his skill but, seemingly more suited to the catwalk than the canvas. But watching her sparring prowess convinced me – and also Britain’s then national coach Terry Edwards – that there was more to it than just handbags at ten paces, though you soon  realise that women's boxing is as different to men's as women's tennis is different to men's tennis. It's fencing with gloves on.

And those who say they are shocked by then sight of women biffing each other obviously haven’t been out and about in Newcastle or Cardiff on a Saturday night.

So do they get hurt? Well I suspect not as much as they do in judo or taekwondo, both perfectly acceptable as Olympic pursuits for both sexes. My daughter ended up in hospital after being thrown and concussed in judo, a sport which even permits a little bit of strangling. And you can get your teeth kicked in at taekwondo, where you can use both fists and feet - ask Britain’s Beijing bronze medallist, Sarah Stevenson.

There is also a misconception that women boxers are all butch and biceps, or as intimidating out of the ring as ex-professional Jane Couch, aka the Fleetwood Assassin, who once flattened a bloke in a Blackpool bar when he patted her bum 

Back in the early nineties, when women first pulled on the gloves in Britain, one of the organisers of the inaugural female national championships, Sue Atkins, declared: "People have this image of two dykes with shaved heads slugging it out. This is not what it is about." Indeed not.

Mick Gannon, the ex-Amy PTI who coaches the GB women’s squad, says: "These girls are boxers but they are also ladies – a little bit girlie in some ways. They don’t have the animal aggression or explosive power of men. I look upon women’s boxing as a form of dance routine with skill and my job is to put a bit of snap into it."

I agree with Lucy O’Connor, Britain’s 29-year-old Euro bronze medallist, a Royal Navy lieutenant is married to a Services boxing coach, who says the traditional stigma that has been attached to women’s boxing has now gone. "People are starting to appreciate it’s a technical sport, a thinking woman’s sport. It’s not a barbaric duel, more like chess in the ring."

Of course the British Medical Association will have apoplexy, as they still do over men’s boxing, but remember this is amateur boxing complete with headguards, breast protectors and a limit of four two minute rounds. There has has not been a serious injury at amateur level in the men’s game for years and none that I can recall in the Olympics. Bouts are usually halted before any damage is done, even for a nosebleed, and you can be sure the girls will be even better protected by the medicos.

The traditionalists and chauvinists may not like it, but it is right that fisticuffs and the fair sex can now go hand in boxing glove in the Games, where the boxing belle of 2012 is likely to be Katie Taylor, the delightful, Irish girl who is current 60 kg world and European champion and also plays football for her country. Ringside aficionados at London’s ExCel, where the Olympic boxers seem to have won their scrap to fight in 2012, will see she is something special. 

Yet it wasn't so long ago that a woman's place in the boxing ring was pouting, not clouting, parading with the round cards. You've come a long way, Million Dollar Babies...

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist and boxing correspondent of The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered 11 summer Olympics

 

This Friday the world finds out the host city for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games - and I'll be waiting in anticipation along with everyone else.
 

I'll never forget the surprise and celebration in Trafalgar Square on that July day in 2005 when we heard London had won. Dame Kelly Holmes and the Red Arrows were the stars of the occasion and the tickertape continued long in to the evening. It was a fantastic day for the UK, and the start of something really exciting. I joined BT shortly after and quickly found myself at the heart of BT's own London 2012 adventure.
 

BT backed the bid for London to host the Games in 2012, and is now the official communications services partner for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. 

The decision to move from supporter of the bid to fully-fledged Games sponsor was a significant one and by no means a foregone conclusion in those early days. But like any other commercial decision, it was based on doing the right thing for customers, shareholders and employees. In the end, the business case turned out to be a strong one, and we are proud to be playing such a huge role in the greatest show on earth.
 

In our role as official communications services partner, BT is delivering the most connected Games ever. In 2012, every image, every sports report, every visit to the London 2012 website and millions of calls, e-mails and texts will be delivered over BT networks. Already BT people are working to deliver 80,000 connections across 94 locations, installing 4,500km of internal cabling and 1000 wireless access points, and our networks will be carrying 6GB of information - the equivalent of 6000 novels every second. It's an enormous project and one that BT is uniquely qualified to deliver.

Of course we're also using the Games to engage and inspire our people and our customers, for example through our successful athlete Ambassador programme. These athletes are a vital part of our 2012 programme and they're doing a fantastic job for us - whether speaking at internal or customer events, or supporting our wider PR and marketing programmes.
 

Earlier this year we added Oscar "Blade Runner" Pistorius to the BT Ambassador team and he helped launch our title sponsorship of the BT Paralympic World Cup. This is the largest international multi-sport competition in elite disability sport - and it's a fantastic opportunity for the world's best Paralympic athletes to take part in elite competition as they look towards the Paralympic Games in 2012. BT will support this event every year through to 2012.
 

We're also sponsoring the BT Visit London Awards, which celebrate the people, places and things that make London such an amazing city. Why? Well it's because we understand the importance of tourism to the economy in London, and this will only grow in the build-up to the Games in 2012. But it's not just about London - BT is committed to engaging people across the UK in this once in a lifetime event. It's BT's aim to make these the first truly connected Games, with BT connecting the nation - and indeed the world - to the action. To support our ambition, as part of our London 2012 programme we're a partner of the Live Sites - a network of giant screens in towns and cities up and down the country, connecting communities with London 2012 without leaving their home town.
 

Being involved in BT's London 2012 partnership still feels like the start of an adventure - with just under three years still to go to the London 2012 Games - and so much still to do. Yet such is the Olympic cycle that in just four days time another country will be celebrating success at becoming the host of the Games in 2016. It's an exciting time as we all await the outcome. And I wish the winning city and nation every success as they start their Olympic and Paralympic adventure.

Suzi Williams is BT Group marketing and brand director. BT is the official communications services partner for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and title sponsor of the BT Paralympic World Cup. For more information click here 

 

Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo - the four latest contenders to host an Olympic Games are preparing for the final, awful, joyful reckoning in Copenhagen next week. And when the members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) come to weigh up their respective strengths, personal impressions will inevitably play a part.

Try as they might, the 106 men and women at the heart of the world’s greatest sporting event will be unable to expunge any memories they may have of the prospective venues as they struggle to come to the Right Decision.

Were I an IOC member – a prospect as likely as a talking cat – I would struggle to subdue the recollection of something awkward which happened to me in one of those four fine cities. I would strive not to let it be a factor in my choice, either one way or the other. I would endeavour to put it so far to the back of my mind that it had a fair chance of becoming part of the memory lode of anyone standing immediately behind me.

But memory – it has its own will, doesn’t it? I try to resist. And memory persists…

I woke up and my trousers were around my ankles. Whatever it was, it wasn't good. I was in a place that was brightly lit and dimly familiar. My hotel room? Did I get a taxi, then?

No, not my hotel room. A toilet. A toilet in a restaurant. A toilet in a Basque restaurant. In...Madrid.

I looked at my watch - how could it be 10 to 5? Because that would mean... that surely would mean I had... where were the others?

Hitching up my crumpled trousers, I unlocked the door - good sign that, must have locked the door, you should lock the door - and stepped out. Unlike the restaurant I had visited the previous evening, this was a very quiet, dark place, not at all popular. So unpopular, indeed, that I was the only one in it, although I was not entirely alone.

All around the bar, lit only by the eerie green glow of drinks cabinets, hung huge hams. These Basques, I thought, they do love their meat.

I hadn't noticed the hams on my way in. Then again, I hadn't noticed anything for five hours.

Drink, I reflected, might have played its part in my situation. Some drink had undoubtedly been taken - a couple of beers, no more. Big ones, though. And just that one glass of red wine. Or so. But, in the evidence for the defence, the prime exhibit was surely Long Day in Hot Sun.

Madrid's Estadio de la Comunidad had turned out to be entirely open to the elements - the relevant one being fire. An hour into our early start to the day's European Cup athletics, the sun had heated us to about gas mark 6. The guys from L'Equipe had stripped down to the waist, but by noon the shirts were back on with the collars up.

Something was nagging at me... the French, always so stylish, you didn't catch them wearing ankle socks with their shorts... nagging... sports socks, maybe, but they looked OK somehow, meant, not like the typical Englishman-abroad sock, brown with a silly pattern, worn half-way up a weedy white calf... at me.

The bill?

There was no way I could have paid it. I couldn't even remember what I'd eaten. Oh yes I could.

By now I was standing at the restaurant door. On the other side was the courtyard where I had sat with a large tableful of my fellow toilers before that rising feeling - unmistakeable as grief - had drawn me discreetly and swiftly away from the jocund throng.

I wanted nothing more now than to slide between the cool sheets of my hotel bed. My hand was on the door handle. Maybe it was a door which simply locked itself as it was swung shut. Or something like that.

Cool sheets, fizzy mineral water. I turned the handle.

To no effect, as far as getting out was concerned. But to considerable effect as far as filling the restaurant with a noise that resembled an LA cop car at the scene of crime was concerned. After about five minutes, the noise was replaced by a deafening silence. Then the phone behind the bar rang. And as I had no other pressing business, I answered it.

I couldn't understand what the man was saying - and he couldn't understand what I was saying. The Spanish phrase for: "I'm sorry, I'm an English journalist and I have fallen asleep in your toilet" eluded me.

It was as I put the phone down that the nagging feeling suddenly turned itself into something more tangible.
 
It wasn't nagging any more, it was shouting in my face. Policemen in Spain carry guns! Guns!

I thought: How can I make it very clear - crystal clear, as my old headmaster would have said - that I am not a burglar?

Sit by the bar, casually, as if you have fallen asleep there. But they won't be able to see your hands. How will they know you don't have a gun or a knife? No. Simply stand in the middle of the room with your arms in the air.

I tried this. It was just too absurd.

And of course, I thought, it might make them think you've done something criminal and were owning up, whereas the image you need to foster at this point in your life is "poor, sleepy-headed Englishman."

Torch beams swung across the windows. I heard the sound of voices. Now the doors were opening, and two very large, uniformed policemen were moving towards me with guns.

My plans were as nothing. Instinctively, I embraced the international language of helplessness - palms together as if in prayer at the side of my tilted face. Then palms outstretched beseechingly.

By now, a rumpled man I took to be the restaurant owner - and perhaps also the owner of the voice on the phone - had joined the party, a jacket over his pyjama top. As they spoke to him, he stared at me with an expression I find hard to describe. But incomprehension was a part of it. And hatred.

So what was it to be? The policemen were taking me outside now. Oh, cool sheets and mineral water...

Assume the best, I thought. "Hotel Cuzco?" I asked.

For a moment the two big men looked at me with incomprehension. Then one glanced at the other and grinned before pointing his finger in a helpful direction. At which point the sleepy-headed Englishman took his leave…

As I say, I would strive to minimise the memory were I sitting in judgement in Copenhagen this week. But as I’m not – well, there it is.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames and will be reporting from the IOC Session in Copenhagen next week

 

I had been looking forward to last night's game against Finland in the European Championships pre-qualifying for three months, playing it over and over in my head.
 

This was a team who 18 months ago we had suffered a 13-goal defeat to in the European Challenge Trophy in Cyprus, but lot has happened to us since then and we have developed into a much stronger force.
 

The first leg was the away leg in Helsinki. We had three training sessions prior to the game where we went through our defence and set plays over and over again. We also watched Finland play on video and reminded ourselves of what they were like.
 

We knew their favourite shots, feints, set plays and weaknesses. We’d set our statistic goals, process goals and outcome goals. I don’t think we could have been more prepared. The nerves struck me the morning of the match, I felt sick to my stomach. There was one more training session to execute and I tried to let some of those butterflies loose.
 

Everyone took a few hours to get their heads down during the afternoon and think about those strengths we hold as individuals like our coach Jesper Holmris had told us. The spirits rose as we turned on our favourite songs out on the corridor and got into our match kit.
 

GB piled on to the bus with Finland and we continued to sing and play those songs although this didn’t seem to be enough practise for the national anthem. We could have easily qualified as the worst Great Britain team to ever sing "God Save The Queen", but never the less it didn’t seem to affect our performance!
 

A crowd of 400 came to see the game, eight of those were supporting us but they made themselves heard. Our team captain Lynn McCafferty yelled out "TEAM" and we replied "GB!’" and were ready to go. I was ready to go. Eight of us knew what it was like to lose against Finland, and we were not going to let it happen again.
 

The whistle went and we threw ourselves straight into the game, keeping Finland at bay and only letting them score four after the first twenty minutes. However we had missed three penalties already, something we had to put right.
 

Half-time approached us we were leading 9-7, a lead that our goalkeeper Sarah Hargreaves (pictured) played a huge part in with a 60 per cent save rate. We had also missed six or seven 100 per cent chances which we should have put away. The Finns came out of their changing room all guns blazing, spurred on by their partisan crowd.
 

They scored two almost instantly without reply from us, but it wasn’t enough. We took the lead once again and that was the closest the Finnish girls got to us the rest of the game.
 

Hargreaves continued to stop the big shooters from putting the ball in the back of the goal. Nina Heglund came on in the last stages of the game and put away three, making sure that the win was ours.

One down, one to go. A huge sense of relief came over me, we had played our hearts out and although we didn’t play as well as we could have the win is still ours to bring back to Liverpool. The nerves turned to joy and all the hard work that we had done over the last 18 months had paid off.
 

But it’s not over yet. We have done half the job, which we hope to finish off on Saturday.
 

I am aware that it’s not going to easy as the Finns are not best pleased about being beaten on home soil against a team they easily overcame a year and a half ago. But it’s still ours for the taking.

Winning the second leg will be the greatest victory a British handball team has ever had and will bring us straight to a clash against a strong France side who were world champions in 2003, as well as matches against Austria and Iceland.
 

If we get the opportunity to play these nations it will be our first taster of the competition we will face in 2012 and it will be a huge learning curve for us and will also put Great Britain on the international scene.

I know it’s a lot to ask to win these games but we will be playing against some of the best players in the world who we can learn a great deal from. These are the moments we train every single day for, the moments we dream of.

Teenager Holly Lam-Moores from Burnley has been playing handball since 2004 and at London 2012 hopes to be a member of the first British team to play in the Olympics. Tickets are still available for Saturday's match against Finland at the Echo Arena in Liverpool by clicking here.

Locked in a room in the bowels of the cavernous Birmingham NEC, Olympic rower Zac Purchase and Paralympian judo player, Ian Rose take a break from meeting exhibitors and delegates at Leisure Industry Week, to answer questions from regional radio stations across the UK.
 

Zac and Ian, both part of a nationwide launch of a new athlete led initiative to generate funds for their fellow sportsmen and women, sit around a blue table rehearsing the key messages on how the initiative brings benefits to all business, individuals and regional economies. Oh, and don’t forget to plug www.britishathletes.org was the plaintiff plea from their minder for the day

The phone rings...and the interviews begin.
 

But why launch now?
 

Christmas is the answer to that one. It is the primary market for staff rewards and bonuses, also the gift market. We need time to get this established in the minds of all key decision makers. There were of course other reasons.
 

Seeking independent funding and to help the overall cause the British Athlete Commission (BAC) started to investigate alternative solutions. It has taken four months to develop, and from the outset was always envisaged to help achieve these objectives.
 

The athletes message is clear, we are not seeking sponsorship. Instead, the BAC mindful of the recessionary times affecting us all, are providing opportunities for business and individuals to support the athletes at no extra cost.

The launch letter signed by 40 Olympians and Paralympians and sent to 240 business leaders, is seeking consideration of diverting just £25 per employee from existing bonuses, rewards, benefits and perks budgets into a specially commissioned edition of a discount directory.
 

It will mean that every employee in an organisation receives a reward package of a minimum £10,000 worth of offers from restaurants, leisure facilities, tourism attractions and retailers. These discount directories already sell over 100,000 copies a year, and after extensive trials in corporates around the UK undertaken by our partners at Invitation Media, we know it will be popular with employees across the country.
 

The same principle applies to individuals; this initiative is for those sports lovers that already contribute to the £3.2 billion on gift vouchers and cards. Membership packages come complete with an array of discounts, to give people the opportunity to save money whilst supporting the athletes. This is where we can help stimulate economic activity, we are providing distinct free of charge marketing platforms to help

By way of a heartfelt thank you, over 300 elite athletes are on hand to update their supporters with regular features, articles, blogs and the like. It enables athletes to support everyone, but also enable them to focus on achieving their (and our) sporting goals.

So for business and individuals a visit to www.britishathletes.org on the Pledge Your Support page, there are five ways to support the athletes, hey I have just realised that’s one for every ring!

David Cotton: Is not an elite athlete and is unlikely ever to be one, though his golf game is getting slightly better. He is the creator of this concept.

Just about the only downside of staging the Olympics is the number-crunchers and sporting know-nothings - particularly the former - who start butting in where they are neither wanted or needed. And my very particular gripe this week is their notion that there simply has to be a return – ie medals –  for any monies spent by UK Sport and other agencies.
 
Anything less than a podium is to be deemed a failure and a “debit” in the ledger. Money "wasted" and the subject of an investigation by highly paid officials, it should be added, who get well compensated for such for their labours. 
 
Give me strength. What complete and utter twaddle. Any sportsman, at whatever level, will confirm that money can never guarantee success. It can ease the way a little but no more.
 
It was in this frame of mind that I read a few carping comments recently about Great Britain’s embryo basketball  team being eliminated at the pool stage of the European Championships in Poland earlier this month. Were they worth their £8.5 million grant? Is it worth supporting them through to 2012? Shouldn't other sports be getting more?

A couple of things first. As one of the few journos who got off his backside and trekked to Poland let me tell you that Great Britain’s narrow defeat against world champions Spain was one of the most electrifying and brave sporting performances I have seen anywhere on the planet this year.The crowd loved it and you would have been very proud.
 
Britain found themselves in a group consisting of the eventual winners Spain – runners up Serbia and the fourth placed team Slovenia. That’s the group of death by any criteria and bear in mind the European Championships is much stronger than the Olympics or World Championships because there are no wild-cards and token "area representatives. Britain were further handicapped by the unavailability of Luol Deng and Ben Gordon, illness and injury and their third NB player Pops Mensah Bonsu missed all the warm-up games to boot.

Now let me tell you something else. You could spend £85 million on Great Britain Basketball - in fact £850 million - in the next  three years and still not be able to "guarantee" an Olympic medal such is the strength worldwide of the second  most popular team game behind football. In fact Britain is the only sporting superpower never to really “get” basketball and you could argue that the money should have been invested long ago.
 
Sporting success, and especially success in skilled team games involving more than just pure tests of strength and speed, can never be simply bought. How many hundreds of millions have gone into England and English football since 1966 to no avail?

Is there any guarantee that Team Sky can conjure up a Tour de France winner? We wish Team Origin well but is there any certainty they will ever bring the America’s Cup back home? 

The money men at Adidas have poured scores of millions of pounds into the All Blacks over the last decade but they haven't yet got their hands on the Webb Ellis trophy.
 
Sometimes you just attempt things for the adventure, fun and simply the desire to progress a sport and Great Britain has a proud tradition second to none in the sporting world. Put away the bloody calculators and just enjoy the ride. Supporting projects such as the British basketball team is absolutely the reason I spend a fiver every Saturday on lottery tickets. This is the sporting odyssey I want to buy into and I offer a Churchillian salute the sporting politicians, free-loaders and armchair critics who strangely were not to be seen in Warsaw and then moan about wasted money. Excuse me! Those of us who donate our hard earned in the first place will be the judge of than thank you very much
 
Starting from scratch three years ago British basketball have already fought their way through Divisions B and A of the European Nations competition and taken their place at top table two years ahead of expectation.  An invitation to next year's World Championships is on the cards and momentum is building nicely. If they can continue to progress we will have a team to roar on at the O2 against the Dream Team in 2012 and suddenly it will all make sense. We won't win but you won't have a better night out or in front of the box in the entire Games.
 

Furthermore there is just a chance that basketball will retain its place in our sporting culture and they will go onto even bigger and better things in 2016. Nothing guaranteed of course - there are no guarantees in sport - but there is just a chance and I am more than happy to take a punt on that.

The multi-talented Brendan Gallagher writes for the Daily Telegraph, covering a variety of sports, including rugby union, cycling and basketball
 

I confess a hand in the fate - good or bad – that has befallen Britain’s amateur boxing en route to 2012. A couple of years ago, when the multi-millionaire Midlands businessman Derek Mapp, who has made his fortune from, among other enterprises, the Tom Cobleigh pub chain, I introduced him to Paul King, a spiky Scouser who is chief executive of the Amateur Boxing Association of England (ABA).

Mapp would have been the first to admit that what he knew about the noble art could have been scribbled on the back of a York Hall fight ticket. But he felt in his role as boss of the funding quango he should get acquainted with the workings of one of the nation’s most productive Olympic sports.

So I brought him together with King and accompanied the unlikely pair on a tour of several of London’s leading amateur clubs. It was for Mapp, you might say, the beginning of a glove affair which, somewhat astonishingly, now sees him in overall charge of the sport here.

For a bizarre turn of events followed that fistic expedition. Mapp, an ardent New Labour supporter, angrily walked out Sport England after a policy dispute with the then Culture Secretary James Purnell to resurface after the Beijing Olympics as chair of the freshly-constituted  umbrella body the British Amateur Boxing Association (BABA), set up by UK Sport to oversee Britain’s 2012 preparations. It was not long before Mapp was punching his weight, inflicting a controversial KO on Terry Edwards, the long-serving, highly successful and distinctly media-friendly head coach who also doubled as performance director. Edwards, who had delivered medals in every major championship sinc the 2000 Olympics, among them a first-ever world champion [Frankie Gavin] and three gongs in Beijing, including James DeGale’s gold, received his MBE and P45 almost simultaneously. Axing him was about as popular a move then as the BBC ditching the knowledgeable veteran Strictly Come Dancing judge Arlene Phillips for the vacuous soubrette Alesha Dixon.

Even more controversially Mapp brought back the former coach of five Olympics, Kevin Hickey, at 67 two years older than Edwards and out of amateur boxing for 20 years, some of which were spent as a well-regarded technical director for the British Olympic Association, on a four-day week contract as performance director. Hickey immediately hired 60-year-old Kelvin Travis, once fired by the ABA after an altercation with a fellow instructor, as head coach for a squad depleted after the loss of six of the original Beijing “Great Eight” to the pros.

It wasn’t much of a surprise when the relatively raw British team returned medal-less from last month’s World Championships in Milan, especially as the main man Bradley Saunders was injured, but what was a shock was the resignation of Hickey after only eight months. Nothing to do with Milan, he insisted, but a workload that was impacting on his home life. "I was working seven days a week and at this stage of my life I was not prepared to do that," he said.

Understandably eyebrows have been raised – not least those of Edwards (pictured celebrating with DeGale in Beijing), now coaching at the Frank Bruno Academy in  Orpington a pro-am gym in East London and advising the Ghanaian Boxing Federation. He could be excused for musing that he managed to combine both jobs, achieving unprecedented results in return for the bullet, almost certainly fired because of the well-documented aggro between himself and King, who clearly had impressed Mapp on that fistic induction tour and seemed to have his ear.

Yet perversely it may well be that King’s influence on the sport, and Mapp, was as instrumental on the new PD’s decision to quit as Hickey wanting to spend more time with his family.

For I hear that Hickey had made it clear he could not come to terms with the revolutionary move by AIBA, the international governing body, to semi-professionalise the sport by introducing from next year a World Series team tournament that permits substantial prize money and three year contracts worth up to $300,000 (£182,400) while still allowing participants to compete in the Olympics. He believes it could distract and detract from the essential build-up to 2012. But King, a member of AIBA’s executive, is an enthusiastic backer of the scheme and has persuaded Mapp to support it as a proposed London leg could be commercially beneficial.

Amateur boxing’s current quest for cash is paramount, having to find the money to pay out-of-court settlements and costs to Edwards and Olympians DeGale and Tony Jeffries who issued a writs in connection promised post-Beijing bonus payments. Last year the ABA made a loss of £675,000, with overheads more than double the previous year, and  this weekend’s AGM is set to be fractious, with the verbal fists flying in all directions, not least that of Mapp’s BABA.

Meantime the redoubtable Mapp has set about restructuring the umbrella body again, scrapping the role of performance director (will paymasters UK Sport be happy about that?) and instead advertising for a “dynamic” a chief executive to replace him. The speculation is that King could combine this with his ABA function.

As the pace quickens towards 2012, we must hope that new-found fan Mapp has learned enough about the now mis-named amateur boxing and its-fighting to ride with any punches coming his way. He’ll need to box clever from now on.

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist and boxing correspondent of The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered 11 summer Olympics.

At the end of his 1941 essay entitled "England Your England", George Orwell concludes that, though the Stock Exchange may be pulled down, and the horse plough may give way to the tractor, and the country houses may be turned into children’s holiday camps, and the Eton and Harrow match forgotten, "England will still be England, an everlasting animal stretching into the future and the past, and like all living things, having the power to change out of recognition, and yet remain the same."

Now that the majority of his suppositions have come to pass, how true is his contention, I wonder? Is there such a thing as essential Englishness?

I only mention it because it is clearly of pressing importance to the people now striving to re-energise England’s sense of national identity in relation to the team which will contest next year’s Commonwealth Games in Delhi. "Englishness", and the need to assert it as confidently as, say, "Scottishness", is one of the rallying cries. 

This week an impressive gathering of the faithful, graded like those grains of flour we have heard about for so long, held the first meeting of Commonwealth Games England’s new Board. Among those on board are Lawrence Dallaglio, one of England’s rugby winners in the 2003 World Cup final, and Peter King, the dogged, inspirational force responsible for so much of British cycling’s rise from 17th to first place in the world rankings over the past decade.

King made what was probably the most pertinent point of an interesting press conference when he maintained that the general British – English? – public got just as excited about an English victory on, say, the track, or the court, as they did about a British one.

I agree. Having covered a fair selection of events involving either Britain or England in the past 15 years or so, I am honestly pushed to remember a greater buzz than that created within the City of Manchester Stadium for the Commonwealth Games seven years ago, when home athletes collected gold after gold amid a St George’s flag-waving atmosphere that resembled the last night of the Proms.

Then again, I may be biased. After all, I’m English.



But what does that mean? 

Perhaps I could try to answer that by considering when I feel most closely identified to that old red cross on white.

I feel English, for instance, when I eat toast and marmalade. Maybe that’s something to do with my grandpa. He was very English. 

I feel English when I indicate to a fellow customer that they are due to be served before me.
 
Or when I watch England’s football team fail to win the World Cup. Or  the European Championship.

How are we doing? Any closer?

In his casting around for essentially English characteristics, Orwell came up with two straight away. They were, firstly, a tendency towards "‘privateness", as evidenced by a prediliction for hobbies and pastimes such as stamp collecting and comforting things like the fireside and the "nice cup of tea".

And secondly, a love of flowers.

For stamp collecting, read surfing the net. For "nice cup of tea" read "nice can of lager". Certainly his analysis is unpromising as far as the Commonwealth re-energisers are concerned.

But you have to take your hat off to them for their ingenuity and enthusiasm. Among the new Board members in evidence at the Commonwealth Club this week was Angus Kinnear. For one of the new English ultras, he sounds, on the face of things, a bit Scottish. But he is right on message.

“I think there’s a fantastic opportunity here to establish England’s multi-sports team as a brand,” he told me. “My expertise is in engaging the public at large with the possibilities of that new brand, and to monetise it.”

Kinnear’s position as head of marketing for Arsenal FC, a post he took up after an impressive stint within Coca Cola, puts him in a slightly peculiar position, as he sportingly acknowledges.

The irony of a man from Arsenal, whose teams are famously scarce of English talent, committing himself to promote England’s sporting cause is not lost on him. "Arsene has always maintained his teams are put together on the basis of ability, not nationality," he said with a grin. "But I accept that, in the circumstances, my role will be a new challenge.”

The quest for essential Englishness will never, I suspect, find an answer. In the meantime, Kinnear and his new colleagues are setting about espousing and - monetising - something in which they firmly believe.
 
When the first English competitor claims a gold medal in India next year, to what extent will the cheers be for them personally, and to what extent for the country they represent? It's never entirely clear.

But for all the doubts and contradictions about establishing what Englishness is, it still is. Fifteen minutes ago, truly, and entirely by coincidence, I heard my middle daughter announce in the next room: "I love England, I’ll never move away from England. I don't know why, I just love it."

Case rests.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames

 

Whether he is the greatest or not is no longer up for dispute and, despite his thrilling five-set loss to Argentinean hotshot Juan Martin del Potro in the US Open final on Monday, Roger Federer remains peerless in the game of tennis. 

He has surpassed legends of the sport like Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg and Pete Sampras by stacking up majors – a record 15 in total - with the ease in which the rest of consume hot dinners. He has brought to the court so much finesse, grace and majesty that it is a surprise that he is not a Vincent Van Gogh painting bought to life.

Yet there is just one task Federer is yet to accomplish in the game; one itch that the Swiss must scratch in order to hang up his racquet having won every major individual title a man can win in tennis. He must win a singles Olympic gold medal.

He has - the more astute tennis fans among you will note - already won an Olympic gold but this was in the doubles rather than the singles and therefore cannot - for obvious reason - be classified as individual victory.

There is also an argument that Federer needs to win the Davis Cup to achieve the ultimate grand slam in the game but for me; that is not a necessity for the world number one. In the Davis Cup, great players – through no fault of their own - can be thoroughly let down by their teammates. Just look at the Great Britain team.

 Andy Murray usually destroys his opponent without breaking a sweat and then watches on as trusty - or not - Alex Bogdanovic manages to somehow snatch defeat from the jaws of victory against an opponent usually ranked about 9,782nd in the world. 

No, the Davis Cup aside, Federer has just one more jewel to add to his crown which already sparkles brightly with his multiple triumphs at the four annual majors.

Time though, is not on the great man's side and he missed a great opportunity in Beijing last year when he was knocked out in the quarter-finals of the Olympic tournament by the American James Blake. 

Federer (pictured) is already 28-years-old and consequently rather old for a man in his profession. He will therefore be 31 by the time we reach 2012 and surely cannot hope to mount a realistic challenge at the Olympics in 2016 where he will be ancient at ripe old age of 35. 

Joking aside, it is clear that Federer has just one more realistic shot to win the only piece of precious metal that his detector is yet to locate. 

However, if there is one location on earth that Federer would want mount his assault for Olympic gold on, it would be the hallowed turf of Wimbledon. On grass, Federer is near indestructible and on route to taking six of the last seven Wimbledon titles, Federer has won an astonishing 47 of his last 48 matches at the All England Club. 

Federer therefore, is right to feel confident when his fortress Wimbledon hosts the tennis event at the London 2012 Olympics as his only loss in the last seven Wimbledon championships came at the hands of the muscleman from Majorca, Rafael Nadal. And it is Federer’s great Spanish rival who could in fact beat Federer to achieving the fifth Grand Slam

After all, Nadal has already claimed Olympic gold in Beijing to add to the major titles he has won in Australia, Wimbledon and France. The world number two therefore has only to win the US Open to achieve that fifth Grand Slam. But with the Spaniards “dodgy” knees and with his failure to have ever reached a final at Flushing Meadows, logic suggests it is Federer who has the best chance of getting the “full house” on grass in London in 2012.

The feat would make Federer only the man second after America's Andre Agassi to win all four Grand Slams and the Olympic gold medal. Should Federer not manage to achieve his lofty goal, it would perhaps not haunt him in the way the way not winning the French Open would have done.

An athlete is lucky to have more than two shots at an Olympic medal in contrast to a tennis Grand Slam which is an annual rather than four-yearly event. Even so, a man with Federer’s sublime talent should not need more than two attempts to achieve success when he has a racquet gripped in his hand a best result of semi-final - at the Olympics at the Sydney 2000 Games - is a modest showing for the Swiss. 

An individual Olympic gold medal is after all, the greatest prize in sport and it is now Federer’s Holy Grail and the one object he will focus his full attention on. I mean, after being the world number one for a record period and having won three Australian Open, six Wimbledon, five US Opens and now a French Open title, what more can possibly motivate Federer in the next two years?

He has seen, done and achieved almost everything in the sport of tennis and when it is all over, Federer may not only be the greatest tennis player ever, he may be one of the greatest sportsman of all time. He has won every great accolade available to a man in his sport save but one. So for Federer, there is just a single golden goal left to achieve but it will doubtless take an Olympian effort for him to do so.

Tom Degun is a reporter and the Paralympics Correspondent for insidethegames 

 

With London 2012 now well on the way to hitting domestic sponsorship targets, notwithstanding the global recession, attention is set to move increasingly to the other sources of revenue that will help foot the bill for the Games: merchandising and ticketing.
 

Organising committee chief executive Paul Deighton told me more than three years ago that he was “quite excited about doing better than anyone has done before” in general merchandising and licensing sales. 

That will mean raising more than $100 million (£60 million).

Meanwhile, a discussion earlier this summer with Deighton’s colleague Sebastian Coe, the LOCOG chairman - that took place a few days before the announcement that Ticketmaster had been appointed official ticketing services provider - alerted me to how much thought is already going into London 2012’s ticketing strategy.
 

This is even though tickets for the Games will not actually go on sale until 2011.
 

The report of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Evaluation Commission, released in 2005 in the closing stages of the race to secure the right to host the 2012 Games, noted that London’s ticketing revenue estimates amounted to $473 million (£286 million) for the Olympic Games and a further $23 million (£14 million) for the Paralympics.
 

Coe, though, says that the ticket strategy “accounts for a good 24-25 percent really” of LOCOG’s revenue. 

Since this is expected to reach £2 billion, it looks like the actual amount raised from the 7.9 million Olympic and 1.2 million Paralympic tickets will be substantially higher than that 2005 estimate, at least at current exchange rates.

The first point of interest is Coe’s emphasis that a “strong central thrust of our ticket strategy is to make sure that we have full venues - that’s what we are working towards”.

This will be music to the IOC’s ears, but might prove easier said than done - even in a country like Great Britain which has a longstanding tradition of attendance at live sporting events.

Empty seats have been an issue at each of the last two summer Games, in Athens and Beijing.

Yet in the Chinese capital, according to the IOC’s Beijing 2008 marketing report, “Incredibly, over 99 per cent of the tickets were sold for Olympic events held within Beijing, far exceeding the previous record of 92.4 percent that had been set at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games for events held within Sydney”.

The IOC Evaluation Commission report said that London 2012’s ticketing revenue estimates were based on sales rates of 82 per cent for the Olympic Games and 63 per cent for the Paralympics.

What Coe’s remarks also suggest, though, is that a great deal of ingenuity will go towards trying to fulfil that full-venue objective.

Most obviously, he talks about making sure that the “spectator experience is a really good one” and making the Olympic Park “a very buzzy place to be”.

Second, while allowing that, for example, “we have never sold a commercial handball ticket in this country”, he adds: “I see that as a massive opportunity”.

This is both because, “if we are smart”, London 2012 ought to be able to use the Olympics to “introduce kids to sports that they certainly have never played before, probably haven’t ever watched before” and because a continent of avid handball aficionados is on the UK capital’s doorstep.

Says Coe: “There are 80 million Europeans who are within Eurostar reach of London for a day’s session at the Games…[This] does need to be factored into some of our ticket strategies as well because those 80 million Europeans remember are in some cases very much more familiar with some of the sports that we are going to be presenting than our domestic [audience].”

£480 million divided by 9.1 million implies an average ticket price of more than £50, so I am guessing that plum seats for the final of the men’s 100m will not come cheap.

For the less obvious attractions, it is clear that great pains are going to be taken to ensure tickets are pitched at the right price – and offered to the right people.

“We are taking a very holistic view about ticketing,” Coe says.

“The question you always get is, ‘What are the prices going to be?’ We are looking not just event by event; we are looking session by session.

“The work we are doing is also about the psychology of ticket sales: to pluck any example, if I’m into judo, but I can’t get judo tickets, where do I next go? Do I go taekwondo? Do I go wrestling? Do I go track and field?

“So, properly understanding the psychology of tickets…We really need to know before we go into this what those preferences are.”

By way of comparison, the average ticket price for a sporting event in Beijing was $23 (£14), but the spread was enormous, with prices ranging all the way from just 75 US cents (45p) to $150 (£91).

Coe also seems determined to do all that he can to make a day at the Olympics a feasible proposition for all inhabitants of the UK wherever they happen to live.

“The price of the ticket is only one part of the accessibility story,” he says.

“If you are a husband and wife with two or three children, you are based in Sheffield or Leeds and you want to come to the Games…the price of the ticket is only one of the issues that are going to determine your commitment.

“It’s also about sitting down with train operators and making sure that there are Supersavers in place and that…where we can make it just more likely we are going to get people from outside London, we will.”

David Owen is a specialist sports journalist who worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering last year's Beijing Olympics. An archive of Owen’s material may be found by Twitter users at www.twitter.com/dodo938

It’s almost two years since I successfully applied to UK Sport’s Sporting Giants programme. The scheme was looking for tall sporting amateurs with potential to challenge for major competitions in a selection of sports. I was given one of 20 places in the rowing category and, within a whirlwind three weeks, I had relocated to the South East from Leeds and suddenly found myself focusing ahead to London 2012! 

At that point, the Olympic Park was just rubble – it’s amazing how much has happened since. I’d not long left a university when I found myself waking up at dawn, undertaking two training sessions before lunch and then working the rest of the day in my flexi-time job with BT, before collapsing in bed at 8pm. I had only recently started with BT but luckily they were able to accommodate me and my relocation. 

There have been so many new things to consider, like eating the right amounts and making sure I allow my body to recover from training.  I find myself always thinking about rowing – even sat in the car or at my desk I’ll be making sure my posture is good. 

It can be mentally tough and I have to be very disciplined about my social life.  There’s always the occasional day where I’d just like to hide under the covers rather than get up at 6am but I know if I reach a major competition it will all seem like a small sacrifice.

Competing at the Games in 2012 is a dream that I look towards, but I try to treat it more as a hope and aspiration and certainly not as a definite. I know that, at 24 years old, I’m still young enough to potentially compete for another Olympics in 2016 so I’m careful not to burden myself with too much pressure. 

There’s so much more hard work to come if I’m going to be in with a shout of competing in 2012, but I’ve been pleased with my progress. Making the qualifying time for the National Trials last year was a fantastic achievement as it made me realise that I’d made real strides after only a year of full-time training. I was in the boat, including Olympians Debbie Flood and Louisa Reeve, that finished second overall at the eight’s Head of the River this year. Debbie and I also rowed to gold in a double at the 2009 National Championships in Nottingham.

My next goals are to perform well in the National Trials, running from October to April, in order to get my ranking inside the top 20. I’ll be pushing to compete at the European Championships in 2010 and, in an ideal world, I’d progress to the World Championships in 2011 and then the Olympics in 2012, but who knows? From December, an extra training session will be added to four of our weekdays so that presents a new challenge in itself, although it’s surprising how quickly you can adapt to these changes.

All the girls that I train with have rowed for GB at some level and talking to them really brought home the importance of the Olympics being on home turf in 2012 - those girls that have competed abroad say they’re always really jealous of the support from the home crowd as it can really help push a team to the finishing line.

One of the great benefits of the position I’m in is that, even though I’m fairly new to my sport, initially being brought into GB Rowing’s World Class Start Programme and now rowing for Leander has meant that I’ve been surrounded by top rowers. Rowing with Debbie Flood, who achieved silver medals in Beijing and Athens, and drawing from her experience is a money-can’t-buy opportunity.

It’s not just through GB Rowing that I’ve been lucky enough to learn from elite athletes. I was honoured to be asked by BT to become one of its Ambassadors for London 2012 and only recently I met with a fellow Ambassador, Dame Kelly Holmes. I was able to quiz her on all aspects of her life and it really helped me gain an insight into what it takes to become a top competitor and how to look after yourself in the process. 
It’s invaluable to meet with people who have been through all the highs and lows and who can not only impart advice but also validate some of what I’ve already been doing.

For everyone working towards the Games, be it workers, athletes or volunteers, it’s clear that there are a lot more challenges ahead. With the passion that this country seems to have for the event, you can’t stop yourself getting excited at the potential for success and global recognition for London in 2012. There’s still so much for so many people to achieve before we get there, but I know I’ll certainly keep giving it my all...

Fran Nicholls is a BT employee and a member of its Ambassador programme. BT has arranged flexible working for Fran so she can train for London 2012 and be the best that she can be. BT is the official communications services partner for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.  

Last October, as the credit crunch was gathering force, I spoke to Malcolm Clarke, chairman of the Football Supporters’ Federation about the effect the economic situation would have upon spectators.
 
As I expected, he instanced examples of fans who could no longer afford to travel to every away game as they had in the past. But he also mentioned another factor which was coming into play – a “sense of discomfort” among supporters at the level of wages being paid to those at the top end of the sport against a background where many were losing their jobs or seeing their houses repossessed.
 
Clarke likened the phenomenon to the debate over bonuses for City bankers, and offered the example of one of his neighbours, a mad keen Manchester United fan, who had not renewed his season ticket.
 
“Five years ago you would have thought hell would freeze over before he stopped going to see them,” Clarke added. “It’s not so much that he can’t afford it, but he is saying ‘why should I pay all this so that Wayne Rooney can spend £10,000 on a stag party?’”

For all the rising optimism engendered by England’s efficient qualification for the World Cup finals in South Africa, the "discomfort" factor still looms large in the game, as the furore over Eduardo’s recent ‘simulation’ of being brought down by the Celtic goalkeeper indicated. 
 
While UEFA's punitive action against the Arsenal player did indeed beg the question of just how often the authorities now intend to overrule their referees, it at least registered a sensible concern for the corrosion that such actions have on the necessary trust of those who follow and support football.
 
It comes down to the basic question – if we can’t believe what we see, what’s the point in watching?
 
That is a question which Formula One fans will now be asking in the light of the latest allegations of race fixing that have been made against the Renault team.
 
Following the shameful blood capsule subterfuge at Harlequins, it’s a question which rugby union followers will be asking every time they see a player leave the pitch with an apparent injury.
 
The debate over Caster Semenya’s sexual status, now reaching intense levels within international athletics, is uncomfortable in a very personal sense – however the biological details turn out, the way in which this case has been handled has been humiliating to the South African who is still in possession of the gold medal for the women’s 800 metres event at the recent World Championships.
 
But beyond the particular circumstances, the incident has created further uncertainty in a sport which has suffered more than its fair share of bad publicity in the course of the last 20 years.
 
Not that many sports appear beyond reproach these days. Tennis? Well, those match-fixing allegations keep surfacing, don’t they? Snooker? Ditto. Swimming? No waves there at least. Other than those set in motion by performance-enhancing, all-in-one swimsuits which have slid their occupants to a host of world records.
 
Well what about modern pentathlon – surely you can’t get more Corinthian than this sport?
 
Broadly true. But there was the uncomfortable – that word again – aberration at last month’s World Championships at Crystal Palace where two Italians were penalised for wearing one swimsuit over another in order to streamline their swimming performance, and one of them was subsequently disqualified for booting a flower display across the tartan track in protest.

So where can sports followers turn in order to find a spectacle without blemish, stain or blot?
 
Just a suggestion, but how about catching up with triathlon? Britain’s Hollie Avil has just become the new Dextro ITU world under-23 champion as this year’s series has staged its Grand Finals on Australia’s Gold Coast at the weekend, with team-mate Jodie Stimpson taking silver. That double success was followed by another landmark achievement in the men’s event, where Britain’s – or should we say Yorkshire’s – 21-year-old, Alistair Brownlee (pictured) has secured the title.
 
Here, surely, is a sporting spectacle to be embraced with a clear conscience.

From a British point of view, it would also be nice to think that Brownlee. Avil and Stimpson could be among the home performers who will give spectators something to cheer about without any sense of reservation when the Olympics arrive in Stratford slightly less than three years from now.
 
How good it would be to see them on the rostrum in the stadium that is already a recognisable bowl and which, after the Games, according to the most solemn pledge, will be reduced in seating capacity from 80,000 to 25,000 in order to serve as a world class facility for athletics.
 
Unless, of course, it doesn’t – remaining instead at its Olympic capacity in order to provide a commercially viable venue for a football team. That is something the Shadow Sports Minister, Hugh Robertson, has just espoused with air of a man who expects to be well out of the Shadows by the time the Games begin.

 But commercially viable football teams in this country don’t want to be separated from spectators by the width of a running track. Which means, unless athletics is to have a world class facility for long jumping, high jumping and hammer throwing, something has got to give.

It comes down to another of those basic questions, I suppose – if we can’t believe what we hear, what’s the point in listening?

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now freelancing and wrties regularly for insidethegames

 

 

I have few doubts that Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo will all host fantastic Olympiads in seven years time should International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge dramatically call any of their names out in Copenhagen on October 2. But for me, the 2016 Games must go to Chicago.

I did not however, think I would find myself praising the “Windy City” when I first arrived just five days ago.

My journey to Chicago involved an eight hour flight from London’s Heathrow Airport and while I thoroughly enjoyed the on-board film entertainment - I would recommend “The Hangover” to anyone with a immature sense of humour like mine -  I was rather tired when I arrived at the Chicago O’Hare Airport.

It had just gone 6pm local time but as I was still running on English time, my watch - which I had forgotten to adjust - showed it had gone midnight. Staggering off the plane while yearning for my bed, I hoped that I would be able to quickly reclaim my suitcase and get the first taxi to my hotel room.

I did not realise though, that quickly reclaiming baggage at the Chicago O’Hare Airport was more of a challenge than running the 100 metres in under 9.59sec, if your name is not Usain Bolt. After a two-and-a-half-hour queue through immigration, I eventually picked up my bag while cursing Chicago under my breath.

Once I climbed into my taxi however, my dislike for the city began to fade. The taxi driver was an extremely friendly man with a huge interest in English “soccer”. After a heated discussion over the merits of David Beckham’s playing career and his distinct lack of popularity in America, the taxi diver was kind enough to give me a small tour - at no extra charge - of where the proposed Olympic venues in the city will be should Chicago win the 2016 bid.

Having had the pre-conceived idea that Chicago would be a highly commercialised, dusty city with a McDonald's or Coca-Cola sign every two steps, I was pleasantly surprised this did not appear to be the case. Among the tall, clean and futuristic looking skyscrapers, there is green green grass to be seen throughout Chicago.

It is clear that the city is extremely passionate about hosting the Games and one cannot get more than two blocks with seeing the Chicago 2016 logo hung proudly out of an office block window. Chicago is a highly metropolitan city and from the window of my taxi, I could clearly make out a variety of people from all different cultural backgrounds.

As I reached my hotel at 9:30pm, which was 3:30 am from where I was from, I decided to head straight to bed and reserve judgement on the city that appeared to have a hidden charm I had not expected to encounter.

When I ventured out of my hotel the next day, still a little jet-lagged,  I came to learn that my friendly taxi driver was no exception to the average Chicagoan. On the contrary, everyone I bumped into - not literally, of course - seemed to be extremely friendly. In fact, I began to find Chicagoans so ridiculously friendly and helpful that they became slightly annoying. It sounds a little vindictive of me to refer to a group of people as annoyingly friendly but I shall give you an example to illustrate my point.

If you are a little lost in London and asked a stranger for directions, they would often point you in the right direction with minimal fuss. If you are a little lost in Chicago and asked a stranger for directions, they would firstly be delighted to be talking to someone outside Chicago and engage you in a chat about the “English accent”, which is not as posh as Americans seem to think.

They would then insist upon walking you to your destination regardless of the fact that they may not know where exactly it is while talking to you about how great an Olympic Games would be for the unique city. When they have got you even more lost than you were before you had asked them for directions, they will summon a pen and a piece of paper from thin air to draw you a map complete with their telephone number at the bottom.

You may think that I am exaggerating, but this exact scenario happened to me on my visit. Twice! It is like I say, rather annoying and makes one think twice about asking for directions. But it is an endearing quality none the less. 

As I did for its people, I began to develop a great liking for Chicago as a place.
If you look up at the never-ending skyscrapers, you get the feeling that they are so impossibly tall that they are flirting with the few clouds in the bright blue sky.

So big is everything in the city, you feel extremely small and insignificant as you walk around it. However, this brings out child-like wonder and amazement in you that cannot help but put a smile on your face.

There is also an abundance of iconic yellow taxis in Chicago flying about the roads between the hustle and bustle of people.

As I again ventured around the city at night and saw the buildings lit up as beautifully as a Van Gogh painting, I realised that the streets remained very busy well into the night. If New York is the city that never sleeps, Chicago barely gets a wink.

Also, if you are on a diet, I suggest you do not eat out in Chicago, delicious though the food is. When I ordered a medium/rare steak at the delightful but humorously named Hugo’s Frog Bar, I didn’t that I would receive something resembling the size of whole cow on my plate. It was perhaps the best dish I had ever eaten but I will be taking a few pounds extra back to England with me and that is not including the souvenirs I picked up!

By my final day in the city, Chicago had finally won me over and I was truly in love with it. Yes it was still very busy, the taxis still “beeped their hooters” incessantly and the people were still far too friendly but one learns to accept this as an essential feature of the “Windy City” - and for the record, I did not find Chicago windy at all, on the contrary, it was very warm and pleasant with a very light breeze though I am informed this is not the case in winter.

If a vibrant, exciting city that is buzzing 24/7 is not the place for you, you will probably not like Chicago. If so, you will fall in love with the city that would do the Olympic Games proud.

I came to Chicago not particularly fussed about who won the right to host the 2016 Olympic bid but now I feel differently. I don’t really know quite how or why, but the “Windy City” has truly swayed my vote and come Copenhagen on October 2 I know which tional city I’ll be hoping Jacques Rogge declares the winner of the 2016 bid.

Tom Degun is a reporter and the Paralympics Correspondent on insidethegames