Scott Blackmun remembers exactly what he was doing on the morning of October 2, 2009.

One word dominated this year’s Sportel event in Monte Carlo. That word was China.

The Chicago Marathon, which takes place today for the 38th time since it started in 1977 (they only ran a half marathon in 1987), will be historic. For the first time since Carey Pinkowski took over as race director in 1990, it will no longer be employing pacemakers.

I wonder how many International Olympic Committee (IOC) members have lived in a cave at any point in their lives.

When South Korea beat three-times champions Cuba to take Olympic baseball gold at Beijing 2008, eyebrows were understandably raised both across the world and at home.

There was news from the International Association of Athletics Federations this week which, while it may not have stirred the world’s media organisations into frantic response, will nevertheless have brought satisfaction to a significant proportion of the sport’s hard-core following – that is, athletics geeks.

It might just be the greatest 12 months rugby has ever known. It will certainly be the most global. The 2015 World Cup will dominate the headlines over the next month and in 2016, rugby returns to the Olympic fold after the small matter of 92 years.

As an organisation that earns and spends/invests billions of dollars over each four-year cycle, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) needs a shrewd head for business.

So what the Chinese media questioner wanted to know of Su Bingtian, the morning after the night before, when he had become the first Asian to contest a men’s 100m final at the World Championships, was this:

Sport has never been bigger business or a more prominent strand in the fabric of human affairs. At the same time, millions of people have been left trapped leading lives of grinding poverty, chronic insecurity or worse by the unpredictable economic and political convulsions that mark our times.

So it is hardly surprising that sports leaders find themselves under more and more pressure nowadays to put something back. To contribute more than an entertaining spectacle to a wider society whose support enables athletes, entourage members and officials to lead enviably comfortable, purposeful lives.

The race for the Presidency of the International Federation of Athletics Associations (IAAF) could well be the most significant sporting contest this year. Sergey Bubka or Sebastian Coe will join a very exclusive roll of honour, for only five men have previously led world athletics in the 103-year history of the governing body. 

Last March I came to Rio de Janeiro in what marked one of my first trips outside Europe with insidethegames. Never having been to Brazil before I was rather wowed by everything I saw, and particularly by the city’s glamour, colour and vibrancy. I was consequently rather less sceptical than perhaps I should have been about everything I was told, especially in relation to insistences they would still meet a bid-time legacy commitment to reducing water pollution levels across the city by 80 per cent.

Twenty years ago this week a “skinny-looking, very ordinary guy” - his own description - hit the take-off board in Gothenburg’s Ullevi stadium at high speed. By the time his effort came to an end he had left a mark in the sand which, while it was soon smoothed away by an official brush, remains to this day in the form of a world triple jump record of 18.29 metres. Jonathan Edwards, ordinary guy, had done something extraordinary.

Almaty and Beijing are entering the home straight of the contest to the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. The election in Kuala Lumpur will be the first two-horse race in an Olympic host city election for 34 years.

No world records were set at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Lausanne on Thursday night, which was held in an old stadium marked out for destruction. And yet people still managed to enjoy themselves hugely. How was this possible?