OLYMPICS

Sebastian Coe is a shrewd and intelligent operator, his Olympic ticket remit purely to sell as many as possible, regardless of who gets what. The people who give up their time to support and compete in amateur sport, alas, have got the least amount of tickets, not what the Olympics are supposed to be about. We all knew the corporate guys who backed the games would get the best tickets and so the more cynical and smarter didn't bother applying for tickets in the public ballot so not to be disappointed. The fact the general taxpayer supplied 80% of the games cash and ended up with just 25% of ... more

I was lucky enough to have business in Beijing in the summer of 2006 and witnessed the build up to what will be the most amazing world-wide spectacle (sporting or otherwise) of the decade and quite possibly the century. China and the Chinese China is well known as an ancient country with a civilization several thousand years old, with evidence of sport going back over 4,000 years. However, China's Olympic history has been brief, after having only started to participate in 1984 at the Los Angeles games (Taiwan competed as China prior to this) and in Athens 2004 won 35 Gold medals (17 silver, 14 ... more

How things can change around in just a few days. Before the weekend there I was berating the British swimmers for being gutless, no-hopers ( I still have that view by the way) and hoping that our athletes would at least do their best. Well, first we had the fantastic sight of our Rowers grabbing Olympic Gold in the Fours. Steve Redgrave going into the record books having won Gold at FIVE consecutive Olympics - FANTASTIC. It should definitely be Sir Steve when he returns. He is an inspiration to sports people, both in this country and throughout the world. So modest and realistic, not the big ... more

At last, the Olympics are upon us. Great show so far put on by Sydney. GO AUSSIE, GO AUSSIE, GO ! And they are too. Just magic in the pool with "Thorpedo" Ian Thorp winning a grab handful of medals in the first four days. As always USA are getting their fair share of medals, as befits the top sporting nation in the world. But hey, come on now, it's about time you felt sorry for us Brits. We're now up to EIGHT medals.....wooooooohooooooo! Four in the cycling, one shooting, a canoe slalom silver, judo and another one, I think just for turning up ! Swimming, well, we had supposedly a few medal ... more

Congrats to the British Ladies Curling team! Their win last night gained Britain its first Gold Medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. Winning medals is all what the Olympics are about, it sadly doesn´t help you at all if you end up 0.01 seconds behind third place in the men´s downhill event, you don´t get any recognition at all, no award ceremony, no flowers, no medal, no hymn - even if you´re only two hundredth of a second behind the winner! The Irish skeleton racer Wrottesley was one of those unhappy, who was dreaming of the first winter sport medal for his country after ... more