When Britain's athletics team returned a medal haul of just half a dozen from last month's World Championships in London, there was a perceptible sigh of relief from funding body UK Sport. 

It is fair to say that Rio de Janeiro and Pyeongchang are not places that have too much in common.

I admit to being slightly out of the loop on a few issues as the Taipei 2017 Summer Universiade took the vast majority of my focus for the last couple of weeks. 

It is sometime in January 2015 and I am being informed where I will be heading for my first trip abroad for insidethegames.

As Liverpool holds its breath and hopes to beat Birmingham for the nomination as England’s candidate for the 2022 Commonwealth Games, many will be aware of the city’s fabulous sporting heritage.

Whatever it was that Arsene Wenger said to his Arsenal players at half-time during Sunday's Premier League match at Anfield - at which they were already 2-0 down to Liverpool - patently failed to work.

What does the future hold for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)? 

Hype, hype hooray! That billion dollar bunfight in Las Vegas is over so now Sin City - and boxing - can get on with the real fight.

I do not think veterans swimming or, indeed, any sporting competition for septuagenarians, can have generated as much coverage as last week’s FINA World Masters Championships in Budapest did when Spaniard Fernando Álvarez remained on his block for a full minute rather than race in a personal tribute to victims of the Barcelona terror attack.

In many ways, Norwegian skier Therese Johaug got what she deserved when the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) decided to extend her ban from 13 months to 18.

There is the famous scene in the film Good Will Hunting when psychologist Sean finally makes the breakthrough with Matt Damon’s character Will. Placing a report, detailing the traumatic upbringing of Will on the desk, Sean repeats the line "it’s not your fault".

What if? Two words which must be among the most used in the English language and yet are, ultimately, useless because we will never know. 

Yes, yes, I know nothing in sport is as simple as it seems. But sometimes I wish that it was.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) likes to say that it redistributes 90 per cent of its revenues.