In the absence of a genuine contest to determine host cities for either the 2024 or 2028 Olympic Games, it is hard to get too excited about the agenda for next month’s International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session in Lima.

If you tuned in to the final two hours of the Taipei 2017 Opening Ceremony yesterday, you would probably have thought that everything was going more or less to plan. A little behind schedule, but these things happen.

During the recent International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships in London, I was sent to cover a press conference concerning the women’s 50 kilometres race walk.

The ceremonial baton containing the Queen’s message to the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games athletes is visiting Liverpool and Birmingham this weekend. Both cities hope to be chosen as England’s candidate to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

After their unfortunate experience with the selection of a logo, the organisers of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo have solicited designs for a mascot with understandable caution.

Whither – or should that be “Wither”? – the International Olympic Committee (IOC)?

The ever-estimable Michael Johnson has raised the pertinent question - while making it clear it was a question and not an indictment - as to whether six medals and sixth place in an International Association of Athletics Federations World Championships on home territory was a reasonable return for the £27 million ($35 million/€30 million) lobbed in the direction British Athletics by UK Sport.

One of many stories dominating headlines at the World Athletics Championships which closed here yesterday was the presence of an "Authorised Neutral Team" of Russian athletes.

I think the whole world is sick of elections - that is, the parts of the world that holds them.

International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) President Sebastian Coe would have hoped for a deluge of eyebrow-raising moments at these World Championships.

Botswana’s Isaac Makwala’s lone 200 metres run on Wednesday (August 9) has made for the most unusual headlines of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships in London - but it is not the first time an athlete has run solo at a major championships.

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships in London still have four days to go but I already know my favourite moment from them – the victory of France’s Pierre-Ambroise Bosse in the men’s 800 metres final on Tuesday (August 8).

If I might coin a phrase, there have been too many losers at the World Athletics Championships - for some people.

Within the space of a few days sport has lost a couple of its biggest contemporary superstars - two-of-a-kind whose legendary status is unquestioned and whose careers have been unblemished by sleaze or scandal.