Nestling in a corner of my study, under a dog-eared poster depicting The Thrilla in Manila, and a framed photograph of all-time sporting idol Muhammad Ali standing over a stricken Sonny Liston and mouthing "Get up you bum get, up you bum and fight" are two Olympic Torches.

Of the multitude of souvenirs gleaned over half a century of sportswriting assignments, including assorted bric-a-brac, memorabilia and about a thousand plastic media accreditations (one day I'll write a book entitled "Forgive us our press passes"), these are the most treasured.

Particularly those Olympic torches.

I have been fortunate enough to take part in the last two Olympic Torch relays' - I would say "run" but any who observed my efforts will dispute that description.

As insidethegames editor Duncan Mackay, another journo who has shared the experience of being a torchbearer will testify, it is both uplifting and highly emotional. Certainly among the most exhilarating moments of my life.

I must confess though that my conscience was searched long and hard before I accepted an invitation to run with the torch in China in 2008.

The Olympics has been awarded to the Chinese with the expressed hope that this would encourage them to improve human rights. Sebastian Coe has always said sport should be above politics, but the Chinese had been playing politics with the Games more than any previous host city, including Moscow, using them for cynical self-aggrandisement with barely a peep of protest from the International Olympic Committee.

But as I have always carried a torch for the Olympic ethos, I decided to play my run-on part, even though the doubts raged in my mind as to whether it was morally right.

Jacques Rogge had said the Olympics would open up China's doors to the world and I suppose to some degree they did. However, they simply remain ajar and human rights are still low on the agenda.


My turn came in the city of Xi'an in north-west China, ancient capital of the Tang Dynasty. I had been invited by Samsung, the technological giants and one of the principal Olympic sponsorship partners, after a similar invitation from the IOC four years earlier before the Athens Games, as a journalistic veteran of 10 Games.

I had no such qualms then, of course and by sheer chance, my leg happened to be in Harleyford Road, in Lambeth, where I was born. As it was virtually next door to the Oval, it was rather apt that I should hand over the torch to Ian Botham.

The reason for this self-indulgent reminiscing is that with under a year to go thoughts are now turning to London's Olympic Torch relay and the burning question, so to speak, is not so much who should run it in but who will light the flame.

The usual suspects have been trotted out - Steve Redgrave, Kelly Holmes, Chris Hoy, David Beckham (I kid you not), Seb Coe himself and young Tom Daley, among numerous other obvious luminaries.

Lord Coe, who has no say in the eventual choice, has ruled himself out but backs the claims for his mate Daley Thompson, though the bookies, who have installed Redgrave as clear favourite don't seem to rate his chances. Maybe Daley has upset too many blazers.

If running with the torch is a highly emotive experience then imagine what it must be like to actually light the flame.

Surely, the most moving flame lighting of all had to be Atlanta in 1966, when it was illuminated by the shaking hand of Parkinson's afflicted Ali. It was lump-in-throat time around the world, the most inspiring moment of an otherwise forgettable Games.

I have a hunch that London will also come up with something, and someone, different.

What or who I am not sure, but I'll happily make a suggestion.

How about Britain's oldest surviving Olympic double medallist?


Dorothy Tyler, who won high jump silver as 16-year-old schoolgirl Dorothy Odam in Berlin in 1936 and 12 years later, after the ravages of war, plus marriage and motherhood, did so again in London, may be a spry 91 but she is more than capable of stepping forward to light up London's Games after Redgrave et al have trotted the final few laps.

She is ready, no doubt willing and eminently able. Recently awarded an honorary doctorate by Leeds University she still plays golf near her home in Sanderstead, Surrey, and has won the national over-80s championship three times  "though since I had a stroke I only play three times a week".

Although Dorothy won the silver medal in Berlin, had the high jump countback rules been as they are today, she would have taken the gold. And in 1948, when, as mother of two small children she returned to compete at the London Olympics, it was those very same countback rules that denied her the gold once more. As the rules stand today, she would be a double Olympic champion and London's only athletics gold medallist of 1948.

During the war, Dorothy had served as a HGV lorry driver and as a physical training instructor with 617 Squadron - the Dambusters.

She won Empire Games golds in 1938 and 1950; having jumped 5ft at the age of 15, she continued competing and clearing that height for another 31 years, and was in Britain's Olympic teams in 1952 and 1956.

In 1939, her 1.66-metre jump was a world record and prompted one of the earliest sporting sex scandals.


Officials wrote to her saying that Dora Ratjen (pictured), from Germany, had jumped higher. "They told me I didn't hold the record and I wrote back to them saying 'She's not a woman, she's a man!'.

"They did some research and found 'her' working as a waiter called Hermann, who had earlier served in the Hitler Youth, so I got my world record back again."

She is still some feisty lady. A few years ago at an awards lunch in London, she told Dick Fosbury originator of The Flop, that his form of jumping was cheating. "You can't go over the bar head first," declared the arch exponent of the straddle.

Her memories of the "Nazi" Olympics remain vivid. In Berlin, she had nervelessly sidled up to Adolf Hitler at a party thrown for the women competitors by Joszef Goebbels, whom, she described as "bit of a womaniser".

And what did she make of the Fuehrer? "A little man in a big uniform."

"When we got there, there were 40-foot Nazi flags everywhere, everyone seemed to be in uniform. It was all very militaristic.

"We were staying in a large dormitory. The first morning, I was woken up by the sound of marching, and outside there were hundreds of Hitler Youth parading.

"When the German athletes saluted 'Heil Hitler', we all responded with 'Hail King George!'"


Personally, I'd love to see dear old Dot do the honours.

Failing that, we call always fall back on BoJo, though its odds on he'd be more likely to set his own haystack hair alight first.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire