A firebird appeared above London's Olympic Stadium as the flame died last summer. Now the fire from Olympia will be lit once again. Sochi's Torch design draws inspiration from the work of one of Mother Russia's greatest musicians. Just as "The Firebird" first brought Igor Stravinsky to a wider audience, when Greek skier Ioannis Antoniou receives the flame at the ancient stadium it gives notice that the 2014 Games are coming.

Only once has a Russian city hosted the Olympic Games. En route to Moscow in 1980, it travelled through Bulgaria and Romania to reach the Soviet Union. At the Lenin Stadium, basketball player Sergei Belov dramatically ran up a pathway held above the crowd to light the cauldron. In Sochi, that moment will surely be as memorable.

A flame had burned from a tower at the 1936 Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Later that year a flame borne from Olympia in Greece to Berlin started a symbolic tradition.

Sapporo was initially chosen to stage the next Winter Olympics, but Japan was soon embroiled in war and withdrew - Sapporo did eventually host the Games in 1972.

A flame had burned from a tower at the 1936 Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen


After lengthy discussions, the 1940 Games were reassigned, first to St Moritz and then Garmisch.

"The Olympic Fire will arrive, borne from the Skiing Stadium by relay runners. The Olympic fanfare will be blown from the heights and words by Fridtjof Nansen will fill the air."

The German plans came to nothing as the world descended into war.

The Olympic flag did not fly again until the 1948 Winter Games in St Moritz. The Norwegian capital followed in 1952. Olav Bjaaland suggested a "cross country ski relay to Oslo, where the last skier was to light the fire".

The flame was lit in Morgedal, the home of Sondre Norheim, founding father of Norwegian skiing.

"This was a Torch greeting from the cradle of modern skiing." In Oslo, the last of 94 skiers was Eigil Nansen, grandson of the polar explorer.

In 1956, the fire was lit in Rome on the steps of the Capitoline Jove - the temple of Jupiter - in a tripod sent from Olympia. On its route to host resort Cortina d'Ampezzo, crowds flocked to see it.

The 1952 Olympic downhill champion Zeno Colò made the descent with the flame on the opening morning. Speed skater Guido Caroli was the final Torchbearer.

Guido Caroli was "so ashamed" when he tripped on a microphone cable on his way to lighting the 1956 Olympic Cauldron


As he passed the Presidential box, he tripped on a microphone cable. Though he did not let the flame go out, he was inconsolable.

"I am so ashamed," he said. There was a happy postscript. At the Opening Ceremony in Torino 50 years later, Caroli was an honoured guest.

"The final leg of the Torch's spectacular round the world journey will include a helicopter ride to the mountains surrounding Squaw Valley," boasted organisers of the 1960 Winter Games after Walt Disney was put in charge of "pageantry".

They told everyone that the flame would be lit in Ancient Olympia, but failed to ask the Greeks in time for arrangements to be made.

Swiss reporter Frederic Schattler observed sarcastically: "It is infinitely easier to order the sun to rise in Walt Disney's films than to make the sun shine in Olympia during the winter."

Instead, the flame was lit in Morgedal once more and flown to America.

On the opening day, double 1952 gold medallist Andrea Mead skied with the Torch from Little Papoose Peak, escorted by members of the National Ski Patrol.

She handed the Torch to another 1952 veteran, Olympic speed skating champion Ken Henry who lit the Cauldron.

In 1964, the Games were returned to the mountains of Europe when Innsbruck was chosen. The flame was lit in Ancient Olympia. International Olympic Academy official Otto Szymiczek suggested that the choreography of the ceremony be entrusted to classical Greek dancer Maria Horss. In 1936, she had helped light the very first flame. She took to the task and continued in the role until her eighties.

Josef Rieder lights the Cauldron at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck


The flame was first flown to Vienna and then on to Innsbruck where the Opening ceremony was low key after two competitors died in training accidents. Skier Josef Rieder slowly walked up the steps to light the Cauldron.

Within 12 years, the flame would return to Innsbruck, pressed into service as emergency hosts for 1976. Denver, the intended venue, had to withdraw after a public referendum. The Austrians were delighted to welcome back the Games and a second Cauldron burned to celebrate.

The Winter Torch Relay was not yet as ambitious as those for the Summer Games in 1968, but the lighting ceremony was fraught with difficulty.

"The President of the Hellenic Olympic Committee kept shouting at us to stop, but we never gave up no matter how bad the weather had become," recalled ceremony director Horss.

The flame was taken to France where some 5,000 runners carried the flame around the country to Grenoble.

When skater Alain Calmat approached the Cauldron, the sound of his heartbeat was even projected over loudspeakers.

Lake Placid was one of the smallest communities to play Olympic host. It staged the Winter Games for the second time in 1980. They took a novel approach to the Torch Relay and chose 52 people who "best exemplified the ancient Greek ideal of the whole man."

Sarajevo was awarded the Winter Games for 1984. At the time it was still part of Socialist Yugoslavia. The flame touched in what organisers referred to as "freedom loving" Dubrovnik. It was divided to take distinct routes around the whole country and it was claimed a million and a half people saw it during a journey of 5,289 kilometres.

There were contingency plans for bad weather involving skiers rather than runners "but owing to the well organised clearing service on all roads of the flame route, this did not occur".

Skiers were called into service to carry the flame into the Koševo Stadium before speed skater Sanda Dubravčić lit the Cauldron.

Sanda Dubravčić lit the Cauldron after skiers carried the flame into the Koševo
Stadium at Sarajevo 1984


That summer, Los Angeles staged the most expansive Torch Relay yet, and Calgary's 1988 Winter Games committee watched with interest.

"Los Angeles showed us the light with its successful relay," said Calgary 1988 supremo Frank King.

Race walker Ferd Hayward and 1948 Olympic champion Barbara Ann Scott were the first to carry the Torch on Canadian soil to start an 88-day odyssey that took it to the Arctic Circle by dog sled. Snowmobiles also carried the flame.

In Toronto, it was carried by a Canadian sporting hero - Ben Johnson. In the autumn, Johnson's disqualification after the 100 metres final for doping would be the sensation of Seoul 1988, Johnson a hero no longer.

Calgary set one record before the Games had even begun. Twelve-year-old skater Robyn Perry was the youngest to have lit the cauldron, after the Thunderbirds of the Royal Canadian Air Force roared overhead. As Robyn Perry Ainsworth, she carried the flame again in 2010.

In 1992, a special flight by Concorde took a precious cargo from Greece to Paris. The flame for Albertville lit up the Champs-Élysées and then called in at Mirville, where Pierre de Coubertin had spent part of his youth.

Nine-year-old François-Cyrille Grange from Valloire took centre stage in Albertville itself. Michel Platini, who competed in football at 1976, became the first Summer Olympian to help light a winter Cauldron.

Michel Platini became the first Summer Olympian to help light a winter Cauldron


Lillehammer in Norway became the first town to stage the Winter Games in a different year from the Summer Games after the cycle was switched in 1994.

Their flame was even exchanged between two parachutists above Germany.

Meanwhile, a separate fire was lit in Morgedal. This met the flame from Olympia before continuing to the Paralympics. The Olympic flame, which had visited the other Scandinavian countries, arrived at the stadium by ski jumper before the Crown Prince provided the final touch.

Skater Midori Ito had greeted the flame as it returned to Japanese soil for Nagano's Games in 1998. Organisers hit on an inspired choice to convey a message of peace - land mine victim Chris Moon carried the flame accompanied by hundreds of children.

Four years later, Muhammad Ali began the domestic portion of Salt Lake City's Relay in Atlanta, the very city where he had ignited the Cauldron at the 1996 Games.

Over 11,500 carried the flame in a 13,000-mile journey, which promised "to light the fire within", but the real surprise came at the end. The Cauldron was lit by the entire 1980 gold medal winning ice hockey team.

Posters for Torino 2006 promised the "warmest winter for 50 years" and they were not talking about climate change. By now, another classical dancer Artemis Ignatiou was in charge of the lighting ceremony in Olympia. A few miles into the Relay, windsurfing gold medallist Nikolaos Kaklamanakis emulated Muhammad Ali. He too had previously lit the Cauldron for the Summer Games before carrying the Winter Torch. In Italy, a 64-day journey began in Rome and the cavalcade reached Cortina on the 50th anniversary of their 1956 Winter Games. The route also visited Chamonix - 1924 hosts - and Grenoble - 1968 - and Albertville - 1992.

Finally, it reached Torino's Stadio Olimpico. Stefania Belmondo, Italy's great Nordic skier, lit a taper and after a stunning pyrotechnic display before the Cauldron, the tallest in Olympic history, burst into life.

In 2010, it was destination Vancouver, the second Canadian host city and another countrywide torch relay. In Winnipeg, it was carried by Michael Edwards. Better known as "Eddie the Eagle" he was the superstar of Calgary 1988 despite finishing last in the ski jump. When the flame reached Vancouver, London 2012 chairman Seb Coe was a bearer.

Arnold Schwarzenegger hands the Olympic flame Sebastian Coe ahead of Vancouver 2010


"When we got onto the bus at four in the morning, the thing I remember is listening to the stories of people who had made big changes to their lives," he said. "These stories were far more exciting for me than running with the Torch. They were real people taking about the way the Games had affected them."

The Opening Ceremony was the first held indoors, Paralympian Rick Hansen, speedskater Catriona Doan, basketball star Steve Nash, ski gold medallist Nancy Greene and ice hockey star Wayne Gretzky all lit the base of a giant tepee to ignite the flame. Then Gretzky lit a further Cauldron outside.

Russia has many great winter champions so their cauldron lighter is difficult to predict. How about ice hockey goaltender Vladislav Tretiak, whose grandson Maxim played in the 2012 Youth Olympics, or triple gold medal winning figure skater Irina Rodnina? The suspense and the speculation will endure until Sochi is lit up by the Olympic fire.

Born in Hackney, a stone's throw from the 2012 Olympic Stadium, Philip Barker has worked as a television journalist for 25 years. He began his career with Trans World Sport, then as a reporter for Sky Sports News and the ITV breakfast programme. A regular Olympic pundit on BBC Radio, Sky News and TalkSPORT, he is associate editor of the Journal of Olympic History, has lectured at the National Olympic Academy and contributed extensively to Team GB publications.

This week's elite men's time trial at the 2013 UCI Road World Championships in Florence provided numerous memorable spectacles. The cycling world will long remember the indomitable performance of Germany's Tony Martin as he locked onto his third consecutive title, and the excruciating effort put in by Britain's Olympic champion Sir Bradley Wiggins as he attempted to earn his first world road race title and fell agonisingly - really agonisingly, as by his own admission he rode himself into a state of collapse at the finish - short, having to settle for silver ahead of another huge talent, Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland.

But for the wider world, the abiding image of this event will be of a leaping cat.

Wildlife encroaching onto the field of play has been an intermittent feature of large sporting events down the years. You like to think that the odd goat might have wandered into the stadium at Olympia to disrupt proceedings at the Ancient Games, although there is no record of it.

However the presence of television cameras at sports occasions over the last 50 years has provided a treasury of moments when the sudden emergence of a dog, cat, bird, fox, rabbit, squirrel or pine marten has halted the action and re-focused attention on a new but perennially popular game: that of catching and removing the errant creature.

Colombian rider Rafael Infantino has a close encounter with a cat during the time trial at the Road World Cycling Championships in Florence

In the case of the men's time trial, the stripey cat which ventured onto the course and into the path of the oncoming Rafael Infantino eventually found its own way back to obscurity. Before it did so, however, the Colombian cyclist had to take evasive action as the startled creature began to double back on itself and then - gloriously - reared up on its hind legs at him and his infernal passing machine.

On such occasions, there occur two new sporting challenges. The first is to the TV commentator, and here the man behind the Eurosport mike rose gamely to the occasion. Note to any budding TV commentators - the tone at such times should always be jocular. The classic example came during a 1992 American football game between Michigan and Purdue when a rabbit ran onto the pitch and then proceeded all the way down it, with the commentator counting it down all the way to touchdown territory, at which point it paused to reflect upon a triumph which had set the whole stadium at a roar.

Eurosport's man got the tone right in Florence. But his suggestion that the cat had been "leaping up to say hello" was fanciful. And, in my mind, wrong. That cat was having a go. That cat was clearly saying to Rafael Infantino: "I don't care if you are a highly paid professional road cyclist in pursuit of a prize that would pay for my pet food until the end of my days, and beyond. Get out of my face! In fact, come back here, I want to kill you!!"

Lions on the pitch during the tour to New Zealand in 1971

If you can find the clip on You Tube - it's not going to be a hard task, this - then look again, and I think you will agree with me. Saying hello? I don't think so...

The second sporting challenge that emerges on these occasions is to the production team on the TV, or to media organisations reporting the incursion. That is, there is the obligation to create a bad pun. As far as the rabbit-on-the-football-pitch incident is concerned, the little video package celebrating it has the initial headline of "Hare-y moment". The most recent opportunity created in Florence has, naturally, yielded efforts along the lines of "Near Cat-astrophe in road race". There is no point in trying to stop this. It's nature.

The tone of jocularity, once established, has to be maintained by the commentator. It is not acceptable for his affability to erode as the bloody stupid creature continues to zigzag all over the bloody pitch, evading plunging players and stumbling officials, holding up the action and for God's sake will someone get hold of that bloody thing my fixed grin is killing me!!!!!

Scarecrows on the pitch at The Oval in 1957 as the groundsman prepares to prepare the ground without the botheration of pigeons

In fairness, keeping up the verbal fixed grin becomes particularly difficult on certain occasions.

Such as the 1970 football match between Colchester United and Brentford when the visiting keeper, Chic Brodie, a back-pass - this truly was a hospital ball - and a small white dog converged in the penalty area, resulting in one bouncing ball, one poleaxed keeper and one unrepentant small white dog.

Brodie's left kneecap had been broken by the exuberant forward's lunge, and his top class career ended. "The dog may have been small...but it just happened to be solid..." he later reflected. Which was rather gracious in the circumstances.

Similarly this year when the Swiss League match between Zurich and FC Thun was held up for more than five minutes - great effort! - by a pine marten which, among other things, evaded apparent capture by Zurich's Loris Benito as it bit him on the finger. Eventually it fell to the Zurich goalkeeper, Davide Da Costa, to win the game within the game as he managed to dive and hold the offending wildlife. He needed those gloves, though.

Rabbit on the field - Runny the Rabbit, mascot for the 1993 IAAF World Championships. Sorry about this.

Four years before the Brodie debacle, of course, there had been the spectacle of a rogue human on the pitch as an Everton fan evaded the comic flop of one policeman during the 1966 FA Cup final against Sheffield Wednesday before being rugby-tackled to the floor by another officer.

Sadly, mass incursions onto the football pitch by humans on subsequent occasions have proved entirely lacking in fun or entertainment.

During a 1962 World Cup match the arrival on the pitch of an energetic black dog presented the classic catch-me-if-you-can challenge to the players of England and Brazil. England's keeper Ron Springett failed to gather the loose hound, and then Brazil's winger Garrincha - despite his nickname of Little Bird - proved unequal to this wildlife challenge. It fell to England forward Jimmy Greaves to get the job done - or rather, he fell to it, getting down on all fours and becoming, momentarily, a dog in an England shirt, in order to lure the intruder into thinking that he was about to make a doggy friend. The friendship came to a sudden end as the dog was then passed to an official by his turncoat buddy.

England forward Jimmy Greaves was also adept at luring errant dogs

Again, the commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme did what commentators have to do on such occasions as he maintained - jocularly - that Greaves had already earned the title of man of the match for his efforts.

Such fun. Personally I would love to see more animals get involved in this sport within sport. It would be great, for instance, if a sub-editor could be given the opportunity to write the headline: "Reindeer stops play." Who knows? Perhaps it will happen in Lapland one day.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play – the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £12.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.

It's that time of the year again, when we start pondering who and why the best of British should be named Sportsman and Sportswoman of 2013.

A straight fight, surely between history-making Wimbledon champion Andy Murray and the ever-redoubtable Mo Farah for the men's title. Murray is surely well ahead on points on the cards of most of us and should be a shoo-in for the overall BBC Sports Personality award.

But, unlike the Olympic year of 2012, this has not been a vintage one individually for British sporting womankind, only Christine Ohuruogu, who claimed a second world title at Moscow's World Athletics Championships, the first British woman to do so, by winning the 400 metres, stands out as a top contender.

Though the performances of two fellow Olympic champions, boxer Nicola Adams in defending her European title and horsewoman Charlotte Dujardin in winning double gold in the European Dressage Championships are worthy of honourable mentions.

So too in my estimation is a woman of whom the sports world has never heard - certainly not outside her immediate circle of family, friends and admirers. But is she the best sporting all-rounder in Britain for her achievements over the past year?

Jen Offord has attempted every one of the 26 sports on the London 2012
programme in the course of a year


When Jen Offord puffed her way across the finishing line after a five kilometre run through London's Bushy Park last month it signalled not only the completion of her first triathlon but the culmination of a remarkable Olympic odyssey in which she has attempted every one of the 26 sports on the London 2012 programme, embracing 38 different disciplines, in the course of a year.

"I was gasping, exhausted," she exclaimed. "But exhilarated at the same time. It had been some journey."

One that began when the curtain came down on a London Games the 30-year-old Essex-born civil servant from the Olympic heartland of Hackney had actually wanted to get away from.

"I have always been a bit sport-phobic and living in the East End and working in Westminster I thought the disruption would be horrendous and I would be getting it both barrels," she told insidethegames. "I was a real cynic about the Olympics and it got to the point when I seriously considered leaving London for the duration."

But she stayed to be captivated by them and says now: "I might cry just thinking about those amazing weeks. I was a HUGE Olympics cynic. I genuinely thought something bad would happen, the transport system would collapse or we'd just eff it up and embarrass ourselves in front of the whole world.

Sebastian Prieto taught Jen Offord the rudiments of handball


"So much so that I forgot I've always really enjoyed the Olympics, didn't get any tickets for anything and actually considered leaving London for the duration of it all.

"I changed my mind during the Torch Relay when I started to experience an uncharacteristic sense of national pride and enthusiasm. The Opening Ceremony was truly beautiful and reduced the room of - admittedly drunk - adults I was with to tears.

"The sun shone and there was an amazing buzz around London, a city that I fell back in love with as I watched the Olympics unfold on giant screens and at all the freebie events with thousands of others.

"What grabbed me most was the variety of sports. I felt we had been so saturated in the media with football that we had forgotten there are so many other sports that are truly amazing and quite inspirational.

"Afterwards I thought I'd like to have a go at one, but I wasn't sure which.

A friend jokingly suggested she should try them all.

"I thought, that's not a bad idea. Let's have a bash at the lot," Offord said.

And so happened an astonishing volte-face for someone who by her own admission, is not naturally sporty or athletic and admits she used to bunk off PE at school.

"I did the London Marathon in 2009 - finishing in 6 hours 5 minutes - but that was as much for exercise as anything. I also went to a few gym classes but the primary motivation for that was to enable me to eat more cake!"

So hard on the heels of Lord Coe's Inspire A Generation came Inspire A Jen, a one-woman mission of truly Olympic proportions, which she kick-started with a canoe sprint at the Stoke Newington reservoir. She found it "tremendous fun and so exciting".

Playing hockey with Chloe Rogers


Following this, she ran the whole gamut of sport from archery to wrestling, regularly producing an illuminating and amusing blog, which attracted support from Dame Kelly Holmes and offers of tuition and advice from several members of the London 2012 Team GB. Among them was Sebastian Prieto, who taught her the rudiments of handball, and Chloe Rogers hockey.

Acquiring a bike, she named Beyoncé - no doubt because it was amply-upholstered at the rear - she entered the Boris Johnson-backed Prudential RideLondon 100 and agonisingly recalls: "The problem with endurance sports is that they can do slightly horrible things to the human body, as Paula Radcliffe found to her detriment, in Athens.

"I guess it was a combination of my lack of training, the disgusting, sugary nonsense that I was fuelling my body with and not being used to being hunched over for hours on end, but by the time I'd reached the top of Leith Hill, the stomach cramps I was experiencing were torturously painful."

Moreover, Beyoncé's chain came off. "I didn't have a bloody clue what to do but thankfully a very helpful lady spectator came to my rescue."

Offord also pedalled and puffed her way through a mountain bike ride, a BMX circuit and an Omnium at Herne Hill.

Down in Bath former Olympic medallist Kate Allenby took her through the rigours of the five-event modern pentathlon - horse riding, swimming, fencing, shooting and running - and was sufficiently impressed to report: "Jen put herself outside her comfort zone on so many occasions, yet she was really positive and outgoing about the whole challenge. She was very easy to coach, taking information on board and putting it into practice."

Jen Offord said water polo was the hardest of the Olympic sports


Always determined not just to dabble, or be dismissed as a dilettante, Offord says water polo was the hardest, and synchronised swimming the weirdest, the latter "all rather cliquey".

Boxing she found the most fascinating. "Trying it totally changed my view of the sport. Beforehand I thought it was about a bunch of gnarly-eared blokes lumping each other's brains out. It turns out there's quite a bit more to it than this - it's incredibly skilful, for a start.

She blogged after trying the Girls in Gloves scheme with instructor Naomi Gibson at the Body Studio in Shoreditch: "Naomi tells me, 'Keep your arms up to protect your boobs - you do NOT want to get punched on the tit.' Damn straight. I don't really want to get punched anywhere. This sport has taught me that I'm all mouth and no trousers, that I'm a massive wuss and surprisingly adverse to the idea of punching someone in the face, but the training sessions are amazing."

Offord adds that she has enjoyed so many sports, devoting evenings, weekends and holidays, it is hard to choose one to stick with permanently. "I was surprised to find I was quite good at gymnastics and track cycling. I have a bike now so cycling is high on my list.

"There are so many positive things about sport. One thing I have learned is that you don't have to be good at it to enjoy it.

"A lot of people out there were like me. They maybe didn't like sport that much at school, they have a vague aspiration to get involved now, but they don't really know what they would try and how they would go about doing it."

Although she never envisaged her groundbreaking project as another giant step for womankind, she does offer a message that sport should have no sexual barriers. "Unless participation actually depends on you having male sex organs, how can a sport not be 'a woman's sport'? If you've ever believed anyone who told you that participation in a sport depended on your having male sex organs, frankly, you've been had.

Jen Offord said the boxing training sessions were "amazing"


"I also think that we're not exposed to enough variety of sport. Teenagers aren't necessarily inspired to try anything beyond the mainstream sports that are on offer at school, so they don't think there is something out there for them.

"I'm almost certain that anyone could find a sport that they enjoy, and take considerable health and social benefits from - they just don't necessarily know what it is yet.

"In light of my experiences my views on sport have completely changed and I'm totally converted now. I'm fitter, stronger and happier as well."

Then name of Jen Offord may not appear on any sporting A-list at the end of the year when the awards are handed out but her unique contribution to the Olympic spirit surely is worthy of an VIP invitation and some public recognition, even if it is a just an honourable mention from Seb Coe.

Alan Hubbard is a 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 Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

With just under a week to go before the International Cycling Union (UCI) elects its new President, I've never been more confident now that our own year-long mission to remove Pat McQuaid from the post is about to reach its climax.

For more than a year, we've used the values that the SKINS' brand has developed around protecting the integrity of sport, to challenge the old guard at the UCI and give cycling a fresh chance.

To mark the impending 25th anniversary of the 1988 Seoul Olympic 100 metre final - where as you may recall the winner, Ben Johnson, ran into a spot of bother with the dope testers - a documentary about that fateful race is being released later this week entitled "9.79", which was the world record set by the Canadian who has since become a byword for cheating in sport.

The film-maker, Daniel Gordon, has managed to speak to all eight competitors and, apparently, each has maintained that he, and he alone, was running drug-free on that occasion. A fascinating, if depressing puzzle...

Reflecting on what might be learned from his latest work, Gordon commented: "We love the Olympics, we love the World Cup, we love these huge events. We always want more. But the idea of purity is absolute nonsense. We're projecting something onto our heroes when, since the beginning of sport in ancient Greece, it has always been unfair and competitors have always taken whatever advantage they can. So the idea of purity is nonsense. We have to look at sport with our eyes open."

Which raises two fundamental questions. First - does this mean there is no such thing as purity anywhere within sport? And secondly - why do we expect or wish for that to be the case?

To address the second question first: one of the conundrums of cheating is that its discovery causes such dismay, given that it is as old as time, or at least as old as humans. As Gordon correctly maintains, cheating in sport has its own long history.

The ancient Olympics in Greece were prey to numerous examples of cheating involving money, and, even though it wasn't illegal, of doping. Sorry, but there it is.

Doping and money are the two most influential elements of cheating in sport, the prime movers in foul play. Both were potent forces in the ancient Olympics, although in fairness the doping which steeped much of the activity could not be described at the time as cheating as there was no equivalent of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in existence. Had there been, such a body would doubtless have been involved in lengthy cases involving items such as sheep's testicles - heavy on the testosterone - which were the supplement of choice for those wishing to improve their strength and endurance back in the day.

Galen, a physician who described the customs of the day in the third century AD, reported that certain Olympic competitors had sought to enhance their performance by drinking "the rear hooves of an Abyssinian ass, ground up, boiled in oil and flavoured with rosehips and petals".

Whether this concoction would find its way into the WADA code nowadays is a moot point. But the anti-doping code would surely have little to say about another of the reputed performance enhancers of ancient sporting times - the practice of drinking a combination of sweat, oil and dust scraped from the skin of Olympic champions immediately after their moment of glory.

Ben Johnson, who has become a byword for cheating in sport following his positive dope test in the wake of winning the 1988 Olympic 100m title in a world record of 9.79sec

Eupolos of Thessaly was the first recorded wrongdoer in the history of the ancient Games - he was found guilty of bribing boxers in the 98th Olympiad.

Fourteen Olympiads later, Callippus Of Athens attempted to buy off his competitors in the pentathlon. And at the 226th Olympics two Egyptian boxers, Didas andSarapammons, were fined for fixing the outcome of their match.

So much for the purity of the ancient Games. But hang on. How do we know about these transgressions? Because they were exposed, and the perpetrators punished. These wrongdoings, and subsequent efforts, were recorded on bronze statues of Zeus erected over the years on the road which athletes took into the stadium at Olympia, where the Games had taken place since 776 BC. These statues were financed through fines levied on Olympic competitors found to have cheated, and were inscribed with the names of the guilty
parties along with the details of their misdeeds.

This information was accompanied by messages warning others not to cheat and insisting that victory was to be earned through skill and effort rather than by money or other underhand means. Here, then, was early graphic evidence of cheating in sport - and also of the desire to eradicate it.

Let's shift our gaze from BC to AD, onto the sporting events of this very week. Croatian tennis player Marin Čilić is facing a nine-month ban from the sport having been found to have taken a banned stimulant. Meanwhile, there is controversy over the decision to reduce the standard two-year ban on Serbian player Viktor Troicki to 18 months after he refused to take a blood test.

And in snooker, former Tour event winner Stephen Lee has been found guilty of match-fixing charges involving seven games in 2008 and 2009 and faces punishment from the sport's world governing body.

Former snooker Tour event winner Stephen Lee has been found guilty of match-fixing by the world governing body

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...

But what has also remained constant along with sporting misdemeanours is the desire to eradicate them. Take the Lee case. Once the verdict was confirmed, former world champion Neil Robertson insisted: "There is no other option than a life ban," adding: "We have to show zero tolerance on match and frame fixing...There may have been players offered things in smaller events, and this should cut all of that out."

Robertson went on to differentiate fixing in his sport to cheating which has famously occurred in other sports such as cycling and athletics. "It is greed or financial difficulty that makes people fix matches, not gaining an edge over rivals, so it is different from say Lance Armstrong or Ben Johnson."

There Ben is again, Mr Byword. But Robertson's reaction also stands as an archetype of those within sport who do believe in purity, and in maintaining purity. Let's not be cynical here. Both motivations will always exist within the human frame.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play - the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £12.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.

Oscar de la Hoya was the original Golden Boy of boxing following his Olympic victory in Barcelona in 1992, hailed by Presidents for his clean-cut iconic image and worshipped by his millions of fans in the United States and Latin America.

Until the advent of Floyd Mayweather Jr, he had generated more money than any other boxer in the history of the sport, an estimated $696 million (£436 million/€520 million).

But instead of helping the new Money Man count the record takings this week after Mayweather's master class conquest of Mexican rival Saul "Canelo" Alvarez in Las Vegas, where he was the co-promoter of the richest-ever boxing bout, De la Hoya was apologising for his absence back in rehab, another victim of the sad litany of the 3-D syndrome that is hitting boxing more devastatingly than any punches thrown in the ring: drink, drugs and depression.

The fight game reeled from the shock two years ago when De la Hoya, conqueror of 17 world champions, revealed himself as a self-confessed alcoholic and drugs addict who dressed in drag and cheated regularly on his wife, mother of two of his five children. He said he had been driven to the brink of suicide.

Oscar de la Hoya is another of boxing's drink, drugs and depression victims


After spending three months in rehab in a Californian clinic the Mexican-American idol stepped back into the game as head honcho of Golden Boy Promotions but shortly before the Mayweather fight at the weekend he voluntarily admitted himself into a treatment facility, explaining: "I hope everyone understands that my health and long term recovery from my disease must come first."

What makes this such a wretched tale is that here was no archetypal washed-stumblebum on Skid Row, with which boxing is sadly familiar, but aged only 40, a handsome, articulate, almost god-like multi-millionaire boxer-businessman with all his faculties who converted that Olympic gold to two fistfuls of world titles in six different weight divisions from super-featherweight to light-middleweight in a 16-year, 55-fight-career in which he came closer than anyone to defeating the apparently untouchable Mayweather, losing on a split decision in 2007.

Outside of Muhammad Ali, De La Hoya has been the best-loved figure in US boxing during the past half-century.

Until he entered the Betty Ford clinic in Malibu De La Hoya had been fighting the influence of alcohol throughout his entire amateur and professional career, saying" "It was a monster so big I cannot describe it. It was bad. I'm surprised it hasn't killed me.

"Those nights when I was drunk and on my own, I asked myself, 'Is it really worth continuing to live?' I contemplated suicide. I'm incapable of doing something like that, but I did think about it."

Alas, only, last week there was another fight figure who did more than think about it.

Next Saturday night there will be a count of ten at the Copper Box in London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The traditional tolling of the ring bell will honour the memory of Dean Powell, a boxing man of great distinction, who unlike De La Hoya, has taken his own life, the latest in a grim line of tragedies to hit the sport in Britain.

Dean Powell's suicide is the latest in a grim line of tragedies to hit boxing in Britain


Powell, 47, who fell under a train at a South London station last Tuesday (September 10) morning, was the show's matchmaker, as he had been for all of Frank Warren's promotions for the past decade. He was also Britain's top cornerman. There is barely a boxer in the land, from Ricky Hatton to Ricky Burns, via Naseem Hamed, Nigel Benn, Amir Khan, Joe Calzaghe et al who have not reaped the benefit of "Deano's" sagely whispered advice between rounds.

He would have been working the corners of Dereck Chisora and Billy Joe Saunders, who jointly top the inaugural Copper Box bill. Both are dedicating their bouts to him. Heavyweight Chisora meets German Edmund Gerber for the vacant European crown and Saunders defends his British middleweight belt against fellow unbeaten challenger John Ryder in bouts televised live by BoxNation.

A dumbfounded Chisora told insidethegames: "This has been has been a sad, sad week for me - I lost one of my closest friends. The last time I saw Dean was on the Monday when he came over to my house to discuss the game plan for his fight. He made notes, asked me what time I wanted him at the Copper Box to wrap my hands and I said 'See you soon'. We gave each other hug and then the next day I heard he was dead. He was a lovely man.

"Dean was famous. Boxing people loved him for the work he did. He was known all over the world, Africa, America, everywhere. He worked my corner for all but one of my 21 pro fights and was the first man to sign me.

"He was always excited about the game had all these ideas. He was the man who told me to dress myself in the Union Jack. I'll miss him."

Warren says his office first became worried after receiving a text from Powell on Tuesday morning asking them to look after his family. "We still can't comprehend it. There seems no explanation. His death leaves a massive void in world boxing."

Billy Smith took his own life, three years after his twin Ernie did the same


Powell's suicide follows that of twin boxing brothers, journeymen pros Billy and Ernie Smith. Billy, 35, hanged himself in July; three years after Ernie had done the same.

Three years ago the Irish Olympic medallist Darren Sutherland, 27, was found hanged in his London flat soon after turning pro and last year middleweight Lewis Pinto, 24, was found hanging from a tree in a London park.

In 2002 another legendary cornerman, George Francis, who trained Frank Bruno and John Conteh, similarly took his own life.

The British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC) admits "concern" about growing instances of depression among those in the sport after the trade paper Boxing News highlighted what it termed boxing's "silent killer" - depression.

When they asked the Manchester trainer Joe Gallagher if he knew of any fighters who suffered from depression he replied: "It would be harder to find a fighter who doesn't."

We know that former world champion Ricky Hatton contemplated suicide while battling booze and drugs after his retirement, that contender Herol Graham actually attempted it and that Bruno has been in and out of psychiatric units for the past few years.

Ricky Hatton admitted to contemplating suicide while battling booze and
drugs after his retirement


The former European title challenger Ashley Sexton, who has struggled with depression, told Boxing News that he even went to a station intending to hurl himself in front of a train, as poor Dean Powell did, "because I thought that would be the easy way out, but it was having the bollocks to do it."

Likewise, the former British super-middleweight champion Tony Quigley revealed he had considered three ways of ending his life. "I was going to hang myself, throw myself off a bridge or swallow tablets. I used to sit there and think: 'So if I die, who's going to be interested'. I felt I was left by myself, with no help."

Across the Atlantic in last four years three world champions, Edwin Valero, Arturo Gatti and Alexis Argüello have all killed themselves, while the 1976 Olympic and subsequent multi-weight world champion Sugar Ray Leonard, as much and icon as De la Hoya, has graphically detailed his own struggles with rage, addiction, sexual abuse and depression in his recent biography.

The deadliest battles, it seems, are not those in the ring but dealing with boxing's unique pressures, or life after it, not least the fear of failure.

This is encapsulated by the current British heavyweight champion David Price, an Olympic bronze medallist in Beijing, who confesses sinking into depression after losing by KO for the second successive time to the American Tony Thompson this year, shattering his world title aspirations. He says the loneliness he felt "almost saw me off".

"People can try to tell you it's only a sport but when you've put your heart and soul into something and it ends with such bitter disappointment then it can drive you into a bit of a hole."

David Price confessed to sinking into depression after losing by KO for the second successive time to the American Tony Thompson


Of course boxing is by no means alone in this respect - football, cricket and rugby have had more than their share of high-profile personal tragedies but the mental frailty that leads to those in the fight game seems harder to comprehend because of the macho nature of what is can be the loneliest sport of all.

This is clearly something the Board of Control needs to address and secretary Robert Smith is appealing to any fighters who feel they need help to come to them.

"The biggest problem is that boxing is a very individual sport and maybe they are held back from talking about it because they think it is a weakness, when of course it's not. A lot of the time you don't know until it's too, late. But we will help in any way we can."

Meantime the bell tolls for Dean Powell on Saturday when the boxing world will sadly remember a man who was at the very heart of the game.

Alan Hubbard is a 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 Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

If the mud, cold and drizzle engulfing Hyde Park suggested that autumn is upon us, the Triathlon World Championship Grand Final in Hyde Park proved that the summer glow of sporting success is still burning brightly in Britain.

After two weeks in the political whirlwind that was the International Olympic Committee (IOC) session in Buenos Aires it was nice to return to competitive sport. No clever speeches, ambiguous voting systems and back door coalitions but just the pure physical challenge of three formidably testing disciplines.

With every race a battle to push these limits further no-one does sport more purely than the Brownlee brothers. The only way to beat them is to swim, ride and run faster than them and that does not happen very often.

Javier Gomez's world title winning victory over Jonny and - an albeit injury ravaged - Alistair was therefore all the more compelling and amazing. Yet, with Non Stanford's wonderful victory the day before, there were still plenty of reasons for home celebration.

Triathlon enthusiasts, sports fans and a sizeable international contingent gathered together to cheer on their heroes on every yard of the course. Alongside this elite race, there were also age group and Paratriathlon races as well as a mass participation event open to anyone.
.
The race took in British landmarks and combined the history of London with the vibrancy of a sporting atmosphere




It takes a certain sort of person to let themselves in for such a gruelling test but more and more people are doing exactly that and, like cycling, the sport is progressing rapidly at all levels.

This is something which has not been missed by one of the key men responsible for this weekend and last month's RideLondon Cycling Grand Prix in Iain Edmondson.

Edmondson, Head of Major Events at the cities promotional organisation London & Partners, is a former university rower who speaks clad in his tracksuit just half-an-hour before entering the Serpantine to take on a second sporting quest after he successfully completed the 100 mile cycle around London and Surrey.

After being in Sydney to watch Steve Redgrave win his fifth Olympic gold medal in 2000, he realised that if he could not compete in a Games he would become involved in some other way.

He promptly formed part of the bid team for London 2012 and now has an integral role in the legacy project.

With the national anthem hailing Stanford's victory reverberating in the background as if to prove the truth of his words, he sees both the cycling and triathlon events as beneficial in various different ways.

"Legacy from the Games means a number of things but from my major events perspective there are three strands: economic benefits, sporting opportunity and international integration," he told insidethegames.

"There are delivery costs but these are more than offset. Research suggests each participant brings two extra people to spectate and if they come from outside London this brings a massive amount of expenditure to the city and is very good for the economy."

He added how there are also broadcasting costs as well as money raised through charities and as the events become more established this should increase further.

Paratriathlon events once again formed a major part of an Olympic legacy event with Great Britain's Charlotte Ellis one of the stars competing


After organising an annual event for five years the Triathlon Grand Final included 4,000 international participants across five days of racing and is consequently "a big step up and the biggest event in the sport."

Feedback will follow but surveys conducted at the RideLondon cycling found that 83 per cent considered the event excellent and 99 per cent would recommend it to others. As Edmondson said "we now have the statistics to prove the feedback", and with 80,000 signing up for next year's event within four weeks of the ballot opening, people are "clearly voting with their feet."

Many more events are on the horizon including the Rugby World Cup - with three London venues - in 2015, the European Swimming Championships in 2016 and the World Athletics Championships in 2017.

Bids have also been launched for events in hockey and cycling.

London & Partners' work goes beyond simply events however. It includes a monthly "Be Inspired" newsletter which reaches a network of five million people as well as the mobilisation of an ever expanding volunteer network which has been lauded as one of the major hallmarks of London's success.

Edmondson refuses to admit that the capital has received a disproportionate amount of this benefit. London is the only British city, he argues, with the necessary infrastructure and reputation to permit many major events.

Some events however, such as the next year's Glasgow Commonwealth Games, are held elsewhere and there is alot of coordination between different cities. It is also hard to dispute his point that the influx of international visitors will bring revenue for other local areas and thus London is "the gateway to the rest of the country."

Another interesting point raised is the genuinely pivotal role played by the Mayor of London Boris Johnson. "Of course Boris understands the political benefit," says Edmondson.

"But I had a 15 minute meeting with him in 2011 about RideLondon and he said, 'Why aren't we doing this already?'

"He's very enthusiastic and put his money where his mouth is by participating and he did the whole 100 miles in eight hours to show that if he can do it, anyone can."

Whether participating in the RideLondon 100 mile race or commuting to work Mayor Boris Johnson's enthusiasm has certainly boosted London's legacy project




As I hear these confident words and witness yet more sporting success it is hard to dispute that, contrary to many reports, the legacy of both the Mayor and the Olympics and Paralympics is indeed a positive one.

Yes, the sporting curriculum at schools remains questionable and the high levels of facilities are not replicated everywhere.

But as Edmondson argues participation and enthusiasm levels are thriving and there is a clear economic benefit in London and beyond.

As for elite level success the drama of this weekend showed there are no worries there. Jonny Brownlee's sprint-finish defeat was replicated by similar ones for Mo Farah at the Great North Run and for Mark Cavendish at the Tour of Britain.

David Florence pictured here celebrating with partner Richard Hounslow after winning the second of his gold medals in the C1 and C2 classes this weekend, has become another British star 


But this was offset by Stanford's victory as well as David Florence becoming the first ever slalom canoeist to win two world titles in the same event in Prague.

There is certainly nothing to be concerned about and with Stanford Welsh and Florence Scottish the success has a distinctly British tinge.

London's legacy is indeed proving a "gateway for the whole of the UK" and, as the chill of autumn gives way to the freeze of winter, more success will surely follow.. 

Nick Butler is a reporter for insidethegames

Who knows, finally, what swung things for the Tokyo 2020 bid? Clearly the late entrance into the Buenos Aires maelstrom of lobbying of the graceful Princess Hisako of Takamado - fluent in English and French, President of nine sports bodies - had a dramatic effect on International Olympic Committee (IOC) members, just as the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair reportedly had on them in the last knockings before the vote for the 2012 Games.

Clearly the decision to meet the worries over their leaking nuclear power station in Fukushima was another vital element of Tokyo's success - letters on the subject were circulated to all IOC members, and the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzō Abe, offered the following pledge on the issue: "Let me assure you the situation is under control. It has never done, and never will do, any damage to Tokyo."

There will have been emotional persuasion in the gathering together a few days before the vote of a long tableful of medal-winning athletes, ranging from a veteran of the football competition at the Tokyo Olympics of 1964 to a Paralympic swimmer with 15 golds.

The Tokyo bid committee return victorious to their home country


Tokyo, of course, has strong finances and a highly developed infrastructure. And you like to think the Tokyo vote was a vote for clean sport - a reflection of their strong anti-doping record, in marked contrast to the controversies and mass suspensions which undermined the efforts of their rivals in Turkey and Spain.

The comment of Seoul 1988 Games swimming gold medallist Daichi Suzuki, now President of the Japanese Swimming Association, that "we don't understand why we would cheat", and his additional assertion that taking the doping route to success was "not a Japanese characteristic" crystallised a profoundly important strand of their bidding effort.

But surely the key element for a nation that has suffered disastrous earthquakes and tsunami damage in the last two years, natural disruptions which have triggered the current alarm over leaking radioactivity, is the contention voiced by Ryosuke Irie, the London 2012 swimming medallist, that sport can help bring the country together.

That, and the unfailing ability of the Japanese to adapt and cope with whatever fate sends their way.

The last time the Olympics were held in Japan - the Winter Games hosted by Nagano in 1998 - the rumbling natural background made its presence felt during the competition with an earthquake which hit the city and many other central areas of the country which measured 5.0 on the Richter scale.

No serious harm or damage was done, thankfully, as buildings designed for just such an eventuality did no more than judder and sway. I know, because I was in one at the time, and once the ceiling light had ceased swinging back and forth, there was no other clue as to what had taken place.

The 18th Winter Games, however, called upon other aspects of Japanese flexibility as fog, driving rain and too much snow played havoc with the alpine skiing programme, where the showpiece men's downhill event on the opening Sunday had to be postponed three times.

The Nagano Olympics had to deal with fog, ice, too much snow, and one earthquake, but the organisers skated on, just as Shae-Lynn Bourne and Viktor Kraatz did in the ice dance exhibition


But the Games eventually cohered. The transportation, by and large, held up, the hosts were unfailingly friendly and more flexible than many had darkly predicted, and three new Olympic elements combined to provide outstanding points of interest.

The introduction of National Hockey League players to the Games resulted, belatedly, in a memorable tournament.

Canada departed with dignity intact after losing their semi-final to the eventual winners, the Czech Republic, on a shoot-out. Wayne Gretzky, making his Olympic and international farewell at the age of 37, was pained but restrained.

"When you don't win, you have to accept the lumps and take your bruises," he said. "When you win, you accept the flowers and roses."

The US collection of NHL millionaires, in contrast, left the Games talking money. Nothing unusual there, perhaps. But in this case it was the amount of damage they had caused to some of their rooms in the Olympic Village after being eliminated.

The organisers said the cost in terms of broken chairs and doors was $3,000 (£1,900/€2,200). The US players claimed it was no more than $1,000 (£630/€750). The cost in terms of bad public relations will be less easy to put a figure on.

The introduction of snowboarding to the Olympics proved predictably fraught as a culture clash saw Canada's Ross Rebagliati stripped of the slalom gold after testing positive for marijuana, to widespread exclamations of "What did you expect?"

Ross Rebagliati (centre) kept his gold for the first Olympic snowboard event after a whiff of controversy

But a dopey attitude to drawing up rules enabled the Canadian to reclaim the medal on appeal and wear it with pride while he was being "routinely questioned" by the Japanese police - for 11 hours. A technicality allowed Rebagliati to escape the unhappy distinction of becoming the first athlete to be suspended for taking a performance-inhibiting substance.

Although the US television rights holder, CBS, lost its most potent ratings-grabber when the US team disappeared at the quarterfinal stage of the ice hockey with three losses out of four defeats, there was still Tara Lipinski versus Michelle Kwan in figure skating - US v US - to lift ratings which had sagged to two-thirds of the levels averaged in the 1994 Games.

The last addition, curling, did its profile nothing but good with a series of absorbing games, fully justifying its introduction after being included as a demonstration event on previous occasions.

But if anyone wants an illustration of what Japanese success in sport does for the spirits of the nation, they need look no further than the exploits at the Nagano Games of ski jumper Masahiko Harada.

Harada, whose last jump at the 1994 Olympics had cost Japan the ski jump team gold in the 120m hill, came to the 1998 team contest as an individual bronze medallist whose form on his home ground had been wildly inconsistent.

Masahiko Harada's emotional success in the Nagano ski jump team event brought a nation together in celebration


He was consistent at least in his inconsistency. The first of his two jumps for the national team was so awful - 79.50 metres - that it was bettered by the bulk of the Korean jumpers who finished 13th and last.

But his final jump was 137m - further than which no jumper had gone. And so the man who had always seemed to smile in defeat became the man who cried in victory. In emotional terms, the effect was off the Richter scale. Now Japan has the chance to experience similar sporting invigoration.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. To follow him on Twitter click here.

They say you always remember your first. Mine in Olympics terms was Tokyo in 1964, where I was a fresh - faced young scribe in his early twenties (and one still with hair, if somewhat wet behind the ears!) assigned to his Games debut.

It was one that remains etched in the consciousness for many reasons, not least because I had been married just a few weeks before disappearing to the Far East for over a month. The new missus wasn't best pleased - though we're still together 49 years later.

And so the Olympic Rings have turned full circle. Tokyo it will be again in 2020 - although alas probably not a journey I shall be repeating in my journalistic dotage.

But Tokyo's selection as host city seven years hence evokes memories of what I consider the last of the "pure" Olympics, untainted by drugs, terrorism, boycotts, body searches, brown envelopes or other assorted scandals.

No one played political Games and perhaps for the last time competitors seemed to reflect the Olympic ideal that it is not so much the winning, but the taking part. Baron Pierre de Coubertin was surely smiling down on them benevolently.

Tokyo 1964 is what I consider the last of the "pure" Olympics

It is highly doubtful whether such purity of sporting spirit will prevail in 2020, for the Olympics have changed darkly beyond anything that Tokyo 1964 would recognise.

For one thing, there are pros involved now - plus quite a few cons.

In the dozen Summer Games I have covered since I have seen the Olympics manifestly outgrow anything that Tokyo could have offered them half century ago.

Then there was a simple, innocent charm about those Games that has never been totally replicated, no doubt because the Olympic bandwagon has rolled deep into too-frequently malevolent territory, beginning in 1968 when the Mexican Government ruthlessly gunned down protesting students in the notorious Place of the Three Cultures and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), not for the first time, suddenly developed a case of myopia.

Mexico City followed up with the Black Power demo by Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos. Four years earlier in Tokyo the only black and white issue was the fact that this was how the Olympics were viewed on our television screens.

Munich brought the Israeli massacre, Montreal, Moscow and Los Angeles were winged by boycotts and then in Seoul a red-eyed Ben Johnson injected drugs into the Olympic bloodstream where it has been coursing virulently through the veins ever since.

I missed Atlanta (some say I wasn't a bad judge) but Barcelona had been pleasantly good and while all had a few hiccups and controversies along the way Sydney, Athens and, of course London were eminently enjoyable.

While some distance from the simplistic Games of '64, they helped alleviate some of those earlier bad Olympic dreams.

Tokyo 1964 was a happy Olympics for Britain, who collected 20 medals overall including long-jump gold from Lynn Davies


No nightmares about Tokyo though. Just fond recollections.

I sometimes still hum the catchy jingle that woke us every day: "Good morning, Tokyo, happy to be greeting you."

These really were a happy Olympics, especially for Britain, who collected 20 medals overall with long-jump golds from Lynn "The Leap" Davies and the original Golden Girl, Mary Rand.

Plus outsider Ann Packer's shock triumph in the 800 metres and the poignant moment when the wife of the walker Ken Matthews dashed on to the track to embrace him as he crossed the line.

No politics in the last of the Olympics Summer Wine, but a future eminent politician played his part.

Menzies Campbell, later to become Lib Dem leader, was a former rugby winger whose fleet-footedness translated into sprinting for Britain in Tokyo.

Now Sir Menzies, 72-year-old "Ming" typified how different were those Games to those that followed. "They, were free of drugs - at least we assumed they were - and it was before commercialism set in," he told insidethegames. "Adidas gave us gave us a pair of spikes and a pair of warm-ups and if you were lucky you got a bag.

"Most of us had only run on grass or cinder tracks and I remember the team captain, Robbie Brightwell, looking at all those wonderful facilities there and saying to us: 'There are only two ways to compete here - be a total scrubber or go home with a gold medal'."

Ming didn't win gold but he was never a scrubber. His 10.2sec for the 100m was a British record that lasted for eight years and he once broke a 53-year-old record for the rarely run 300 yards. The year after Tokyo he was appointed British team captain.

Yoshinori Sakai, born on the day of the Hiroshima bomb, lights the
Tokyo 1964 Olympic flame


It rained quite a lot in Tokyo but no one seemed to mind. The Games were held late in the year, between October 10 and 24, the last lap of the Torch Relay from Olympia to light the flame poignantly being run by the 19-year-old Yoshinori Sakai, a young athlete born in Hiroshima on the day of the atomic bomb.

Swimmer Anita Lonsborough, a gold medallist in Rome four years earlier, carried the British flag, but it was the Stars and Stripes that fluttered most triumphantly in the Olympic Stadium.

Bob Hayes, one of the fastest men ever seen, returned the 100m sprint title to the United States and his compatriot Billy Mills, surprisingly defeated Australian favourite Ron Clarke in the 10,000m, becoming the first Native American to win Olympic gold.

The 5,000m was also a sad affair for the demoralised Clarke, who finished fourth to another American unknown, Bob Schul.

There were other shocks too, but one of the biggest was how comparatively easy it became to gain access to the Olympic Village.

In Tokyo, there was no hype, and no hassle either. Getting into the village was a piece of cake - or rather, a bottle of gin.

I should explain. Tokyo's Olympic Village was not the maximum-security compound that others, by necessity, later became.

No scowling armed police or heavy-handed militia. Just one charming chap, booted and suited in civvies, checking passes at the gate.

However, entry to journalists was restricted to certain times, not all of them convenient for our deadlines.

Although he spoke little English, our benevolent gatekeeper chum always seemed pleased to see us. We gathered he had a liking for all things British - not least, Booths Gin.

One of us happened to have a Duty Free bottle that we decided to present to him as a goodwill gesture, much to his delight.

From then on whenever we wanted to interview any of the athletes inside the village he would motion us through without any check, bowing low as he smilingly murmured: "Ah, Booths!"

It was during such a Booths-facilitated excursion that I had one of the most memorable encounters of my career.

Tokyo 1964 is where I became the first man to put Smokin' Joe Frazier on the floor

I was wandering through the village when hurtling around a corner pedalling furiously on a bike came this large American with the biggest thighs I had ever seen.

He swerved to avoid me and promptly fell off.

He looked the aggressive sort so I gulped and swiftly apologised. "No, problem," he replied, dusting himself down. "My fault. Shoulda looked where I was going. You ok fellah?"

Thus, I became the first man to put Smokin' Joe Frazier on the floor.

Fortunately for me the late Joe, who went on to win the Olympic heavyweight gold and the world heavyweight championship, wasn't smokin', just smilin'.

While my personal, preference for the 2020 Games would have been persistent contenders Istanbul, where there would have been a refreshing change of pace and culture in an alluring city that straddles two continents, I have no doubt Tokyo will do a superb job as second time round hosts.

And it may or may not be significant that no Japanese athlete has ever failed a drugs test in the Olympics or, as far as can be ascertained, at any other major sports event.

The 2020 Olympics are in a safe pair of hands


As Jacques Rogge said after opening the envelope, being a surgeon he appreciates a safe pair of hands, and Tokyo will provide them. Clean ones, too, apparently.

Their 2020 vision is based on a sound economy, with a reserve fund for the Games of $4.5 billion (£2.9 billion/€3.3 billion).

The bid was built on the pedigree of Japan successfully staging not only a previous Olympics, but the football World Cup, an Athletics World Championships and a Winter Olympics.

Japanese fans are polite, enthusiastic, surprisingly knowledgeable and respectful of Olympic ideals. There will be no problems with TV and sponsorship revenue, and infrastructure is excellent.

And by 2020 the nuclear accident of Fukushima should be long forgotten.

Of course, there will be a hard act to follow after the extraordinary flair of London 2012 and, despite current misgivings, what is sure to be a carnival in Rio.

And here's a thought. With wrestling back in the Olympics at least for 2016 and 2020 - something the Japanese themselves had wanted - might we even see sumo on the menu?

Personally, I'd settle for another touch of sporting sushi.

So, good morning again Tokyo. Happy to be greeting you again.

And thanks for the memories.

Alan Hubbard is a 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 Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

The race to lead the most powerful club in world sport has attracted a record number of candidates.

The six who would be President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) are Thomas Bach - Germany, Sergey Bubka - Ukraine, Richard Carrión - Puerto Rico, Denis Oswald - Switzerland, Ser Miang Ng - Singapore, and CK Wu - Chinese Taipei.

Three time Olympic sailor Jacques Rogge stands down after 12 years at the helm. By profession a surgeon, his leadership carried the hallmarks of precision. A leading light in the European Olympic Committees, he joined the IOC in 1991. Ten years later in Moscow, he beat Korea's Un Yong Kim, Canadian Dick Pound, Hungary's Pál Schmitt and American Anita de Frantz to become the second IOC President from Belgium.

The Youth Olympic Games (YOG) was the big idea of his Presidency. Rogge saw them become a reality in 2010.

"If I had the privilege of something like this I would have been very happy," he said. "What we never had was this combination of sport and education."

Jacques Rogge saw his Youth Olympic Games idea become a reality in Singapore in 2010


Rogge made a point of always spending a night in the athletes' village and made clear his concern about the support structure around competitors and set up a commission to look at "entourage".

It was no coincidence that the YOG was the first to include an oath for coaches.

There have been only eight full time Presidents of the IOC in the 119 years since its foundation in Paris.

The meeting was set up by Baron Pierre de Coubertin. One of those attending was Demetrius Vikelas, a Greek living in Paris. He represented the Panhellenic Society of Athens and was vice-president of the Society for Greek studies.

"I sued for the rights of Greece, it being a question of the re-establishment of a Greek institution," he said.

"The holding of the Olympic Games in Athens is not simply confirmation of the Panhellenic Gymnastic Society's noble aim of elevating the mind by exercising the body. It is the display of a Hellenophile sentiment...and there is also a new bond between Greece and Europe."

Vikelas was voted IOC President as Athens was chosen as host city for the Games of the first Olympiad of the Modern Era in 1896.

Baron Pierre de Coubertin was President of the IOC from 1896 to 1925


The next Games were awarded to Paris, so Coubertin now took over the IOC leadership. He remained in office until 1925, although Godefroy de Blonay took temporary charge during the First World War. Coubertin pressed for new sports, promoted artistic competition and even designed the five rings symbol.

The Belgian Count Henri de Baillet-Latour succeeded Coubertin in 1925, and was immediately confronted with disputes over what the term "amateur" actually meant. Some countries threatened to withdraw from the movement.

After Berlin and Garmisch-Partenkirchen were selected as 1936 hosts, there were further challenges for the IOC. The decision was taken before the Nazis came to power, but the swastika soon loomed large.

Baillet-Latour told Hitler to remove anti Jewish banners on the approaches to Garmisch-Partenkirchen before the Winter Games. These were taken down. In Berlin, anti-Semitic newspapers disappeared from news kiosks, but it was all so much window dressing. Most Jewish athletes were excluded from German teams.

When Hitler occupied the Sudetenland, IOC founding member Jiří Guth-Jarkovský was allowed to remain as member in Bohemia and Moravia. The IOC President referred simply to "the recent changes in Central Europe...and thanked the German members for the successful conclusions of these negotiations".

Baillet-Latour passed away in his sleep in 1942, the only President to die in office. His fellow Belgian, Olympic fencer and water polo player Victor Boin wrote of "his life as a veritable hymn to the youth of the world".

Henri de Baillet-Latour (left) with Adolf Hitler, who sent a letter of condolence to Baillet-Latour's widow and a wreath to his funeral upon his death in 1942


Belgium was under wartime occupation and Hitler sent a letter of condolence to Baillet-Latour's widow and a wreath to the funeral.

From his home in neutral Sweden, International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) President Sigfrid Edström kept in touch with IOC members and was later confirmed as President.

"The real reason for the existence of the Olympic Movement is to improve the human race, not only physically but by giving it a greater nobility of mind," he said.

After the war, he was anxious to revive the Olympic cycle as soon as possible. Only three years later, he strode out at Wembley to present his fellow IOC members to King George VI before the 1948 Olympics.

In 1952 American millionaire Avery Brundage became IOC President at the height of the cold war. An Olympic athlete himself in 1912, he had spoken out against any boycott of the 1936 Olympics and many, even within the IOC, saw him as somewhat dictatorial. He oversaw the re-entry of a symbolically united German team, but did not engage with Communist China so millions remained excluded from the Olympics.

He was also a staunch defender of amateur regulations.

"No-one can buy an Olympic medal. No one profits from the Olympic Games," he told the IOC in 1960.

He targeted the Winter Games, regarded the skiers as professionals in all but name and expelled Austrian Karl Schranz in 1972. Effigies of Brundage were burnt in Vienna.

Both Lord Burghley and Comte Jean de Beaumont challenged him in Presidential elections, unsuccessfully as it turned out.

In 1972, he was heavily criticised for his handling of the Olympic village hostage crisis. In his speech at the memorial service, he unwisely compared the killing of Israeli athletes with political difficulties over Rhodesia. At the Closing Ceremony, the Munich scoreboard even got his name wrong - it read "Goodbye Avery Brandage".

Millions remained excluded from the Olympics during Avery Brundage's time in office


His successor was the Irish peer, Lord Killanin. Within months, designated 1976 Winter hosts Denver had withdrawn, leaving the IOC to find a replacement. Innsbruck came to the rescue twelve years after they had first staged the Games.

Costs were rising as Montreal made ready for the summer Games. In fact, the Olympic Stadium was unfinished when they opened.

There were almost overwhelming political problems. New Zealand's Rugby team toured South Africa in 1976 and the African nations boycotted Montreal in protest. The Canadian Government, mindful of trade with the Peoples Republic of China, refused visas to Taiwanese competitors. At one stage the Americans threatened withdrawal in support of Taiwan. Lord Killanin did later broker an agreement between the two Chinas, but it wasn't until the eighties that they competed side by side.

As Moscow 1980 approached, American President Jimmy Carter called for a boycott after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The United States, Canada, Germany and Japan stayed away. The British and Australians led resistance to Government pressure and did compete; both however, flew the Olympic flag.

"I would like to welcome all the athletes and officials especially those who have shown their complete independence to travel to compete despite many pressures placed on them," said Lord Killanin at the Opening Ceremony, but many events were devalued by the boycott.

In eight years, Lord Killanin had enough strife to last a lifetime and it had affected his health. His final Olympic act before stepping down at the age of 66 was to close the Games.

"I implore the sportsmen of the world to unite in peace before a holocaust descends. Alas sport is intertwined with politics but sport must not be used for political purposes especially when other political, diplomatic and economic means have not been tried."

Juan Antonio Samaranch had been voted in as President in Moscow, the last to be elected in an Olympic year. He beat the German Willi Daume, skiing supremo Marc Hodler of Switzerland and Canadian Jim Worrall.

Samaranch had become an IOC member in 1966 and later recalled his election.

"In theory, Spain should not have had a second member at the time, but Brundage said to me, 'One day you will be President'."

Juan Antonio Samaranch was the last IOC President to be elected in an Olympic year

Some were troubled by his involvement with General Franco's regime. When democracy returned to Spain. Samaranch became ambassador to Moscow. He built bridges where none existed, though he was criticised during his Presidency for presenting the Olympic order to East German leader Erich Honecker and Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu.

He could not prevent a tit for tat Eastern bloc boycott of the 1984 Games in Los Angeles despite his best diplomatic efforts. The boycott was confirmed on the very day the Torch Relay began its journey across the Americas.

Even so, a record 140 countries took part in Los Angeles. The Games were a stunning success, encouraging other cities to bid. In 1986 Samaranch announced his home city Barcelona would stage the 1992 Olympics.

The problems of 1988 were still to be solved. North Korea demanded a share of hosting the Games with Seoul. Diplomacy came to nothing here, but in Sydney twelve years later, the two Koreas did march together under a special flag. It was hailed as a symbolic, if short-lived breakthrough.

By now Samaranch had put his own stamp on the Olympic Movement. The IOC had its first female members, athlete representation became a reality and the Olympic Movement introduced its own sponsorship programme.

The world itself changed between Seoul and Barcelona. The Berlin Wall fell, taking with it the old Eastern bloc. Nelson Mandela was released from prison as Apartheid ended and South Africa re-entered the Olympic arena.

The statues of Jacques Rogge, Pierre de Coubertin and Juan Antonio Samaranch in a public park in Beijing

As the Olympic Movement celebrated its 100th anniversary in Atlanta, Samaranch was criticised for failing to rein in his membership, particularly when the extent of corruption and inducements in Olympic bidding were revealed.

His last Olympic Games as President in 2000 was tinged with personal tragedy. His wife Marie-Therese was too ill to travel to Sydney and died as the Games began.

In 2001, the IOC returned to Moscow, the city where Samaranch had been elected President. He said goodbye by announcing Beijing would host the 2008 Olympics. The Chinese recognised his contribution when they installed statues of three great IOC Presidents in a park in the Dongsi area of Beijing. Flanking Coubertin were Rogge and Samaranch.

When the Olympic flame burns in Sochi next February, the world at large will be introduced to a new Olympic supremo. Whoever gets the job will shape the very future of world sport.

Born in Hackney, a stone's throw from the 2012 Olympic Stadium, Philip Barker has worked as a television journalist for 25 years. He began his career with Trans World Sport, then as a reporter for Sky Sports News and the ITV breakfast programme. A regular Olympic pundit on BBC Radio, Sky News and TalkSPORT, he is associate editor of the Journal of Olympic History, has lectured at the National Olympic Academy and contributed extensively to Team GB publications.

It is unclear just how important three days of press calls will be in swaying the minds of dithering International Olympic Committee (IOC) members on the eve a vote to decide the host city of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Yet as Tokyo, Istanbul and Madrid now take the briefest of pauses before bigger tests tomorrow, a media assault combining "patsy questions" and thunderbolts - mostly in the latter case from my tenacious editor at insidethegames Duncan Mackay - was a lot of fun and revealed huge contrasts in strategy, style and success.

As a novice to the mirky machinations of the Olympic movement what has struck me the most is how many issues there are at stake and how far beyond the sporting world these go.

The worst bit, for most organisers of large sporting events, is the bit beforehand. (Although the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, in their different areas, went some way to disproving this truism).

And the very worst bit is that phoney war, dead calm period before real sporting activity gets underway, when the world's press is gathered in one hyperactive mass on one's doorstep and, for want of gold medal stories, gets to work on worrying and warning.

Next up for worrying and warning is the Sochi 2014 Winter Games. The event has already had a severe shaking - firstly in physical terms with a series of earthquakes and tremors in the region, and more recently in figurative terms with the calls for a boycott over the new law instituted in Russia forbidding the open espousal of gay rights.

Other concerning rumours are currently circulating – that the narrow roads around the venues will still be too busy to be viable, and that measures being considered include blocking access to certain numbers of local drivers, or even preventing them from driving for the period of the Games.

Less importantly I have heard recently that concerns over the volume of accommodation required by the press has led to a fall-back plan of housing "overspill" journalists in boats moored in Sochi harbour. (I remember staying on a press boat moored on a waterway in Ghent during the 2000 European Indoor Championships. I must say I liked it. But it may not suit those expecting a hotel room.)

Fingers crossed, and touching wood, the Sochi 2014 Winter Games will be a success and will run smoothly. To start from nothing and reach the point to which the Russian authorities have aspired is one hell of a task, and if it can be accomplished it will be a major feather in the home country's cap.

What is not in doubt, to judge by a progress report I have just received, is the likely quality of the volunteers who will endeavour make the Sochi 2014 Games work.

Anna, who has kindly sent me an update on her work at a succession of Test events in Sochi this year, was one of a number of prospective 2014 Olympics volunteers who were sent over to Britain last year to learn whatever they could from being Games Makers at the London 2012 Olympics.

Games Makers at the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics do the 'Mobot'

"To tell the truth, I learnt a lot during the Games in London," she writes. "Of course, being a volunteer at different sport events is great but working at the Olympic Games makes you plunge into the atmosphere of the Olympic London, feel its Spirit.

"The minute we landed in Heathrow airport we really believed that we are in the Olympic capital: friendly volunteers welcomed us at the airport and helped us get through all the control zones.

"I'm very thankful to Sochi 2014 for giving us the fantastic opportunity to look "behind the curtains". Feeling myself a part of the great world-famous event was really remarkable.

"I was a Protocol and Linguistic Services Team Member working at the Olympic Stadium. You cannot even imagine how excited I was to know that the Opening Ceremony of London 2012 would be on the 27th of July, my birthday!!! I had a shift this day at a VIP lounge. Helping the guests I also had a chance to enjoy the fantastic show! It was the best birthday ever!

"I am absolutely sure that the experience we got in London will help us to provide the best services to Sochi 2012 guests. Coming back from London we shared our knowledge with other Sochi volunteers during the course of trainings prepared by the Sochi Organizing Committee (sic).

"I think that in Sochi the job will be a little bit easier because the majority of volunteers already had the chance to visit the city, see the venues and take part in test events. Before we went to London we saw all the venues and the city only at the multimedia presentations, internet and had the idea about the Games according to the words of experts from Sochi and London."

Prime Minister David Cameron meets Games Makers at the ExCel Centre

Since returning from London, Anna has worked at several Test events in Sochi including the FIS Skiing World Cup, on the newly fashioned Rosa Khutor slopes, and the FIS Cross-country World Cup.

"During these test events I was working at the event services team that gave me a great chance to learn the venues and work with other volunteers," she reports. "I was a team leader having up to 170 volunteers under me. This is a great responsibility but I have learnt how to work in team thanks to London Games and different trainings and seminars given by Sochi Organizing Committee.

"Besides, the venue managers and Sochi 2014 staff were always ready to help us. One more good thing is that at every venue we had Volunteer rooms where we could find some snacks, hot tea and different soft drinks.

"It was really great to see the victories of world-famous sport stars, and of course we were so glad to hear kind words from the athletes, coaches, spectators concerning our work at the test events.

"I also took part in the NOC Chefs de Mission seminar and NPC Chefs de Mission seminar. It was also a great experience for me as during the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games I will be working in the Olympic and Paralympic Services team.

"It was so encouraging to hear 'Good morning!', 'Great work, guys!' and other friendly words from Jacques Rogge, Sir Philip Craven, Dmitriy Chernyshenko and other honorable guests of these events."

Asked about how much of a concern there has been over the lack of snow for, for instance, the freestyle skiing test event, Anna's reply is suitably affirmative: "I saw lots of snow in Sochi and have no doubts that the organisers and volunteers will do their best to make Sochi 2014 Olympic Games the best ever."

Woven into the commercialism and political show of every big international sporting championship there is this rich and precious thread of idealism, an idealism which those such as Anna demonstrate with their actions and words.

At last year's London Olympics, my friend Russell was a Games Maker charged with overseeing the cycling course for the road racing and time trial events. insidethegames carried his journal of emotions, before, during and after the Games - emotions which began with a characteristic degree of scepticism (Russell didn't like the happy-clappy attempts to engender team building at the selection interview in the ExCel Centre) and which transformed in the course of that heady summer of sport into...well...let Russell describe it for himself:

My friend Russell on Games Maker duty at the London 2012 cycling road race course

"I have found myself being overcome with emotion during the whole thing. It was almost as if I needed to re-boot my sense of being British. Although not linked to the volunteering, this feeling has been very surprising.

"I sat through the technical rehearsal for the opening ceremony with hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, and my eyes pricking with the wonderful- ness of it all. It was as if Danny Boyle and his team were saying 'Forget all the doom-mongers, the people who doubt Britain, who moan at our young people, the people who want to pound us against the wall for our colonial past.

"Because that does not matter anymore. We can write our own futures, we can believe in something wonderful.

"And the thanks that were said to all us volunteers can make me cry. It wets my eyes as I write this. It might be daft but it is there. It may be a function of other things going on in my life, but 2012 is part of this. And I even appreciate Dave's letter - even if I find it hard not to believe he would love volunteering to help him cut public spending!!

"So my pride was actually less to do with British success on the field of play - I was more proud of Bradley winning the Tour de France for example. It was more to do with delivering the Olympics to the world, with effort, planning, forethought and a British, cheerful, relaxed, non-officious way of doing things.

"Let volunteering be an intensely personal thing, not for use or appropriation by others, under a banner or a slogan. Because this Olympics was about the sport, the young (mostly) people pushing themselves to the limit.

"We could all walk towards this goal untainted by the more long-term practical problems of real life. To be reminded of the essential good nature of almost all human beings is a supremely good thing."

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. To follow him on Twitter click here.

A strange race is winding towards a still not wholly predictable conclusion in a strained atmosphere, as Olympic bigwigs gather beside the River Plate for a hugely significant International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session.

After the slick and sophisticated war-games of recent Olympic-host contests, this three-way fight between Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo to host the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games has at times been more like a session of rock, paper, scissors.

This is by no means entirely the fault of the three teams of contestants, who are trying their hearts out: the world has become a more turbulent and unpredictable place since the last such race reached its denouement in Copenhagen, in the presence of the world's most powerful man, and some of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune hurled at the current trio of candidate cities would be beyond the capacity of any bid committee entirely to control.

In such circumstances, the city that takes the chequered flag in the Buenos Aires Hilton on Saturday (September 7) evening may be determined in no small measure by the extent to which the mood of IOC members, their troubles largely rinsed away by still copious floods of televisions and marketing dollars, has been transformed by the tribulations afflicting so many people and organisations outside the bubble.

All is still to play for at the IOC Session in Buenos Aires


The more chastened and uneasy this unique electorate feels about the state of the world, the more circumstances are likely to favour Madrid's increasingly shrewdly managed bargain-basement Olympic project.

The tense atmosphere is a result partly of another high-stakes race whose outcome is soon to be determined: the competition to succeed Jacques Rogge as IOC President.

With September 10 the key date for that particular contest, six of the biggest beasts in the Olympic jungle are campaigning every bit as assiduously as the bid cities themselves, while endeavouring outwardly to maintain every appearance of business as usual, of camaraderie and bonhomie.

At such times, every statement can be loaded, every gesture stiff with self-conscious calculation; the contestants would not be human were this not so: one of them, after all - but only one - will inherit the mantle of the most powerful man in sport, in all probability for 12 years.

These last few days before IOC members pass their verdict promise to be made almost more uncomfortable because so many observers suspect that one of the candidates - Germany's Thomas Bach - though not impregnable, is close to having the race in the bag.

Thomas Bach is close to having the IOC Presidency within his grasp



While the candidates and their staunchest supporters are pouring their energies into what will surely be one of the most intense weeks of lobbying of their lives, therefore, the minds of others now streaming into Buenos Aires will be starting to turn to manoeuvring for position in the eight-year Presidential term that lies ahead.

It is all very uncomfortable.

The body language late last night when Executive Board members and their wives/partners returned to the Hilton lobby from a steak dinner across town was incredibly revealing.

While the partners, in one corner, seemed genuinely to be revelling in each other's company, the Board members, hunched around a bar-room table 20 metres away appeared uncharacteristically stiff and subdued.

Having so many of the IOC's top brass visibly consumed by this other contest must, of course, be frustrating for the bidding cities that must sense more keenly than anyone how tight and turbulent their race is.

Even with the huge strides Madrid has made in recent months, aided by several formidable strokes of luck, it remains impossible to call a winner with any degree of confidence.

What I think can be said is that the victor will be decided by the second-choice votes of the third-placed candidate.

Madrid has polled strongly in the past in the first round of voting; for this reason, and this reason alone, I see them as the least likely of the three to go out at this stage.

They also have the small advantage of presenting last on Saturday.

This gives them the opportunity to send IOC members off to a well-earned lunch with the words of Felipe, Prince of Asturias, the bid's newly-unearthed rock star, ringing in their ears.

Felipe, Prince of Asturias, (centre) adds royal clout to Madrid 2020's bid

Istanbul and Tokyo have each had formidable external issues to deal with inconveniently close to the finish line that would almost certainly have destroyed their chances in any other recent contest of this type.

Both are still hanging in there, bloodied but unbowed. Either might yet win.

Hasan Arat, the Istanbul bid's relentlessly upbeat chairman, offered a neat turn of phrase at a media conference in the Sheraton.

"I am a basketball player," he said, beaming like Turkish sunshine.

"I need to play the last three seconds."

Every member of all three teams in this strangest of contests would do well to follow this advice.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.

Later this week, I will have the honour of being part of the team that makes wrestling's final presentation to the full membership of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This will be, without question, one of the most important days in the three thousand year history of our sport, but it will be especially significant for women around the world.

Women's wrestling officially joined the Olympic programme at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games and as we approach our ten-year anniversary, we are faced with the possibility of disappearing from the very programme we fought so hard to be a part of.

To understand how important opportunities for women's wrestling are, you only need to look at my fellow presentation team member, Lise Legrand and myself. Both of us were originally inspired by male wrestlers to try our hand at what was a male-dominated sport. It is our hope that our hard work, determination and our Olympic medals, now serve as inspiration to young female wrestlers from around the world to break down gender barriers and achieve their own personal dreams.

And now our sport will embrace the Olympic dreams of female athletes more than ever. Starting at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, FILA has added two additional weight classes for women while reducing two for men, providing the opportunity for more women to participate in the Olympic Games. These women will not only add more excitement to the Olympic Games, but when they return home, they will encourage even more women to participate in sport.

Over the last six months, the Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles (FILA), now under the direction of its new President, Nenad Lalovic, has introduced additional groundbreaking changes that have modernised this ancient sport. These changes were necessary and if we are honest, we should have initiated them on our own and long ago.

Nenad Lalovic, pictured with IOC President Jacques Rogge, has led a period of groundbreaking change for wrestling


It took significant action from the IOC Executive Board for us to recognise what we needed to do. We have made tremendous progress in just six short months and I am excited about how our sport will evolve even further. We will accept nothing less than a "new wrestling", which is an innovative, exciting and modern sport.

FILA has created or restructured seventeen Commissions to better govern our sport and we are ensuring gender and athlete participation and balance on each Commission. This new governance will dramatically improve our sport every day, not just in Olympic years. I have taken this restructuring and the possibilities that come with it to heart, as I have decided to stand for one of the seats available to athletes. I want to help ensure that these changes are enacted and we continue to make improvements to our sport.

The new rule changes make sure that wrestling is about speed, strength and strategy. A wrestler can no longer be passive and win a match. The point system has changed to reward action, which is making our sport more attractive to spectators, the media and sponsors. Wrestlers at our junior and cadet levels learned this at their recently completed World Championships and have shared positive feedback with FILA on the new scoring system.

Social media is playing a big part in the campaign to save Olympic wrestling


Wrestling is focusing on digital technology and social media, as well. Over the last six months, FILA has incorporated Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and more into its daily communications with FILA Bureau Members, wrestlers of all nationalities and Olympic wrestling fans. FILA's Facebook page and Twitter account are now followed by a record number of fans enjoying photos, videos and content provided by FILA.