A question of sport for the pub quizzers: Which prominent sports figure likely to be the next President of his country failed a pre-Olympics drugs test?

The answer? Vitali Klitschko, until this week the world heavyweight champion and now presently engaged in the toughest fight of his life as leader of a political party his native Ukraine aiming to KO the dictatorial reigning incumbent.

Klitschko has proved himself one of boxing's supreme champions, yet how many recall that back in 1996 he was ruled out of representing Ukraine in the Atlanta Games after testing positive for a steroid derivative which he claimed he had taken unwittingly when trying to recover from injury?

Instead his place at super-heavyweight was taken by his younger brother Wladimir, who won the gold medal, and subsequently both went on to dominate the professional heavyweight division, tidying up the fragmented titles between them.

Vitali's World Boxing Council (WBC) belt has always been regarded as the most authentic, but yesterday that was relinquished after almost a decade in order for him to concentrate on the political and ideological struggle in Ukraine.

Vitali Klitschko has dominated the world heavyweight scene, losing only two fights in his professional career ©Bongarts/Getty Images

The 6ft 7in "Dr Ironfist" is currently standing tall on the streets of capital Kyiv, attempting to calm the violent anti-Government protests that have captured the world's attention

The WBC have declared him "Champion Emeritus" in recognition of his magnificent contribution to the sport.

Technically this allows him to challenge a new champion should he wish to resume boxing. But the 42-year-old Klitschko says:"That is something I currently cannot imagine. My focus is on politics in Ukraine and I feel the people there need me."

Apart from Muhammad Ali, Klitschko surely is the most remarkable heavyweight champion in history. Like Wladimir, 37,he holds a PhD in sports science and is as fluent in four languages as he has been with those iron fists.

Now he has an altogether different fight on his hands as leader of pro-Western, anti-Russian party the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform, whose initials appropriately translate into the Ukrainian word for Punch.

Massive crowds have demonstrated for weeks in Kyiv against vilified President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to shun closer ties with the European Union and Klitschko has been prominent in the protests which have infuriated Russia's president Vladimir Putin, who is known to be pressuring the Ukrainian Government.

World heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko has joined demonstrators on the streets in Ukraine's capital Kyiv as protests against the Government have continued ©AFP/Getty Images

Klitschko's anti-corruption, pro-European platform has made him Ukraine's most popular politician. He is now said to be 20 per cent ahead in the polls for a Presidential race likely to be far fiercer than any of his 17 title fights, emerging as the main challenger to Yanukovich in elections scheduled for 2015.

His last fight in the ring was in September 2012 when he stopped Manuel Charr in the fourth round. Prior to that was his points defeat of Britain's Dereck Chisora, who notoriously spat water in his face at the weigh-in. Klitschko's stoic reaction was an indication of the character he now displays as a political leader.

He retires boasting the highest knockout percentage in history, more than 87 per cent of his opponents being chopped down with that wrecking ball right hand.

Klitschko himself has never been knocked off his feet in 47 bouts and he has barely lost a round since his 2003 defeat in an epic battle with Lennox Lewis when he was halted with an hideaous eye injury when ahead on points.

That was one of only two defeats, the other when he was forced to retire with a shoulder injury against Chris Byrd.

Now the WBC are likely to match leading contender Bermane Stiverne, a Haitian-born Canadian, with America's big-punching sensation Deontay Wilder for the vacant title.

However another possible scenario might see the title might remain in the Klitschko family, with Stiverne or Wilder paired with Wladimir, who holds the other three versions- WBA, IBF and WBO.

This would bring about a unified world heavyweight title for the first time since Lewis retired after fighting Vitali ten years ago.

Crowd of protesters gathered in Kyiv's Independence Square watch Vitali Klitschko, now Ukraine's opposition leader, delivering a speech ©Getty Images

As for Vitali, this son of a former Soviet air force colonel now becomes a true political heavyweight, believing his sports career will assist him to triumph. " Success in any sport requires concentration, training, determination and talent," he says. "Sport gave me the will to win, the ability to make quick decisions, to realise their full potential. These qualities are very important in politics.

"My country needs a change. Ukrainians deserve a better life . I saw how people live in Europe and the US and came to politics to introduce standards of living, values, rights, and freedoms of the European community in my country.

"My main goal is for Ukraine to be a European, modern country with European standards of life. I will decide with people who have the same vision, the same dream to change the situation."

Klitschko is following a similar political path to another contemporary boxing legend, Manny Pacquiao, now a Congressman in the Philippines, who is also considering a run for the Presidency there.

Fighting out of the pro-Western "Orange" corner against the pro-Moscow "Red" corner Klitschko has had a long-standing interest in politics, previously running for mayor of Kyiv and being an elected a member of the Ukraine Parliament - where fellow national sports icon Sergeyi Bubka was also a member from 2002 until 2006 before electing to concentrate on sports politics.

Vitali Klitschko addresses the Ukraine Parliament in Kyiv where he claims he is fighting with his mind, not his fists ©AFP/Getty Images

On several occasions he has acted as peacemaker in the regular punch-ups in the volatile Parliament. He explains: "In the ring they call me Dr Ironfist. Perhaps some expected me to begin my Parliamentary career by bashing heads, literally. However, I said early on that my style in politics will be focused on the battle for ideas that lead to changes in Ukraine."

K1, as he is known, has represented Ukraine at the Council of Europe and, first made his first mark in politics in the ring in December 2004, when he wore an orange flag on his shorts in support of the revolution that initially ousted President Yanukovych after he was accused of election fraud.

"These days I spend 90 per cent of my time on politics," he told insidethegames last year at his Alpine training camp in Austria. "Sometimes I don't sleep too well because the brain is burning with what I have to do.

"In boxing, I am alone in the ring but in politics it is team work. I have some good people around me. Alone I can do nothing.

"Ukraine needs to be a European country, we are European with our history and mentality. Geographically we are in the middle of Europe but we are very far away from Europe with our life standards.

"We need to make many changes. In 1991, I was 20 years old. I voted for the independence of our country. Everyone had a dream to build a new modern democratic Ukraine. Last summer we celebrated 20 years independence. Sadly, we have become a corrupt country. Now I want to stop my homeland sliding into tyranny."

Vitali Klitschko has made no secret of his political affiliations, wearing an orange flag on his trunks in December 2004, when he beat Britain's Danny Williams in Las Vegas ©Getty Images

As an MP, he has campaigned vigorously for the release of Mrs Yulia Tymoshenko, the former Ukrainian Prime Minister was imprisoned for "abuse of office" - a charge that her supporters claim was politically motivated

"Democracy is my dream and and that is what I am fighting for. But we cannot be a democratic country with political prisoners."

Klitschko's ideals surely would have found favour with the late Nelson Mandela, who said he not fought for democracy in South Africa he would love to have been the world heavyweight champion.

How apt that one who actually is now treads a similar long walk to freedom

That drugs aberration long forgotten and forgiven, the great champion has become a contender again, this time in an altogether dirtier arena.

Mandela surely would have applauded this fellow freedom fighter.

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for the 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

Regardless of whether baseball and softball are ultimately successful in their attempt for inclusion at Tokyo 2020, the refusal to dismiss such a possibility by International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach has provided light at the end of a decade long tunnel.

I first began to closely follow Olympic sport during Athens in 2004. The following year the controversial decision was made to remove the two sports from the Olympic programme and they consequently registered little, on my radar at least, at what proved their final Games in Beijing.

Fast forward to this year, and the beginnings of my journalistic career at the IOC Session in Buenos Aires brought only more despair as the two sports, now united within the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), were conclusively swept aside by wrestling in a race for 2020 inclusion that appeared doomed from the outset.

Many would argue, of course, baseball, with its billion dollar franchises, does not need to be in the Olympics. The best players did not compete anyway and it is far less deserving than a sport like wrestling where Olympic gold medal is the undisputed pinnacle, they would say.

The co-Presidents of the WBSC Riccardo Fraccari and Don Porter console each other after more disappointment in Buenos Aires ©AFP/Getty Images


This may be true to an extent in the United States but try saying that the Olympics do not matter to the British baseball fraternity.

In Britain, where baseball is very much a minority sport, exclusion was a bitter blow with all manner of negative repercussions - with the fact the Games in question was a home one making the hit all the harder.

"I remember being in the Czech Republic preparing for the Euros in 2005 when the Olympic vote was happening," player turned National Development Manager Will Lintern told insidethegames. "The British team were so excited on one side of a Pizzeria with the French distraught on the other side.

"We were sitting around the table looking at each other and thinking who is young enough to have the opportunity to compete? I was one of those athletes and I was thinking, 'This is my career - I am going to be spending the next seven years of my life getting ready for 2012.'

"Two days later we get the decision that baseball won't be there. To get that adulation crashing down to 'sorry guys not you' was a bitter blow which no one saw coming. It was a shot in the dark which in many ways was quite heartbreaking."

These words bear a stark contrast from those, like hope and opportunity, that you usually hear associated with the Games.

Rather than citing financial and commercial losses, Lintern described the greatest impact of not being involved as the missed opportunity to capitalise on the raised awareness that Olympic inclusion would have brought.

"I don't remember a single sporting event that has captured the nation like the Olympics did," he said, before citing the example of handball where, despite being another minority sport, the national federation website crashed due to the strength of interest following the Games.

"To miss out on that and see other sports benefit hurts because it could have been us. Baseball for me is one of those few sports that when you look at an athlete, no matter who you are, you can see someone like you and that is an inspiration to get involved.

You have got to hand it to Thomas Bach, the new International Olympic Committee (IOC) President: in the space of three months, he has infused the IOC's Executive Board with a renewed sense of vigour, and of purpose.

I don't know at what point in the IOC top brass's marathon four-day brainstorming session in Montreux it was taken. And it may be a trick of the camera. But I thought I detected one or two rather dazed expressions in the informal Christmas-tree photograph of those taking part that was used to illustrate the IOC's summary of the deliberations.

Serving as an Executive Board member during the early phase of the German's Presidency will not, I suspect, turn out to be a role for the faint-hearted.

Last week's gathering is one stage of a process that we now know will not be completed until around this time next year in Monaco.

The extended get-together in one of the citadels of jazz did, nevertheless produce some not insignificant decisions.

The International Olympic Committee Executive Board appear to have a new sense of purpose under President Thomas Bach ©IOC

Take for example the $20 million (£12 million/€14.5 million) of new money to help combat the twin threats of corruption and doping.

The $10 million (£6 million/€7 million) anti-corruption/manipulation fund looks timely to say the least, while a similar-sized budget to fund new anti-doping research, in particular new detection techniques, may come as a godsend for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), whose finances have been growing ever more stretched.

The Montreal-based agency reported deficits together totalling well over $1 million (£614,000/€728,000)in 2011 and 2012, prompting it to warn in June that it would be forced to scale back activities if the Governments - which contribute 50 per cent of its funding, but which have been desperately hard-pressed themselves in recent times - were not prepared to stump up more cash.

It remains to be seen whether Governments will now respond to the IOC's invitation to match its new contribution, although it is hard to hold out too much hope.

Even if they do not, though, this represents a substantial sum, equivalent to around one-third of WADA's annual budget.

Other moves are very much in line with views expressed by Bach during his successful Presidential campaign.

For example, the decision to encourage 2022 Olympic Winter Games bidders to "make the broadest possible use of temporary and/or dismountable facilities" has the air of a stop-gap measure likely in time to be superseded by a stricter pronouncement.

In his campaign, Bach argued for the establishment of a "limit on the number of permanent facilities".

In time, the new working group on Olympic Games cost management will need to come up with a much wider range of cost-cutting options if the Summer Games in particular are to remain a viable dream for any bar a tiny elite of great, or hyper-ambitious, mega-cities.

I would be most surprised, however, if a limit on permanent facilities is not close to the top of its list.

Thomas Bach seems set to keep his promise of giving new sports, like climbing, the opportunity to join the Olympic programme ©LatinContent WO/Getty Images

The Executive Board's decision last week to use next year's Summer Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing to showcase a particularly wide range of new sports and disciplines - sport climbing, roller sports, skateboarding and wushu - is also very much in line with Bach's advertised thinking.

The German had used a conference call while on the stump to suggest incorporating new forms of sport and physical activity that were fashionable among, and attractive to, young people into the Youth Olympics.

The decision to conduct a feasibility study into an Olympic TV channel will also come as little surprise to those who have been paying attention.

On one level, such a move makes perfect sense given a) its potential appeal to the critical youth market, in conjunction with enhanced social media activity, and b) the wealth of archive footage and content from sports/events with little mainstream TV appeal that could be put at the IOC's disposal.

On another level, however, Bach and his colleagues will need to be extremely careful not to upset the Movement's apple-cart by giving the green light to such a venture.

It is, after all, the spiralling value of live rights to the IOC's flagship events that more than anything explains the impressive upsurge in revenues from which the Movement has benefited in recent times.

If there is the remotest prospect that Olympic TV could somehow undermine that revenue stream, the game would simply not be worth the candle.

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. To follow him on Twitter click here. 

Encased either side by the snow-capped slate-grey Dolomites, Trento certainly provides an imposing but impressive setting for the 26th Winter Universiade and a spectacular location for my first trip abroad since joining insidethegames.

The wetness behind my ears is quickly evaporating as I learn to juggle the twin tasks of reporting on the sporting action and trying to snag some face-time with the various people that matter in the Universaide Movement.

For someone who tends to be a "glass half empty" kind of guy, I must admit that breaking the ice is a skill that needs working on but as is often said the best place to learn is on the job and I am certainly doing that.

The spire of the Santa Croce Church in the Piazza Duomo is dwarfed by the imposing Dolomite mountains that surround Trento ©Gary Anderson/ITG




























Every-day is a school-day - I promise this is the last cliché I will use - and it is pretty apt that as I learn, I am doing it surrounded by people who value the process of learning perhaps more than most; namely officials and students from universities around the world.

Michael Johnson, world-beating 200 and 400 metres runner-turned- professional-controversialist, offered the sporting world another challenging opinion this week when he asked: "Do we need the women's discus?"

The question was part of a characteristically hard-boiled statement from the American concerning the current health of his particular sport. He also contended that it would be "unrealistic" to expect athletics to be drug-free as it was "a microcosm of real life - in real life you will always have people who cheat."

But the point about the discus arose with Johnson's view that there needs to be closer attention within athletics "to what people actually want to watch". He added: "Do we need the women's discus?...We need to look at a new format, package it better to attract more fans."

Michael Johnson's strong opinions have opened up another debate within athletics 
©Getty Images

It is unfortunate timing for me that Johnson has only just come out with this line. Had he voiced it a month ago I would have had the opportunity to ask Olympic discus champion Sandra Perkovic face-to-face what she thought about it.

Then again, perhaps it isn't so unfortunate.

When I spoke to Perkovic at the Fairmont Hotel in Monte Carlo ahead of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Gala, this powerful and vivacious young Croatian provided a vivid impression of what her event meant to her, and waxed lyrical about her continuing ambitions within it even though she is now world, European and Olympic champion.

On occasions in our interview I received little taps and nudges from her - Perkovic is one of those people who punctuate their words with actions. How that might have translated in physical terms had I put Johnson's question to her hardly bears thinking about. I suppose I might have found myself being hurled into the Mediterranean Sea.

Sandra Perkovic, the European, world and Olympic discus champion. Would you really want to tell her that the event was surplus to requirements? ©Getty Images

In broad terms, Johnson's comments point up the perennial problem within sport - or indeed life in general - of balancing innovation with tradition. Because there has to be a balance.

I recall my own reaction in January 2010 - as someone who has followed West Ham United since 1968 - when the recently installed vice-chair of the club, Karren Brady, said she favoured the idea of changing the name of the club to West Ham Olympic to mark their likely move into the London 2012 Stadium at Stratford.

Karren Brady, vice-chair of West Ham United, who - briefly - had the idea of changing the club's name to West Ham Olympic ©GGetty Images

That reaction was an old-school "No". West Ham United was the team Bobby Moore had played for, and Geoff Hurst, and Ronnie Boyce, and Peter Bradbrook, and Budgie Byrne, and Malcolm Allison...West Ham United was the team which had won the FA Cup in 1964, the European Cup-Winners' Cup in 1965 in a peerless Wembley final, and returned to that arena in 1975 and 1980 to pick up the FA Cup...

You get the picture. But then West Ham United was also the club known as Thames Ironworks FC for five years before it undertook a name change in 1900. Who knows - perhaps that alteration caused untold grief among the club's followers in East London.

West Ham UNITED celebrate victory in the European Cup Winners' Cup final at Wembley in 1965 ©Hulton Archive

There has been another point of sporting controversy this week over the name of a football club - Hull City, of the Premier League, have officially applied to the Football Association to change their name to Hull Tigers.

The name change is the idea of the club's 74-year-old owner Assem Allam, an Egyptian businessman who has lived in Hull since 1968 and who supplied £75 million ($123 million/€89 million) to help rescue the club from the parlous financial position in which it found itself in 2010 before promotion to the top tier of the English game last season.

Hull CITY line up for the most recent match against Swansea, during the one minute's silence for Nelson Mandela ©Getty Images

Allam's idea has caused consternation among the club's fans, who have set up a "City Till We Die" protest group. The owner's throwaway reaction to this group during an interview with the Hull Daily Mail, when he maintained that opponents of the change could "die as soon as they want", has further stoked the fires of outrage.

There are shades here of the proposals voiced - briefly - in 1983 by the late tycoon and proprietor of the Daily Mirror paper, Robert Maxwell, who wanted to merge the club he then owned, Oxford United, with close rivals Reading, in whom he had plans to hold a controlling interest, with the resulting franchise being named Thames Valley Royals. As far as the fans of both clubs were concerned, he might as well have proposed the name Anathema Disunited.

Hull City have had the nickname of "The Tigers" since 1905. But that, for most of the club's supporters, is a very different thing from actually being called Tigers. And these things matter.

"It may be just a name to Mr Allam, but to us it's the name of something we love, we've cherished and will be cherished long after the present owners," wrote Rick Skelton, who provides a Hull City Live Twitter feed. "The saddest part is that this has come at a time when the fans should be excited for top-class football, not angry at a ridiculous re-brand."

Allam added in his interview that the change was about making the club "special", and that it was "about identity." On that at least the supporters would not disagree with him.

According to Allam, the change from City to Tigers represents a classic marketing ploy. "The shorter the name, the more powerful the impact," he said. "That's not an opinion, it's textbook marketing. Twitter, Google, Apple, Fiat. Fiat means Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino, but they choose to keep the name short."

Hull City owner Assem Allam has applied to the FA to change the club's name to Hull Tigers 
©Getty Images

In his latest blog for Marketing Weekly, Mark Ritson dismisses the marketing theory put forward by Allam as being "nonsense". Even as a non-marketing guru, if one can be such a thing, I can see a bit of a problem with the Allam theory about shorter names.

Shoot me down in flames if I've got this wrong, but I believe the word "Tigers" comprises six letters, while the word "City" has only four. Nobody in the history of the world has ever referred to Hull City as Hull City Association Football Club, as Allam contends, any more than people refer to Manchester United Association Football Club or Chelsea Association Football Club.

Ritson concludes that this vexed situation illustrates one of the most important points about brand management, namely: "how you enact a strategy is often just as important as the strategy itself." Ritson adds that the one area Allam has "completely failed" to grasp is that of "brand engagement".

And what of Johnson? Do you need the women's discus, Michael Johnson? Evidently not. But does that mean the sport should forego it?

Here is what Perkovic had to say about her event. "After I won the gold in Moscow I felt like someone had kicked my ass. I had a back operation in 2009 and on the day of the Moscow qualification I couldn't move properly. It was a big problem. Some people said I needed to stop, but I said 'No. I must win this gold', so I got medical help and I was able to qualify OK. But after the final I could hardly walk.

"Next was the meeting at my home in Zagreb, and I had my only defeat of the season, which was a big shame. But when I got to Brussels I did a first round of 67.04 and so I stayed unbeaten in the Diamond League. I don't know how I did it.

"Now I think that 2014 will be the season of my life. I am preparing so hard. I have not missed a single minute of training, I am so focused. If you want to get 70m you cannot afford to miss even a tiny thing. You must do everything, one, two, three, and then you will get it. If you miss anything out, it will be 69.50. I pray to God for next season. I want to do something amazing, like the world don't see for the past 30 years."

Hear that, Michael? I dare you to try discussing the discus with Sandra...

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.

For Sochi 2014, read Beijing 2008: it has long been hard to resist the temptation to bracket together the Olympic Movement's principal recent flirtations with powerful, authoritarian states.

Yesterday's announcement that Russia is to set up public protest zones during the Sochi Games in February, as did China five years ago during its Olympics, makes the urge to draw comparisons irresistible.

And this time around, I think the Movement may be pushing its luck.

Taking its flagship product to China - as it agreed in 2001 to do at a Session held, by coincidence, in the Russian capital Moscow - was, though inevitable at some point, a colossal gamble for the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

That the Movement came out of the exercise smelling, if not of roses, then of jasmine, was down, in large part, to the ineffable, jaw-dropping brilliance of a succession of star athletes.

Against all odds, given the rumbling seven-year-long controversy over the choice of host, Beijing 2008 was the Games where the athletes returned to centre-stage.

An intoxicating cascade of superhuman performances by the likes of Michael Phelps, Kenenisa Bekele, Sir Chris Hoy and, most unforgettably of all, Usain Bolt simply expunged all background noise.

Thanks to the performances of athletes like Usain Bolt, sport eventually came to be the abiding memory of Beijing 2008 ©Sports Illustrated via Getty Images

Some will maintain, and some Russians in positions of authority may be calculating, that this is what always happens; that once competition starts, other concerns quickly melt away.

I would argue though that until the 2008 vintage dramatically reversed the trend, the purely sporting content of successive Games had been growing steadily less memorable.

It is the nature of the Winter Games that, even if the sporting feats, rather improbably, rival the heights attained at Beijing, broad tracts of the planet, rarely touched by snow and ice, are likely to remain largely unmoved by them.

The human rights story, dramatised most particularly by the ongoing row over Russia's anti-gay propaganda law, offers news organisations in places with only a passing, or intermittent, interest in events on Sochi's pistes, rinks and runs a potentially compelling alternative focus.

And while much of the industrialised north from Vancouver to Vladivostock will, clearly, be keeping a beady eye on the medals table, I would certainly include far-from-winter-sports-mad Britain on any list of countries where issues pertaining to Russia's human rights record are likely to receive widespread coverage.

The decision to award Sochi the 2014 Winter Olympics was always a controversial one ©AFP/Getty Images

None of this need unduly to concern Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose array of accomplishments was recently extended to overhauling his US counterpart Barack Obama at the top of Forbes magazine's listing of the world's most powerful people.

The only constituency he needs to worry about - the Russian people - requires little excuse, in my experience, to display its patriotism.

As long as Russian athletes fulfil their side of the bargain and the medals roll in, most will probably revel in their country's month in the global spotlight and see in it further progress towards recuperation of something of the power and prestige it enjoyed in the cold war era.

Putin, in any case, appears to be leaving nothing to chance, abruptly announcing this week the abolition of the RIA Novosti news agency and appointing a close ally, Dmitry Kiselyov, as head of its replacement organisation.

The PR challenge for the Olympic Movement is likely to require much more delicate handling.

There is every indication that a large number of people in the liberal west, including no doubt relatively affluent consumers of products sold by Olympic sponsors, harbour negative thoughts of one sort or another about Russia's human rights record.

Relatively few of these, I suspect, would dash to the barricades; the power of social media, however, has grown exponentially since Beijing, enhancing the ability of skilful and committed campaigners to get their views across and to demonstrate widespread support.

And this time I doubt the quality of the sporting spectacle will be consistently breathtaking enough to help get the Movement out of a corner.

Vladimir Putin's position as the world's most powerful leader has been helped by Russia hosting the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Sochi ©Getty Images

Imagine how uncomfortable it would be too if Olympic chiefs are obliged to discipline athletes for gestures of protest.

(Article 50 of the Olympic Charter states that: "No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.")

All things considered, it seems to me we are entering a high-risk period for the painstakingly-constructed Olympic brand.

With the explosive revenue growth enjoyed by the IOC in recent times set to slow markedly in the years ahead, it is particularly important that all steps be taken to keep any damage sustained to a minimum.

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. To follow him on Twitter click here. 

It was in the early seventies when I made my first visit to South Africa. It was at the invitation of an organisation called the Committee for Fairness in Sport, which had assured me that the gross racial divide in those wretched days of apartheid was not as obscene as the most of rest of the world believed, and that sport was forming a bridgehead for change.

I had my doubts, and I was not wrong. They took me to witness a purposely-staged "mixed" cycle road race but when I asked one of the black riders if I might interview him he began to tremble.

So I suggested he sat down on a bench alongside me, but he shook his head. "No sir, it is not permitted for me to be seated in the presence of a white man," he said. Later, when an invitation to a black sports official back to my hotel for a beer was also politely declined. It wasn't permitted for blacks to either enter the hotel or drink alcohol with a person of paler skin, either.

Soon after my return to London, a small group of us were talking to the late British boxing promoter Harry Levene. I mentioned I had just been to South Africa."Wonderful country," he enthused. "So hospitable. I go there on holiday every year. Great climate, lovely food, fabulous wines. And do you know, when you fly into Johannesburg you look down and see that every house has a swimming pool. I don't know what those blacks have got to complain about."

Such was the bigotry of a time when Nelson Mandela was still languishing in his cell on Robben Island. Some 20 years later he was released from an incarceration that had lasted for almost three decades; only then did the long road to freedom in sport truly begin.

Once there was only blind prejudice in South Africa. Now, thanks to Mandela, there is wide-eyed pride.

I make no apology for adding to the eulogies that have followed the passing of surely the bst-loved and sagest statesman of our age. I met him only once, albeit a brief handshake at a London garden party, but treasure the moment as much as I do the longer time spent in the company of my other sporting idols, Muhammad Ali and Jesse Owens.

What an exhilarating dinner party guest that trio would have made.

Mandela loved sport, and above all he loved boxing. He was no slouch himself as a scrapper, an accomplished amateur in the fifties who might well have become good enough to stand on the Olympic rostrum had not fate, and those Boer-ish numbskulls in Pretoria not conspired against him.

And had he turned professional, who knows, dear old Harry Levene might even have promoted him.

Nelson Mandela and Muhammad Ali, two of the biggest icons in history, were fans of each other ©Getty Images

Mandela's own sporting heroes were Ali and Joe Louis, and he said if he had not become President of South Africa, he would have liked to be heavyweight champion of the world.

Actually, in many ways he was.

"Boxing is egalitarian," Mandela once said. "When you are probing your opponent's strengths and weaknesses you are not thinking abou his colour or his social status. In the ring, rank, age and colour and wealth are irrelevant."

His boxing background provided the ideal strategy for what was to come in the tortuous negotiations with South Africa's white rulers. As he said: "Boxing training teaches you how to attack and defend and to pace yourself for what could be a long contest."

Thankfully, at the end of that gruelling championship fight, Mandela's hand was hoisted in triumph.

Perhaps more than any other nation, South Africa always craved recognition for its sporting prowess, and thereafter how adroitly he used this as a political tool to create racial harmony and eradicate the bitterness, resentment and downright hatred that had gone before.

Much has been made of him donning the green and gold Springbok jersey, emblazoned with the number six of captain Francois Pienaar for the final of the rugby World Cup in 1995.

But his worthiest contribution to South Africa's sporting redemption had been his manoeuvring to get a multi-racial team back into the Olympics from which the country had been belatedly expelled in 1970.

South Africa was still under white rule at the time and a year before the 1992 Barcelona Olympics he and the ANC party leadership had secretly met a top level delegation from the International Olympic Commitee, which included iconic hurdler Ed Moses, in East Transvaal. It was there, in a small air terminal, that the plan restore South Africa to the Games was formulated.

Even so Mandela had to threaten to block the team's departure unless there was faster integration of the hitherto segregated sports bodies.

He won the day, and was guest of honour at the Games.

Those Olympics were the watershed for South African sport, which hitherto had been a whites-only preserve where black or "coloured" athletes were precluded by law from training or competing with their minority white masters, an iniquitous situation which boycotts had damaged but failed to destroy.

Nelson Mandela asked Sam Ramsamy earlier this year when South Africa would host the Olympics ©Getty Images

According to Sam Ramsamy, who ran the outlawed SANROC (South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee) from exile in London during the apartheid era, and is now a senior IOC member, one of Mandela's ambitions was to bring to Olympic Games to South Africa.

"It was one of his very last wishes," he says. "And one I hope we will fulfil.

"Madiba always stated that sport is a uniting factor, a universal language that can transmit to very many people what no politician can do. And that we will always remember.

"Undoubtedly the [FIFA] World Cup held in South Africa in 2010 was something he was proud of because he always wanted such a major global event in South Africa. He was part of the team that went to Zurich to campaign for it. He also campaigned to try and get the Olympic Games.

"When I last spoke with him, about eight months ago, he said, 'Sam, when are we going to get the Olympic Games'? I said 'We're trying our very best'. And hopefully we can commemorate Nelson Mandela's activities, his passion for sport and his passion for the Olympics in trying to get the Games to South Africa in the very near future."

Nelson Mandela carries the Athens 2004 Olympic Torch in Cape Town, the South African city that the Greek capital beat to be awarded the Games ©Getty Images

Cape Town, along with Rome, Stockholm and Buenos Aires was defeated by Athens in the race to host the 2004 Olympic Games. South Africa had been expected to bid for the 2020 Olympics before the Government announced it would not support such a move for economic reasons.

However Durban has now been linked with a bid for the 2024 Games.

Of course the Mandela sporting legacy deserves to stretch well beyond an Olympics.

"Sport can create hope where once there was only despair," he said." It is more powerful than Governments in breaking down racial barriers and fighting all forms of discrimination."

These words surely must be an integral part of his epitaph when they bury Nelson Mandela this weekend.

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for the 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.

After submitting their final applications last month, the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) orientation seminar in Lausanne provided a first glimpse of the journey that lies ahead for the six cities bidding to host the 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.

For Almaty, Beijing, Krakow, Lviv, Oslo and Stockholm, that 18 month quest before a final decision is made at the 127th IOC Session in Kuala Lumpa promises to be just as perilous and hazard-strewn as all those which have gone before.

That said, for someone whose only experience of an Olympic bid was the climax of the 2020 race in Buenos Aires, this contest seemed to get off to a comparatively inauspicious start.

I was reminded by one of the many tribute programmes last week to mark his passing of the special link between Nelson Mandela and the city of Glasgow.

In short, the council there awarded him the freedom of the city as early as 1981 - nine years before his release from what he termed "my ten thousand days of imprisonment" at the hands of the apartheid state, in February 1990.

Another gesture by the Scottish city in 1986 had seen the area where the building housing the South African consulate-general was located renamed Nelson Mandela Place.

Three and a half years after his release, Mandela was able finally to visit Glasgow to thank its citizens for their support.

"While we were physically denied our freedom in the country of our birth," he told them, "a city 6,000 miles away, and as renowned as Glasgow, refused to accept the legitimacy of the apartheid system, and declared us to be free."

There is a special link between Nelson Mandela and the city of Glasgow ©AFP/Getty Images


The story made me think how fitting it would be if this special relationship between the city on the Clyde and South Africa's first black President could somehow be commemorated during the Commonwealth Games that will open in Glasgow next July.

I wondered, for example, whether an event such as the shot put, which has shown itself to be eminently portable in recent times, might be staged at Nelson Mandela Place.

I have to admit that my knowledge of the city's geography, having made just a few short visits, is lamentably sketchy.

However, I am informed by one much better versed in the particulars that space around Mandela Place is limited, which might make putting on an event there difficult, particularly given the large crowds that could well be attracted.

Nelson Mandela visited Glasgow to thank its citizens for their support three and a half years after his release from prison ©AFP/Getty Images


Perhaps, then, that is not the answer, but I still think something should be done.

As David Grevemberg, Glasgow 2014 chief executive, himself observed: "Mr Mandela was a great supporter of the Commonwealth Games movement...He will always hold a special place in Glasgow's heart."

Let's use what promises to be an uplifting and relatively informal celebration of human diversity in part to honour the example set by the greatest statesman of our age.

Over to you, Glasgow.

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.

Nelson Mandela will be remembered as a humanitarian, a politician, a visionary. He was also a sports fanatic who understood the crucial role sport could play in unifying the world and he used it with devastating brilliance.

Amongst the thousands of tributes that have poured forth in the last 24 hours since his passing, those from sporting legends across the globe are united in one thing.

With the world's elite bob skeleton athletes engaged in the second stop of their World Cup season at Park City, Utah, the reverberations are still being felt from the season opener which concluded on Saturday (November 30) in Calgary.

There were tears before bedtime in the Canadian city which hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics as Noelle Pikus-Pace was disqualified after her sled failed a post-race inspection.

The American slider had produced a final flourish on her second run to move into gold medal position 0.16sec ahead of Britain's world junior champion Lizzie Yarnold, who led after the first of two runs.

However, a post-race inspection by the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation discovered an "illegal" piece of tape wrapped around the handle of Pikus-Pace's sled, and Yarnold moved up into gold medal position.

The tape, which could aid an athlete's grip on the sled, had allegedly been cleared earlier in the week by international sliding officials.

On her Facebook page, Pikus-Pace implied that British Skeleton had made the protest, although a team spokesperson denied this.

"My heart is broken. I just won gold in the first World Cup and have been disqualified due to a protest," she wrote.

"My sled was cleared by the international federation for competition but, without a warning, they disqualified me for having three pieces of tape on my handle to help me push my sled, which many athletes do."

Noelle Pikus Pace, no stranger to ill fortune after a freak accident broke her leg, was "heartbroken'" over losing the Calgary World Cup title after being disqualified on a technical infringement ©Getty Images

Pikus-Pace, who retired from the sport in 2010 but returned this year, is no stranger to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. She competes with a titanium rod in her leg after it was broken in a freak accident in 2005 - and in Calgary - when a four-man bobsleigh came off the track and the finish and crashed into her and a team-mate.

"So sad and disappointed that thousands of hours of training come down to a protest and decision for three pieces of non-performance-enhancing tape," Pikus-Pace continued. "I would have obviously removed it if they had told me in my sled inspection."

Here is the latest reminder of the thin line between sporting gain and sporting pain. There are many examples where sporting protagonists have distorted the rules in an effort to gain an advantage - Boris Onischenko's rigged foil in the modern pentathlon fencing competition at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, or the recent admission by US speed skater Simon Cho that he bent his rival's skate blades out of shape before a competition.

Not so grey - US speed skater Simon Cho admitted tampering with the skate blade of a rival 
©Getty Images

However, the category in which Pikus-Pace found herself in last weekend was not one of deliberate wrongdoing, it would appear, but one of uncertainty. In short, a grey area.

And the grey area is pretty heavily populated in world sport. The frustration felt by Pikus-Pace would surely have been akin to that experienced by Scotland's bowler Margaret Letham, a Scottish player who encountered an unexpected challenge when on the verge of winning the women's world outdoor singles title in Moama, New South Wales in 2000.

"The gold medal seemed to be hers when she defeated Ireland's Margaret Johnston (the most successful woman bowler in the game) in a group match," recalled bowls expert David Rhys. "Johnston responded by challenging Letham's bowls, which she alleged were 'too straight'."

Bowls is all about bias, of course, and the curved path of each bowl must equal or exceed that of a Master Bowl that represents the minimum bias. Straight-running bowls (i.e. those that swing less than the Master Bowl) make life too easy, and are deemed to be illegal.

"The bowls were tested overnight on a testing table - and failed the test," said Rhys Jones. A distraught Letham was stripped of the points, which were added to Johnston's total - and it was Johnston who went on to head the table, qualify for the final, and win the title.

There was no suggestion that Letham had tampered with the bowls, or was deliberately cheating – she had been given the bowls especially for the world championships by a leading manufacturer. Other similar bowls failed the test, too.'

Rhys Jones added that it is the manufacturer who has the duty of testing and then stamping bowls before putting them on the market. These tests then need to be carried out regularly – "like an MOT".

Every wood in bowls requires to pass its own "MOT'"to be eligible for use in competition 
©Getty Images

He commented: "It has been known for bowls to be tampered with. Rubbing the bias side with sandpaper or emery cloth changes the template of the bowl, and alters the bias.

"And, although bowls is all about bias, it is generally felt that reducing the bias makes it easier to get near the jack, so there is often a great deal of hostility towards those who have 'straight' bowls.'"

Letham was so upset about the turn of events which had halted her aspirations in the individual event that she did not bother to turn up for the sixth place play-off match. But she felt a little happier by the end of the championships, having won the pairs title with fellow Scot Joyce Lindores.

The parallel to this kind of technical error on the doping side would be the sportsman or woman who was genuinely unaware that they had taken a substance which contained elements contrary to the banned list.

The spate of nandrolone positives within athletics in the late 1990's almost certainly contained a good number of "grey" errors, in that scientific tests subsequently proved that up to 16 per cent of commercially produced nutritional supplements were contaminated by steroids. Was this why the European 1998 200m champion, Dougie Walker, or the virtually retired Linford Christie tested positive for the easily detectable steroid during this period?

Doug Walker, seen here winning the European 200m title in 1998, may have fallen victim to faulty manufacturing conditions when he tested positive for nandrolone the following year
©Getty Images




The guiding principle in doping is that an athlete is responsible for whatever is in their system even if they claim not to know how it got there, as the bottom line is that they are likely to have benefited from performance enhancement, even if it is unwitting.

The same principle was applied to Letham, and most recently to Pikus-Pace. It was a grey day for the American - who will be convinced that the tape which led to her disappointment was red tape.

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 better to burn out than to fade away."
Neil Young

Or is it? I remember a time when all rock stars, Young included, were, well, young.

And then the music industry discovered irony, and we realised it was no more ridiculous for Mick Jagger to perform Satisfaction at 55 than 25.

I don't know if the deft through-ball with which Ryan Giggs, then aged 39 years and 363 days, played in Nani for Manchester United's fifth goal at Leverkusen in Germany last Wednesday (November 27) could be described as ironic, but the United former Wales and Great Britain Olympic midfielder seems every bit as intent on prolonging his career as far as possible into his fifth decade as many contemporary rockers.

Ryan Giggs (far left), then aged 39 years and 363 days, playing for Manchester United against Leverkusen in Germany last week ©AFP/Getty Images

And quite a few contemporary athletes.

Internazionale and Argentina footballer Javier Zanetti, who is actually three months older than Giggs, returned to action recently after a six-month absence with a ruptured Achilles tendon.

And I can well remember the United States swimmer Dara Torres, then 41, talking animatedly in Beijing in 2008 about returning to elite competition after giving birth.

This after adding another silver medal to her extensive Olympic collection.

Torres failed narrowly to qualify once again for the US national team for London 2012.

In truth, though, veteran athletes are nothing new: the oldest Olympic gold medallist, Sweden's Oscar Swahn, was 64 when he won his third and last Olympic shooting gold medal - 101 years ago.

Oscar Swahn is the oldest Olympic gold medallist, having won his third and last Olympic shooting gold medal aged 64 ©IOC/Olympic Museum Collections


Giggs is not even the oldest footballer still active in the Premier League: Brad Friedel of Tottenham Hotspur is 42.

Today's top sports performers, moreover, benefit from far better medical science than their counterparts even 20 years ago.

And of course it must be easier to keep those old legs going if you are earning better money than all but the most conspicuously successful investment bankers or corporate chief executives.

Why, then, does the continuing presence of Giggs' name on one of the world's most closely-monitored team-sheets provoke quite such awe?

The first thing is that football, though less gruelling than, say, the Tour de France bicycle race and less punishing than professional boxing, is well up there in the league of physically-demanding sports.

Most athletes who have continued to excel until an advanced age through the years have fallen into one of three categories.

Either a partner/machine does much of the physical hard labour associated with their discipline - this would apply to equestrian athletes such as Lester Piggott and Hiroshi Hoketsu, the Japanese dressage rider who competed at London 2012, aged 70.

Hiroshi Hoketsu competed at London 2012 aged 70 ©AFP/Getty Images


Or extreme physical fitness is not high on the list of attributes required to perform at a high level - this would apply to Fred Davis, who made his last appearance in the world snooker championship at the age of 70, Viktor Korchnoi, candidate for the world chess championship for the final time at 60, and Swahn, the aged Olympian, whose speciality was a shooting event called running deer.

Or the athletes in question fulfil less physically-demanding roles within sports that are generally physically demanding - this would apply to football goalkeepers such as Spurs' Friedel or Peter Shilton, who played his last Football League match at 47.

Holding down a midfield slot in the first team of one of the two or three best-known football clubs in the world is not covered by any of these, and suggests a fitness level exceptional in a 40-year-old.

Even more exceptional is Giggs' vision and understanding of the game, which are plainly still developing and which his fitness has enabled him to keep on display long after most footballers have been reduced to spectators.

The other quality that has set Giggs apart from most of his peers is flexibility: as the years have gone by he has seemingly been able to remodel his game so as to keep playing to his evolving strengths.

He started out as a left-winger of sublime natural ability.

Sir Alex Ferguson said watching a young Ryan Giggs was like watching "a bit of silver paper in the wind" as he floated across the pitch ©Getty Images

"The most natural player I've had," according to Sir Alex Ferguson, his long-time manager at Manchester United.

"If you saw Ryan Giggs at 13, you saw someone float across the ground like a bit of silver paper in the wind."

In this way, his path as a player is reminiscent of a boyhood hero of mine - Ian Callaghan, a right-winger turned midfielder in the 1960s and 70s, who spent the majority of his career with United's archrivals Liverpool.

Both men enjoyed great success, although no-one can match Giggs in the silverware stakes.

The United man has even now overhauled Callaghan for longevity, racking up more than 950 United appearances, versus 948 for English league clubs for the Liverpool idol, who retired at 39.

One man even Giggs will do well to emulate is Sir Stanley Matthews, another winger, "the wizard of the dribble", who played his last league match for Stoke City in 1965, five days after his 50th birthday.

I am not old enough to remember whether Matthews too adapted his style of play in later years, although he played in an era when there was less off-the-ball running and therefore more space.

Sir Stanley Matthews played his last league match for Stoke City five days after his 50th birthday ©Getty Images


Matthews played fewer club games than either Giggs or Callaghan, partly because of the Second World War and partly because he appeared in just two competitions, the league and the FA Cup

His longevity, though, is all the more astounding as he would have got less protection from referees than the pampered greyhounds of today.

It is also worth bearing in mind that no substitutes were permitted in the Football League until the season after Matthews finally called it a day.

Once selected, that was it for the full 90 minutes.

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.

His Holiness Pope Francis seems like a good sport, and he certainly sounds as if he knows his stuff about playing the game. He also has a cute sense of timing.

His wise words to the President of the International Olympic Committee and members of the European Olympic Committees - among them the Lords Coe and Moynihan - gathered before him in the Vatican recently carry a certain resonance which sport should take as a yellow card.

Let us pray it gets this Papal message:

"When sport is viewed solely in economic terms or as the pursuit of victory at all cost, we run the risk of reducing athletes to mere products from which to profit. Athletes themselves enter into a system that sweeps them away; they can lose the true meaning of their activity, that joy of play which attracted them as young people and which drove them to make so many sacrifices to become champions. Sport is harmony, but if the immoderate pursuit of money and success takes over, this harmony can be lost."

His homily could not be more apt, coinciding with the latest allegations about the so-called Beautiful Game; match-fixing in the lower-echelons of English football.

Pope Francis met International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach last month and warned sport of the dangers of money ©IOC

It transpires that not content with efforts to rig games in most of the world's major leagues, and even World Cup qualifiers, the illegal betting gangs in Asia have turned their attention to what they perceive as a more susceptible target, English non-league football.

Arrests have been made in what is believed to be the biggest match-rigging scandal here for decades and interestingly two of the alleged culprits have Singaporean connections.

Singapore, it seems is the epicentre of the betting scams. There an illegal gambling cartel has been operating for years. The infamous Dan Tan is currently on trial for match fixing and out on bail. There is also another Singaporean bookie, Wilson Raj Perumal, who did some time in a Finnish jail and who is now believed to be in Budapest helping Hungarian authorities. He's said to be linked with one of the two men charged with match fixing in the UK.

Having worked in Singapore in the eighties, when sport was considered an irrelevance on an education-is-everything Government agenda - I am surprised is that such cynical law-breaking has been not ruthlessly stamped out.

Strange that in a place no bigger than the Isle of Wight and where the rules are draconian - Singapore's is a still literally a hang-'em-flog-'em doctrine - is that they have been unable to crack down on the hucksters who clearly proliferate in their society. We not talking about the odd dodgy flutter here, but serious corruption.

Singapore IOC member Ser Miang Ng has worked hard to promote sport in his country but his efforts are being undermined by it being the centre of match-fixing ©Getty Images

The man I feel most sorry for is Singapore's International Olympic Committee member Ser Miang Ng, who campaigned honourably, albeit unsuccessfully for the IOC Presidency and has done more than anyone to to elevate his tiny nation from a sporting wasteland to international credibility, hosting an historic IOC congress, the Youth Olympics and now staging, among other events, the best-run of all F1 Grands Prix.

He is surely embarrassed by the activities of those seedy compatriots who are making the Singapore Sting even more potent than the Singapore Sling.

Once all forms of gambling were prohibited in safe, sanitised, squeaky-clean Singapore

Now there are two Las Vegas-styled casinos and many betting shops on the island. Fair enough. Business is business. But surely there needs to be a tougher crackdown those who are responsible.

Interpol says the illegal gambling market is worth $500 billion (£308 billion/€368 billion) in Asia. And sport these days is one of the world's major sources of revenue.

To transpose an old Yorkshire adage, where there's brass, there's muck.

So is sport as bent as a boomerang?

Well, some of it certainly is. We have ample evidence of result-rigging in football, cricket and snooker. And don't get me started on horse racing.

I once crossed swords with the redoubtable Clare Balding who had termed boxing "dirty and corrupt". The phrase pots and kettles immediately sprang to mind. I have never seen a boxer throw a fight though I accept there have been some outrageous decisions which suggested certain judges had been nobbled - most notably in Olympic boxing before Dr C K Wu's deep clean operation.

But, dear Ms Balding, there are far more pulled horses in your questionable sport than pulled punches in boxing.

Horse racing presenter Clare Balding has criticised other sports for being "dirty" but not been prepared to acknowledge problems in her own ©Getty Images

Tennis is also easy to fix - you simply have to hit the ball into the net and I swear I saw that happen in a Grand Slam final some years ago before the sport became totally professional, and with prize money putting latter-day players beyond such temptation.

Yet Chris Eaton, once a top cop with Interpol,who has been involved in looking at World Cup qualifiers believed to be fixed, does not accept that big earners are not susceptible to bribes.

Loads-a-money Premier League stars may earn humongous salaries that you think would make them immune to the approach of the fixers but he points out there are ways and means of compromising even the wealthiest individuals.

"You can approach players on high incomes and trap them into personal betting debts, honeypots or many other ways to coerce them to get involved in fixing Games."

Might this technique even be used in the Olympics?

Indeed could, you actualluy fix an Olympic event? You bet you could - so to speak.

A false start in the 100 metres, for instance. Plenty would bet on that, and so easy to manipulate.

Former IOC President Jacques Rogge has, more than anyone, highlighted the dangers of match-fixing ©Getty Images

"Sport is in danger," Jacques Rogge warned before stepping down as IOC overlord. "We had a clear signal from Governments, Interpol and international federations that there is illegal betting that threatens the credibility of sport. It is a big problem in the entire world. There is no safe haven. Illegal gambling is now a greater scourge for world sport than doping. "

"It's even worse," he added in an interview earlier this year: "Imagine a team sport with one player being doped; that one player will not make the difference to the result.

"But if you have match rigging with the goalkeeper being paid off and jumping over the ball, it's the whole match that is lost. So the scale is far more important in terms of match manipulation."

There is no doubt that his successor Thomas Bach shares similar sentiments, then IOC having formed a commission to tackle illegal betting and match-fixing to ensure they do not become become issues in future Games.

But I fear they might. So far the Olympics have been largely unaffected by illegal betting or match-fixing although last year badminton came under fire at the London Games when women's doubles pairs from South Korea, China and Indonesia deliberately threw their matches in order to get a more favourable draw.

All four pairings were disqualified and banned.

Athletes and officials are forbidden from betting on the Olympics and the IOC has been co-operating with legal betting agencies in the past few Games to monitor betting patterns for any suspect or unusual wagers.

Irish sailor Peter O'Leary was investigated for illegal betting on the eve of London 2012
©Getty Images

The Irish sailor Peter O'Leary escaped with a warning after betting on a direct competitor to win at the 2008 Beijing Games. O'Leary had placed two bets worth a total of €300 (£249/$408) on a British boat to capture the gold in the Star class at odds of 12-1.

Hugh Robertson, until recently Britain's Sports Minister, with a portfolio which embraced the gambling industry, said the integrity of the Games could be shattered by the "enormous" threat of illegal gambling rings trying to fix results.

As for football, it can be no surprise it is the principal target for the fixers when it has so eagerly climbed into bed with the gambling business through so many sponsorship dealp deals with bookmaking concerns.. Half-a-dozen Premier League sides wear shirts featuring online betting outfits and the even the Football League now has a five-year deal as the Sky Bet Championship.

If nothing else it brings whole new meaning to the phrase fixed odds.

Wonder if the Pope does the pools?

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for the The Independent on Sunday and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, and 10 Commonwealth Games

With Summer sports basking in a post-season recess and Winter ones still to reach full speed, the most engrossing sporting event currently going on, for Englishmen and Australians at least, is the non-Olympic battle that is cricket's Ashes series.

For those not familiar with the peculiarities of cricket, the rivalry between these two stalwarts of the game stretches back to 1882. After a touring party from Down Under overcame the hosts for the first time, the Sporting Times published an obituary citing that "English cricket had died, and the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia."

The tradition of an urn being presented to the winners had begun and over the 131 years since one of sports oldest, bitterest and most fiercely fought rivalries has emerged.

Yet even by historic standards the current series is in danger of plunging to new lows.

Australian captain Michael Clarke has already been fined after his muttered comment of "get ready to have your f****** arm broken" to an opponent was picked up by a microphone. Clarke's teammate David Warner meanwhile, banned earlier in the summer for punching England's Joe Root in a bar, gloated to the press that another England batsman was "poor and weak". The batsman in question, Jonathan Trott, has since returned home due to a long-term stress related illness.

After one newspaper has refused to refer to England's Stuart Broad by name, or as anything other than a "a 27-year-old medium pace bowler" following an earlier transgression, the local press has got in on the action. This weekend a stadium announcer was also stood down after a series of mocking and racially-motivated remarks towards the tourists. In case I am giving that impression, England have been far from blameless in this rather petty diatribe.

And yet, while this pettiness has been much criticised, the hostility creates a nostalgic throwback to a more halcyon age where sport was a more gladiatorial battleground and rivalries therein were defined as much by personal as competitive animosity.

Plenty of words have been exchanged on and off the field during the Ashes Series
©Getty Images


Other instances of such hostile rivalries do occasionally exist today, but they are rarer and rarer and more than ever confined to the often manufactured disputes of professional boxing.

Take tennis for example. After the polar opposites of McEnroe and Borg we had the American foes Sampras and Agassi. Now we have the quartet of Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray who manage to reach new levels of ability but by all the while remaining, if not best friends, then at least affable and respectful

Sprinting is the same. A sport once defined by testosterone fuelled posing, "trash-talking" and gloating has been transformed in recent years by the joyless abandon of Jamaican stars epitomised of course by Usain Bolt. By the time one of the best trash-talkers, Justin Gatlin, returned from a second doping ban and allegedly spat in Bolt's lane as if to mark his territory in 2011, it came across as outlandish as it was unsuccessful.

The Olympics have long been defined by great rivalries as much as elsewhere in sport.

There have been disputes with distinctly political overtones. The Munich 1972 basketball final between the United States and Soviet Union epitomised this in the context of the Cold War era. A more extreme example was the Melbourne 1956 "Blood in the Water" water polo tie between the Soviets and Hungary which came so shortly after the former's invasion of the latter, and deteriorated into a full blown brawl in the closing stages.

There have also been personal battles - often between two rivals from the same country. Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe at Moscow 1980 is the most famous example. The most bitter one however involved US figure skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding ahead of Lillehammer 1994, where Harding was embroiled in scandal after her accomplice assaulted Kerrigan in order to ensure her absence.

Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan were embroiled in one of sports most infamous rivalries ©AFP/Getty Images


All of these examples were well before my time so a severe brainstorming session seems necessary in order to find some more recent instances. I could not think of too many.

In swimming there have been great rivalries - think the "race of the century" in Athens and Phelps and Lochte in London - but to find a truly hostile one France versus US in the men's freestyle relay seems the most appropriate. After the French vowed to "smash" their opponents in Beijing the Americans produced a scarcely believable comeback to snatch gold before the French got their revenge four years later in London. The section on the Beijing race in Phelps' No Limits is a must read ahead of any sporting grudge match...

In speed-skating we have had recent battles between the South Koreans and the wonderfully named American Anton Apollo Ohno, in sailing there was the laser class dual between Sir Ben Ainslie and Robert Scheidt which ended in effigies being burnt of the Briton in Brazil. To return to England and Australia there was cycling's Victoria Pendleton and Anna Meares who, after a decade of sparring, embraced on the track after winning a gold apiece in London.

There has also been a continuation of battles on national lines. At London 2012 we saw a Serbia versus Croatia handball match where the crowd as much the players were embroiled in dispute. Four years earlier in Beijing we had the infamous women's beach volleyball encounter between Russia and Georgia which took place in the backdrop of the political dispute between the two.

"They are not even Georgians," cried the Russian pair after tasting defeat. "Sore losers" was the blunt reply.