Latest news from the pool is astonishing. Are these games bent? Who is bending them?And if they are bent, are they ‘bending it like Beckam’?

Gold at the Olympics. Severe restrictions will apply to IOC officials and Gifts. TO FIGHT CORRUPTION!

The people who run the Olympics, are hell bent on fighting corruption. That’s presumedly why they allowed all the Olympians who were so high on dope last time there was a comp to have a go at Rio. The results have been intriguing. Some of the ex ‘dope-heads’ from non cricket playing countries have won medals. It’s made the clean living, fair minded, predominately cricket playing countries (of which we are one) really cross. We’re cross because we play fair, and train really hard. They do it on DRUGS! It’s just not fair. And, its been going on for years and years and years and every time we find a new detection process they just find another way around it.

The People who run the Olympics have made strident attempts to stem the flow of performance enhancing drugs to athletes, and put in some pretty big sanctions to curb the rot. For example, there’s a rumour going round that the Chinese are trying to beat the system. And though you can’t detect drugs in the Chinese team, even if they were playing ‘straight’, you just cant tell. That’s led to name calling. Though we have no evidence that the current gold for China was ‘untainted’, we’ll have a go and call them out anyway. That’s sportsmanship. And the Chinese will retaliate by laughing about our convict past. Mere sledging. And all good natured sportsmanship in the modern era. Sport is competitive you know and the prestige of nations depend upon it. Just ask Jessie Owens.

Third cousins and over- extended relatives of IOC members will no longer be eligible to trips to Disneyland. FIGHTING CORRUPTION!

Take the Chinese capacity for improvisation. This has already impacted the supply structure within Olympic-dom. And the IOC are on top of it. Rolex watches will not be accepted by IOC officials, unless they are absolutely guaranteed genuine. Gifts of property, straight cash, and indulgences, (first class travel, trips to Disneyland, and shopping sprees in London, Dubai and Paris ) have been severely restricted. Only those IOC officials who accept indulgences in American dollars or gold bullion will be eligible. And there are huge restrictions on nepotism and cronyism. Only direct descendants, children, wives, and uncles and aunties are eligible for inducements and largesse. ‘Third cousins are just not on’, says IOC Chief, Costa Plente.

Jessie Owens suggests to James Hird that drugs have no place in the AFL either.

‘We have stopped the rot, and at this rate only approved countries will be able to stump up for Olympic-dom. ‘And they’re the gold standards. We’ve got bids from Saudi Arabia, Dubai and North Korea which goes a long way to prove that we are truly an international organisation and no loathsome self serving oligarchy of kleptocrats’. ‘At that at this rate by 2096, the games will be 100 per cent clean. And by then the currency of rolex watches and international first class junkets will be a thing of the past. Just another instance of how seriously we are taking the process of reform and proof perfect that the athletes, themselves will be free of the taint of corruption.

It’s not so much a level playing field, but a muddy sloping playing field, in which there’s not a lot of play on the field but quite a bit off it. So what you look at it in balance, the Olympics are still a free expression of what’s possible the unrealised potential of what you can achieve when the spirit of togetherness and the ideals of humanity are united as a singular achievement though sport. And it demonstrates the capacity of all nation states, races and creeds to express themselves and achieve a common norm.

We call it the lowest common denominator’..