March 24 - I have thought about this a lot and I just don’t get the Youth Olympics.

 

What I mean is, I don’t understand how the Youth Games will inspire significantly more young people to take an interest in Olympism.

 

In my experience, sporty kids are passionate about the Olympics anyway – unless, that is, their main interest is in the sort of non-traditional sports that, by and large, are not on the Olympic programme and, as far as I can see, will not be at the youth Olympics either.

 

For non-sporty kids, meanwhile, I fail to see why their interest will suddenly be stimulated just because the athletes performing are their own age, rather than 10 or so years older.

 

No, if the Movement is to make headway among the computer generation, more inclined to spend their days in front of a flickering screen in their bedrooms than a muddy sports field, I think they should consider embracing the world of video games more boldly.

 

Last week brought the announcement that Sega had formed an exclusive partnership with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to develop Vancouver 2010, the official video game of next year’s Winter Olympics.

 

(I am told, incidentally, that the first Olympic video game was related to Barcelona 1992.)

 

Well, why not go a step further and endorse a global, Olympic-style competition for the most accomplished Vancouver 2010 players?

 

Complete with gold, silver and bronze medals for the top three in the standings.

 

That would open up the world of Olympic – and, let’s not forget, Paralympic - competition – and values - to youngsters who wouldn’t get within a mile of an Olympic event outside the virtual world.

 

The idea isn’t even, to be honest, all that radical.

 

FIFA has had an Interactive World Cup since 2004.

 

The 2008 world champion, after a competition featuring players from 179 countries, was one Alfonso Ramos from Spain.

 

This year’s Grand Final is to be held in May at…Port Olimpic in Barcelona.

Ï Regular readers of this column will not have been surprised to see that Premier League chairman Sir Dave Richards (pictured) has belatedly been added to the board of England’s 2018 World Cup bid.

 

It goes without saying that it is a necessary step.

 

It will be interpreted everywhere as a strong signal that the world’s most successful national club football league is four-square behind the bid.

 

It ought also, hopefully, to mean that the bid team can at last focus their full attention outwards, towards the FIFA grandees who will actually choose where the World Cup is played, rather than wasting valuable time and energy on English football’s debilitating internal politics.

 

We also learnt last week that the race for 2018 will have nine runners: Australia, Belgium/Netherlands, England, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Spain/Portugal and the United States.

 

This was after FIFA disclosed that South Korea and Qatar would bid only for the 2022 tournament.

 

FIFA’s intention is to decide the host for both competitions simultaneously.

 

I was a little disappointed that England hedged their bets by opting to run in the 2022 race as well as 2018.

 

It is the percentage play and all European bidders have adopted the same tactic.

 

Furthermore, the incremental cost of bidding for both tournaments should be modest.

 

Even so, I would argue that going for 2018 alone would have manifested confidence, fostered clarity of purpose and set England already apart from the crowd.

 

(It should be added that if a European host is chosen for 2018, as is widely expected, the other European bidders would be excluded in any case from staging the 2022 competition.)

 

Then again, if England had not thrown their hat into the ring for 2022 as well, perhaps they would have run the risk of being branded arrogant.

 

This is the besetting sin they must avoid being labelled with at all costs.

 

Ï And finally, a short open letter to the mayor of Calais

 

Mon cher M. Dupilet,

 

Tout Francophile que je suis…

 

Big Francophile as I am, I must say I found the tone of your recent remarks on Birmingham and English food – at least as reported on insidethegames – rather perplexing.

 

Granted, Birmingham is no world heritage site, but it is trying hard - and neither, as I recall, is Calais.

 

As for your dismissal of the food “over there”, well, let’s just say that I’d have thought French politicians would have learnt their lesson about that sort of cheap shot by now.

 

After all, if Jacques Chirac had not been reported as saying, in the run-up to voting for the 2012 host, that Britain had the worst food in Europe “after Finland”, it is not inconceivable that we’d be preparing for a Paris Olympics in three years’ time and Calais would no doubt be swamped with teams wanting to prepare there.

 

Sentiments distingués…