If peerless commentator David Coleman, to whom the BBC rightly paid a fine tribute recently, was the master of the spoken word then surely Frank Keating was his equal with the written one.

Both giants of their respective trades, they passed away within a month of each other at the turn of the year, Coleman at 87 and Keating at 75.

Coleman had a fitting star-studded memorial on screen while Keating's now comes with a newly-published collection of his Guardian essays (The Highlights, Frank Keating), edited by his former colleague Matthew Engel, Faber and Faber, £19.99 ($33.48/€24.57)

I shared many joyous assignments with Keating, who was somewhat less economical with his bon mots than "one-nil" Coleman.

His language could be flowery, but the prose, which delighted and enthralled readers over four decades, was always compelling.

Frank Keating, much like David Coleman (pictured), was a master of his trade ©Bob Thomas/Getty Images




Several modern sportswriters, not least the marvellous Hugh McIlvanney, with whom I worked on The Observer, have aspired to and reached great literary heights, but few have had such an eloquent talent to amuse and entertain as did the Hereford-born Keating with phraseology that was always fresh and inventive.

As one former colleague puts it: "He didn't write so much about sport's language or technique, he wrote about its soul."

As the book shows, barely a sport was left untouched by his lyricism, and he had a special passion for the Olympics, covering several Games with joyous appreciation of their ideals coupled with a rare wit. But he could be acerbic with his criticism too.

It is an easy pleasure to pluck gems from this collection of Olympic observations. This is how he began a perceptive piece on the Ben Johnson affair in Seoul 1988:

"I don't know how many Olympic competitors say their prayers night and morning as a matter of course. But I bet a heck of a lot more than usual woke up to Seoul's chilly grey dawn yesterday and, with a shiver, offered thanks: 'There but for the grace of God go I.' Ben Johnson is taking the rap for a pretty large army."

Of the heavy-handednesss of those uniformed jobsworths in charge of  so-called security at the awful Atlanta Olympics he opined:

"To us in the vast congregation of hangers-on who piled out of the caravans three weeks ago, the true heroine of the 1996 Games was not a tweetie-pie gymnast, a runner, a jumper, a standing-still long-legged length of pulchritude frozen in concentration as she prepared to defy gravity in the women's long jump...to us lot in the invading army which marched across Georgia cursing, the heroine was Mrs Dick Pound, wife of Canada's IOC bigwig, who kneed an Atlanta policewoman in  the groin. It goes without saying that the cop was over-officious and over-harassed and over-the-top. Every one of them has been, male or female...they hated us and it was mutual."

And he had this to say of Atlanta's Opening Ceremony. "It was a stroke of genius to ambush the world with the surprise appearance of Muhammad Ali to light the flame of goodness and expectation .Up travelled the sacred lick of the flame by pulley to ignite the Olympic bowl in the  topmost  plinth. Hurrah-until we saw that the bowl was cast in the open-shell shape of a gigantic chip-wrapper for McDonald's French fries. The hamburger conglomerate has been cashing in." Every heroic image, said Keating, was capped by something seedy.

Anyone for fries? The cauldron for the Atlanta 1996 Olympics, pictured being lifted into place two months before the Games, somewhat irked Frank Keating ©AFP/Getty Images



But by and large he loved the Olympics, finding them beguiling and uplifting

He also had literary love affairs with cricket, rugby and boxing.

My favourite boxing intro of all time remains his preview of the Ali-Dunn world heavyweight title fight in 1976, which began: "Tonight, in Munich's Olympiahalle, Muhammad Ali, of the Universe, meets Richard Dunn of No 2 Northcote Terrace, Bradford."

Who else but Keating could have described the moment when John Conteh had his teeth knocked as: "A faint tinkle of crystal like a chandelier caught in a Waterford breeze."

Keating liked not so much the brutality, but the bonhomie of boxing, particularly among fellow scribes. We used to josh him when he walked into the media room at big fights in Las Vegas, seeking a dinner companion or two for that evening. "Much love, m'dears," he would wave cheerily as he left.

His use of that phrase usually left macho American writers spluttering into their coffee. "Is he some sort of fag?" they'd query, eyebrows raised. Well, family man Frank may have been fey, but he certainly wasn't gay.

He did rather enjoy a bottle or two of decent vino when he was composing his pieces, which he would self-deprecatingly dismiss as "my  drivel." A waiter, with bottle and glass balanced on a tray, tapping on his hotel room door, was a familiar sight.

But much as he loved most sports, there were some he couldn't abide. One was ice dancing. To him Torvill and Dean were "Borevill and Preen."

And he positively loathed tennis. Or rather, its ancestral home, Wimbledon.

Wimbledon was most definitely not one of Frank Keating's favourite haunts ©Popperfoto/Getty Images



To Keating, politically a lifelong leftie, 'Wimmers' represented what was wrong with British society. He found it stuffy, smug and snooty - a veritable Tory garden party. And he frequently said so.

On one occasion, years ago, he temporarily loaned his Centre Court press pass to a young fan who had been trying, unsuccessfully, to get in all day. A cardinal sin. Keating was rumbled by officials and hauled before an All-England Club committee.

They told him that as a result he would be banned from Wimbledon for the next three days. "Can't you make it life?" he pleaded.

David Coleman, the first broadcaster to receive the Olympic Order in recognition of his contribution to the Olympic movement, would never have committed such an aberration.

Here was the consummate pro, a wordsmith as equally but differently gifted as Keating but with phrases judiciously selected and imparted over 46 years of broadcasting.

Keating had also been versed in TV but as a producer and editor rather than a presenter, while unlike today's celebrity sportscasters, Coleman had been weaned on real journalism, editing his local newspaper. So they were both very much two of a kind professionally.

Yet while Keating was affable and easy-going, Coleman was difficult and demanding. Someone once said his bark was worse than his bite. "Don't you believe it," his former colleague John Motson remarks cryptically.

However no sports commentator - before or since - has had such a commanding all-round presence at the microphone. He knew sport inside out and had the respect of those who played it - as underscored by the great and the good who packed the memorial event organised by the BBC.

Many a Coleman commentary was vividly recalled, not least his masterful conveyance of the Black September raid on the Olympic Village at Munich in 1972, a day-long marathon from dawn until the dreadful conclusion late that evening.

David Coleman's reporting of the unfolding hostage crisis at Munich 1972 was masterful ©Sports Illustrated via Getty Images



There were the multitudinous "Colemanballs" famously columnised in the satirical magazine Private Eye, which Coleman himself much enjoyed. Especially those that were not even uttered by him.

His widely-attributed classic that the Cuban 800 metres double Olympic gold medallist, Alberto Juantorena, "opened his legs and showed his class", actually spilled from the lips of  the late athletics pundit Ron Pickering.

Equally though, it might have been penned, rather more tongue in cheek, by dear old Frank Keating. With much love, m'dears, of course.

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

In recent weeks, and as ever in the Olympic Movement, it has become easy to lose track of what sport is really about.

For at insidethegames we have focused mostly on elections, bidding cities, potential bidding cities, and former potential bidding cities, not to mention commercial deals, construction timetables and doping scandals.

Even when sport is on the agenda it is usually restricted to contexts such as "whether new disciplines will be added" or "whether the venue for this sport will be ready".

I am not complaining about any of this, but it is important to remember that sport remains at its core an athletic pursuit and, given this, it was a pleasure to spend last weekend in London immersed in top quality sport.

This began with the latest round of the World Triathlon Series in Hyde Park on Saturday. While many Olympic sports are constantly battling to adapt and evolve to modern times, and even to protect a position on the ultra-competitive Olympic programme of today, triathlon is one sport most definitely on the up.

When covering the Grand Final on the same course last year, from my perspective the event felt more an extension of the London 2012 legacy. Both in terms of participation and spectators, the story was about grassroots engagement as the sport continued to reap the benefits of the post-Olympic wave of sporting euphoria.

This time around the story was much more about triathlon itself.

Quite rightly, the current period is being hailed as a golden era for the sport. This is because of the domination of the three London 2012 medal winners: British Olympic champion Alistair Brownlee, younger brother Jonathan, and Javier Gómez of Spain, the runner-up in London who has gone on to win the 2013 world title and the opening three races of the 2014 series.

No-one other than these three had won a World Triathlon Series race for 18 months and, heading into the weekend, no one had ever beaten all three in the same race in a streak stretching back to 2009.

A comparison can be drawn with the situation in men's tennis, another sporting rivalry entering the all-time-great stakes. In a pre-race interview, Jonathan Brownlee described himself as a Novak Djokovic style all-rounder, before poking fun at his elder sibling's recent injury troubles by describing him as a Rafael Nadal.

"When Alistair turns up he really means business but when he's off-form he goes out in the first round," he quipped.

But as we saw in tennis when then Swiss number two Stanislas Wawrinka won the Australian Open earlier this year, shocks do happen. In Hyde Park this weekend, triathlon had its Wawrinka moment as Spanish number two Mario Mola sprinted to a shock victory to deem the terrific trio at the top of the sport a fabulous foursome.

Mario Mola breaks the tape to complete a shock victory in Hyde Park ©Getty Images




Even more amazingly, Alistair, Jonathan and Gomez finished fourth, fifth and sixth respectively, as South African Richard Murray came second and Portugal's Joao Pereira enjoyed a breakthrough performance in third.

Late to the game as usual, I have been reading My Greek Drama, the memoir by Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, President of the 2004 Athens Olympic Organising Committee (ATHOC).

It does not mince words, as anyone who knows her would expect, but my attention has been concentrated principally on one precisely-delineated passage of Angelopoulos-Daskalaki's life: the four years and three months during which she battled to make sure that Athens would be ready on time.

This struggle has been made all too topical by the problems currently overshadowing Rio de Janeiro's preparations for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Indeed, the comparison was last month made explicit by International Olympic Committee (IOC) vice-president John Coates, when he observed that not only were Rio's preparations "the worst I have experienced", but they were "worse than Athens".

Having absorbed what Angelopoulos-Daskalaki has to say, I am left with a sense of trepidation for what those no doubt highly-motivated souls in the Rio Organising Committee may be called on to go through in the next two years before enjoying what we all hope will be their moment of triumphant vindication.

One statistic in particular in Angelopoulos-Daskalaki's book leapt out at me: "The divorce rate among the Olympic committee staff was some 55 percent."

The ATHOC President also admits that, "with the Games less than a year away, I dared to suggest to women employees that it was an unsuitable time for them to get pregnant".

Rather shockingly, she reveals too that "Lena, my right hand who on top of all her administrative duties did her best to take care of me, suffered a stroke just two months before the Games."

What is more: "Against doctor's orders she returned to work after only 15 days of recuperation."

Athens 2004 President Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki has detailed the problems the Greek capital faced in preparing for the Olympics in her book, My Greek Drama ©My Greek Drama

Angelopoulos-Daskalaki herself was at one point warned by a psychologist that she was "in real danger of having your marriage fall apart".

She ended up having to spend the first six weeks of 2005 in hospital.

"Her blood is like water," a doctor confided to her husband.

I know nothing about the Rio 2016 Organising committee's detailed working arrangements.

Perhaps structures are in place to prevent intolerable stress being heaped on employees, no matter how fast the city is having to move in order to be ready to host the world's greatest sports extravaganza.

But I observed in the build-up to London 2012 just how hard staff members of even a universally-praised and all but crisis-free Organising Committee sometimes pushed themselves.

Part of the problem, I think, is that once Governments have signed up to their Olympic mega-project, with its substantial demands on public resources, pressure almost inevitably builds to rein in costs in the areas where this is possible.

Angelopoulos-Daskalaki explains that she felt it was imperative for ATHOC not to overspend.

"One message, one inviolable rule, had primacy," she writes, "Stay on budget!...One euro over and they will hang all of us."

This, of course, would have been an extra source of pressure on people who, first and foremost, were engaged on an unrelenting four-year race against the clock.

"During the final year," the ATHOC President acknowledges, "we delayed hiring some employees for months to save on salaries.

"The rest of us were working 24/7 to compensate."

Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki with with then IOC President Jacques Rogge at the Closing Ceremony of Athens 2004 ©Getty Images

We know that changes to Olympic Games bidding procedures are under consideration as part of IOC President Thomas Bach's Olympic Agenda 2020 initiative.

The experience of Rio, and Athens before it, suggest that procedures over the critical seven years between a bid being declared victorious and the lights going down on the Opening Ceremony need to be scrutinised as well, with the IOC taking a more continuously hands-on role than the Coordination Commission system currently permits.

It is a delicate balance to strike: host-countries need to think of the Games they are staging as very much "their" Olympics/Paralympics and, on a practical level, host-country officials will know more than the IOC about how most effectively to get what they need from government ministers and other local leaders.

But it is in the interests of no-one, except perhaps the companies which may be able to charge higher prices for completing Olympic commissions in double-quick time, for the IOC to be obliged to appoint IOC Executive Director Gilbert Felli to monitor preparations after they have fallen far behind schedule.

The big thing that experienced IOC insiders can bring to the Olympic preparation process is, of course, an ability to set a host-city's rate of progress in the context of its predecessors.

This would be an immensely valuable contribution even to the best-run organising committees.

So large and complex have the Summer Games now become - and I see little sign that Agenda 2020 will change this - that I think the time has come for the IOC to establish a permanent secretariat, as a matter of course, within each Organising Committee.

When the local organisation is efficient, this can be tiny, perhaps even a single representative.

But when problems that the IOC's know-how could help with arise, the secretariat could be beefed up quickly and appropriately with relatively little fuss.

Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki claims she was the "Olympic bitch" during the build-up to Athens 2004 ©Getty Images

Angelopoulos-Daskalaki and her colleagues dug Greece out of a hole - just as Rio will probably clamber out of the hole it appears to have dug for itself.

But her book highlights the potential cost of this style of crisis management.

"I was the Olympic bitch," she states, referring to the way she was habitually characterised, adding:

"If I was a 'bitch' at times - and I was - it was because I had no choice. I had to get things done with a dispatch that was not customary in our country."

It is hard to imagine the mild-mannered Felli in the guise of Rio 2016's "Olympic bitch" - but someone is probably going to have to crack the whip over the next 800 days.

A permanent IOC presence in future organising committees would aim to smooth out wrinkles long before they reached the Athens, or the Rio, stage.

In doing so, the IOC may spare itself a deal of stress and help some of the talented and dedicated people who staff these key bodies to retain a half-reasonable work-life balance.

* To order a copy of My Greek Drama click here.

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.

As the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games loom ahead this summer - 54 days and counting - the memory of Scotland's last hosting of this event more than a quarter of a century ago resonates like, well, like the chord of A major with at least two strings playing flat.

For history now records that the 1986 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games were A major cock-up. And the two problematic strings were financial shortfall and a significant boycott by African, Asian and Caribbean nations.

The full extent of the mismanagement of those Games only became clear after all the fun and games was over. At the time of the Opening Ceremony it was reported that the event had made a loss of £2 million. Later it transpired that that figure was more than £4 million.

As a newly published book entitled The Commonwealth Games – Extraordinary Stories Behind The Medals (Bloomsbury, £12.99) describes, with less than two months to go before the Opening Ceremony the 1986 Games were already drifting towards debt under the palsied grip of an Organising Committee that was well intentioned but horribly out of its depth.

Scotland's team parades in the Opening Ceremony at the 1986 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games - but away from the track the event was beset by problems of finance and boycotts  ©Getty Images

Those charged with raising private revenue in the conspicuous absence of any central funding from Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Government had failed to grasp the fact underlined two years earlier by the commercially brilliant Los Angeles Olympics.

Namely that sport was now a big, global business and that major events required a little more than an understanding local council - at least, before Labour regained control shortly before the Games - and a few decent home-town business sponsors.

Five weeks before the troubled Games were due to start, a self-styled "saviour" emerged in the substantial form of Robert Maxwell, owner of Pergamon Press, Mirror Group Newspapers, two football clubs and - as the book's author Brian Oliver, former sports editor of The Observer, writes - "a massive ego."

Robert Maxwell was to arrive as a self-styled "saviour" at the troubled 1986 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games ©Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Oliver's book is a treasury of nitty gritty, rich in detail about all the Commonwealth Games stories we thought we already knew, but now realise we didn't know fully.

His chapter on Maxwell and the bizarre atmosphere in which the 1986 Games veered narrowly away from total collapse is characteristically intriguing, exploring all angles. It includes, for instance, an estimate of the value the Great Proprieter gained for himself and his brand through the almost daily exposure near the top of the news as the Games approached. Accountants Coopers & Lybrand put a figure of £4.3 million ($7.1 million/€5.2 million) on it - coincidentally, the exact figure of the Games' final deficit.

More figures - Maxwell made great play of the fact that he would be investing £2 million ($3.3 million/€2.4 million) in the Games, but the figure he actually invested was around £250,000 ($418,000/€307,000). His claims weren't all smoke and mirrors - only mostly.

I was in Edinburgh for that bewildering period before the Games began, covering for The Guardian, and attended one of Maxwell's press conferences.

By the end of it I felt like a mesmerised rabbit. Something was wrong, but I couldn't put a name to it. I kept on seeing that beaming face and the beady eyes under bushy brows, kept on hearing the bogus boom of that voice. Everything was going to be all right, was going to be all right. Robert Maxwell, yes, he, Robert Maxwell, was going to make everything turn out all right...

Oliver is a proper journalist, and while he makes full play of the astounding Maxwell excesses, he also notes the "self-inflicted damage" wrought by earlier misjudgement on the part of the Organising Committee.

"The television rights were sold to the BBC for £500,000 ($836,000/€614,000) when others thought a fair price would have been at least three times as much," he writes. "When West Nally, one of the world's leading sports sponsorship agencies, were asked to step in they declined. They could see that the Games were heading for trouble, that the selling of sponsorship had been too localised and that too many bad deals had already been done..."

Ten days before the Games were due to start, the boycotts began - and they kept on coming, provoked by Mrs Thatcher's perceived sympathy for the South Africa regime and its apartheid policy, and her opposition to imposing economic sanctions upon that Government.

The perceived sympathy of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for the South African regime, and her refusal to back economic sanctions as a means of combating its apartheid policies, caused more than half of the Commonwealth nations to boycott Edinburgh 1986 ©Getty Images

Emails from English Premier League head Richard Scudamore have been under fierce scrutiny amid allegations of a culture of sexism. The sporting archives across the world reveal women in sport have faced obstacles for well over a century.

"Women look their ugliest when playing sport" was not the headline you would expect in a publication which called itself the official magazine for the women's Amateur Athletic Association, the National Health Culture Association and the British Olympic Association.

The author was the American Paul Gallico, revered as a sports writer and later as a novelist. The year was 1938 and his article was published without comment in World Sport. It demonstrated just how far there was still to go to achieve sporting equality. "It is a ladies business to look beautiful", said Gallico, "and there are hardly any sports in which she seems able to do it."

Sport had been dominated by the men, although women did compete in the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris, in tennis, golf and croquet. Women's swimming events were introduced at Stockholm in 1912 and admission to athletics came even later at Amsterdam in 1928. As a result, they established the Federation Sportive Feminine Internationale (International Women's Sport Federation) and started their own independent competitions.

This headline, published in World Sport in 1938, showed just how far there was to go to achieve sporting equality ©World Sport



This, it seemed, encouraged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to act to bring women's sport into the fold and for the first time track and field events for women were staged at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam. The races were over 100 and 800 metres.

It was said that after the women's 800m some fell to the ground, although later accounts from eyewitnesses suggest this might have been somewhat mischievous reporting. The women were no more distressed than the men had been after their races.

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the man behind the revival of the Olympic Games, was a long standing opponent of female participation. He took his cue from the Ancient Games in Olympia. There, women were excluded from competition.

"Their role should be above all to crown the victors," said Coubertin

Baron Pierre de Coubertin opposed female participation in the Olympic Games ©Popperfoto/Getty Images



"Reaction has been hostile to repeating the spectacle that the women's events provided during the ninth Olympiad [1928 ]," said Harold Abrahams, Olympic 100m champion at Paris 1924 and by now a journalistic observer. He suggested the "collapse" was a result of "more psychological than physical causes.

"Women are apt to break down for reasons not instantly clear to the masculine understanding," continued Abrahams, and he was one of the more liberal voices.  "He sees no reason why women should not continue to compete in the Olympic Games." The IOC agreed.

Dr Godfrey Dewey, organiser of the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, was another supporter of the inclusion of women, up to a point.

"In his view it was a mistake to have events for women in which endurance was a factor," reported the New York Times in 1931.

No race longer than 200m was included for women at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, nor at any Games before Rome 1960. (Not until Los Angeles 1984 was a women's marathon finally included.) There were some 1,900 competitors in Los Angeles, but only 202 were women.

The first women's marathon at an Olympic Games was held in Los Angeles 1984
©Getty Images




Although the athletic programme was reduced, Gallico did not feel it had gone far enough. "Females who run and jump in track meets are just wasting their time, and ours, because they can't run fast enough, jump high enough or throw things far enough to matter."

Nor did he confine his assault to athletics.

"Ladies have no business playing squash," he wrote, and he was as withering about other racquet sports. "Ladies think they look beautiful and graceful playing tennis, but they do not. And the "hippity- skippity" sort of jig they do from side to side to cover court is just about as elegant as a giraffe in a great hurry."

Team games fared no better. "If girls played basketball under men's rules, they would be taken away on stretchers after five minutes."

Gallico's diatribe was extreme but many others were quietly in agreement with his ideas. Not until the sixties did any of the international sports federations elect a woman as President when archery installed Mrs Inger Frith as their leader.

In 1981 the IOC finally included women members for the first time. One of the earliest was Dame Mary Glen-Haig, a fencer. Her sport had received a barrage from Gallico. "Fencing calls for the most absurd and unflattering posture in which a female could be asked to twist herself," he said.

At least the IOC did not agree with Gallico's assessment on this matter. Women's fencing had been included in the Olympic programme since 1924, though some sports took longer to make the breakthrough.

Women's hockey did not become part of the programme until Moscow 1980. Soccer for women did not make an appearance until Atlanta 1996, the centenary of the modern Games.

It was small wonder. With the words: "The game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged." Women had once been banned from taking part by the Football Association itself!

"I'm back," declares Olympic champion James DeGale, booked to appear as the warm-up act to Saturday's second-time-around bonanza bust-up between Carl Froch and George Groves at Wembley Stadium, where 80,000 seats will be filled for an event that has become as much a happening as a prodigious punch-up.

Normally, the boxer known as "Chunky" would have good cause to be envious of fellow west Londoner Groves, with whom an acrimonious enmity has endured since their amateur days.

The 26-year-old Groves, who beat him both as an amateur and on a disputed majority decision in a British title fight as a pro three years ago, has now twice gazumped him as a world title challenger for Froch's IBF and WBA belts.

But is he unhappy? No way. Because the gold medal that seems to have been a curse for those Britons who have acquired one in the Olympic ring finally may have become his talisman.

After shadow boxing against nondescript opposition in small halls and shopping centres, DeGale has signed with Eddie Hearn's mushrooming Matchroom stable and appears in the chief supporting bout on the bumper historic Wembley show in a final eliminator for the titles that Froch and Groves are again contesting.

Olympic gold does not always mean success in the professional boxing ring, but James DeGale could be on the cusp of defying the odds ©Getty Images



All he has to do is overcome the unbeaten American Brandon Gonzales, a pretty tough ask - but, born-again in boxing terms, "Chunky" firmly believes he is back in the big picture and set to become the first Briton to convert golden Olympic bullion into a world professional title.

And it's all down to mum Diane.

He recalls: "Six months ago I was in a dark place, depressed and on the verge of packing it all in. There I was, an Olympic and former British and European champion, fighting in PE halls and stuff like that.

"I went, 'Mum, I've got two properties, a nice car and a pension, so screw this boxing. I'll earn £1,000 ($1,681/€1,232) a week doing personal training.' She said, 'Don't be stupid.' And she was right. Potentially there's some crazy money to be made. This is going to be fun now."

Obviously mum knew best.

DeGale, 28, revealed to insidethegames that he was within days of quitting after being in limbo for 18 months, finding that the Olympic medal he won in Beijing six years ago was something of an albatross. "I really was deeply depressed about it all. Boxing has been my life since I was 11 years old and it was all I knew. I seriously wondered if it was time to walk away."

But he changed promoters for the second time and Matchroom have offered him a direct route to the world title

"Boxing is so political, and it is all about being positioned right. I am in a perfect place now."

Eddie Hearn (right) has given James DeGale's career a lift by signing him to his growing Matchroom stable ©Getty Images



There's little doubt who DeGale would rather fight for the world title. "Groves and me have issues to settle. I still can't stand him and he can't stand me. Groves is a fool, a fake. I will never let him belittle me like he's done with Froch.

"It's a 50-50 fight but the way he started last time, Groves was hitting Froch for fun. It was embarrassing.

"I've been saying for years, Froch is an easy fight, chin's up in the air, feet are all over the place, technically terrible. But he's tough, he's strong, he's fit for 12 rounds, he comes on strong the last few rounds.

"Groves is a bit more difficult because he can switch it up a bit more. But he'll hold the centre of the ring. He's not scared of Froch.

"I think it's going to be another good fight. I just hope Froch is better. He took him lightly last time. I've never seen him as bad.

"I think Groves will win the rematch because he's younger, has better footwork and is faster. I think he will do it second time around.

"Groves and I are different fighters, and we have matured. I didn't like him then and I don't like him now, but I'd love the chance of a rematch for the world title. And this time I'd show him who's the boss."

The Wembley fight is expected to gross £20 million ($33.6 million/€24.6 million) from pay-per-view and gate receipts, in the biggest in post-war British history. Rapid transformation of the national stadium will be required after England play Peru in a World Cup warm-up on Friday evening.

A crowd of 80,000 will see Carl Froch take on George Groves in a rematch that could well live up to its billing ©Getty Images



"When you get it right, boxing can be one of the biggest sports out there," says DeGale's young promoter Eddie Hearn, a view underscored by projected figures which indicate gate receipts of £6 million and Sky's Box Office sales at £16.95 ($28.51/€20.89) a shot expected to gross at least £14 million ($23.5 million/€17.2 million).

Technically, as challenger, Groves is entitled to only 17 per cent of the total purse under IBF rules, but I understand he has managed to negotiate himself close to a 50-50 split and is believed to have pocketed £500,000 ($841,000/€616,000) up front in his newly-announced deal with German promoters Sauerland.

Not bad for a lad from Hammersmith who admits he barely made it through school but is as articulate with his wordplay as he is with his fists. And his bargaining technique suggests he is also as nifty with the calculator as the Rubik's cube.

In Manchester last November he may have controversially lost the first fight with Froch, but he won the hearts of the nation.

Like DeGale, I have known "Saint George", as he now styles himself, since his amateur days.

He has always been essentially a loner, spurning the customary entourage and training camps, preferring to stay at home with his wife Sophie, a Fulham primary school teacher.

Few fighters are so single-minded. He certainly won't be fazed by roars from 80,000 throats when he embarks on his ring walk to the rousing techno hit Spitfire by Prodigy, a few minutes before 10pm on Saturday. "I have tunnel vision," he says. "All I will be focusing on is two men - Froch and the referee."

Nigel Benn and Joe Calzaghe, both distinguished former world super-middleweight champions, join DeGale in favouring Groves. Such backing from the pugilistic elite will further fuel Groves' already brimming confidence.

But boxers, like jockeys, can be notoriously fickle tipsters, and though two months shy of his 37th birthday, Froch is the sort of seasoned warrior you underestimate at your peril.

Knocked down in the first round, Carl Froch's ego was pricked as he went on to win his controversial bout with George Groves in November ©Getty Images



His clumsy start when his ego was pricked by that first round knock-down in Manchester last November suggested he was in the grip of ring rage, uptight with fury at being dissed by an upstart who had not fought anyone of his stature.

But it was his own right hand that was held aloft after the ninth, albeit a victory diminished by a somewhat hasty intervention from referee Howard Foster, administering a headlock as Groves momentarily staggered that was deemed "improper" by the IBF who, in an unprecedented judgement, upheld his well-articulated plea for a rematch.

The turn-around tsunami of popularity that subsequently engulfed Groves even astonished a sport where the bizarre is often the norm, and this time he will be cheered into a home-town ring, not booed as in Manchester.

"Carl is set in his ways and has managed to get by with what he has got," claims Groves. "Slowly, his attributes are starting to deteriorate. He is left now with a good chin and a bit of determination. Technically, he punches terribly.

"In the last fight, he was abused - physical, emotional, spiritual. How is he going to deal with that when the flashbacks come? I know I can hurt him mentally and physically."

A University graduate, Froch is no slouch himself when it comes to badinage.

Carl Froch has sought counsel from a sports psychologist, something his opponent says is a sign of weakness ©Getty Images



Tutored by Robert McCracken, coach to the GB Olympic boxing squad, with whom he trains at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield, Froch has sought counsel from a sports psychologist, which Groves sees as a sign of weakness.

But Froch says it was as much to help him cope with the pressure of the occasion as an antidote to Groves' craftily-calculated mind games.

"I couldn't even say his name before," he admits. "I let the boy get under my skin with his arrogance, the disrespect, and it affected my performance in a very negative way. That will not be happening again."

Observers of Froch's recent workouts say he has re-discovered the Eye of the Cobra and threatens more controlled venom this time.

It is an intriguing collision of tactics and egos that could go either way. Rematches rarely live up to the original but this could be an exception.

The decade that separates them may be the telling factor.

It is a hard call but I believe Groves gained more in losing their last inconclusive entanglement than Froch did in winning. What would not surprise me is a split decision in Groves' favour, leading to even richer pickings in episode three of a titanic trilogy.

Which would leave James DeGale fidgeting in the wings, nervously fingering that Olympic medal, until their differences are finally settled.

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

There was a sense of inevitability hanging over the Kraków 2022 Olympic and Paralympic bid well before exit polls last night accurately predicted the city had declared a resounding "nie" to the prospect of a first Polish Games.

And following confirmation this morning that a whopping 69.72 per cent opposed the bid, the Kraków dream has been put to bed, and this most intriguing of bidding races has become a four-way affair between Almaty, Beijing, Lviv and Oslo.

There will be many theories drawn about why the city failed and what it tells us about beleaguered European enthusiasm, for any Olympic bid. But more than any wider pattern the downfall of Kraków 2022 arose largely due to mistakes and misjudgements from those associated with the bid.

Recent losers have reacted in different ways to the devastation of defeat in Olympic host-city contests.

South Korea kept plugging away, burnishing strengths, eliminating weaknesses, until finally, in Pyeongchang 2018, they pieced together a bullet-proof proposition.

Brazil made winning an absolute national priority.

Japan applied themselves with the indefatigable diligence that is part of their modern-day national stereotype to achieving fluency in the highly idiomatic language of the Olympic court.

The United States first tried throwing their weight around.

That led to the Calamity of Copenhagen when Chicago was eliminated in the first round of voting for the 2016 Summer Games host.

Now they have come up with a much more promising mix, combining humility, pragmatism and, yes, financial muscle - as illustrated by this month's jaw-dropping $7.65 billion (£4.51 billion/€5.49 billion) rights deal between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and NBCUniversal (NBCU).

Pyeongchang were awarded the 2018 Winter Olympics and Paralympics after two failed bids ©Getty Images

And then there is France.

France went into shock, seemingly traumatised by a defeat that the political classes, and many others besides, did not see coming.

They allowed themselves to drift into a low-octane Winter Olympic bid that scarcely anyone outside the old Duchy of Savoy appeared to believe in.

Now, finally, they are starting to snap out of it.

Next week, the country's attempt to construct a winnable Summer Olympic and Paralympic bid is expected to get under way in earnest with the launch of a number of working groups, combining people from inside and outside sport, who will attempt to chisel out a plan that everyone feels they can buy into.

The methodical nature of this approach suggests that the country which spawned modern Olympism has accepted the wisdom of former IOC member Jean-Claude Killy's recent advice that "the romantic IOC no longer exists".

In other words, Paris would have no chance if it pitched up at the start-line of the race to host the 2024 Games simply assuming it would win because that date marks the centenary of the last Paris Summer Olympics.

Atlanta were chosen to host the Centenary Olympics in 1996, not Athens ©Getty Images

As Killy also pointed out, the 1996 Centenary Games were staged in Atlanta, not Athens.

There is no reason to doubt the capacity of some of the best minds in this country with its unique cultural sophistication and flair, its often underestimated organisational prowess and, yes, its special status in modern Olympic history to devise a project that is capable of winning.

But I wonder to what extent strategy might be influenced by the scars left on the political classes by France's long losing streak.

The "grande école" types who largely form the country's governing elite tend not to "get" sport.

They didn't get where they are today by not excelling and they may feel simply unable to stomach another loss.

No matter how good the project they come up with, France's sporting leaders might therefore find themselves expected to answer an impossible question as the price of securing full-blooded political backing: not, "Can we win with this bid?" but "Will we win?"

It would be foolhardy at the best of times to answer this in the affirmative.

Given that the 2024 race looks increasingly likely to feature the best US bid for a long, long time, it is hard to see how Paris, or anyone else, could enter the contest as anything better than second favourite.

Until recently, I had thought that, while the US would win one of the next two Summer Olympics and Paralympics, this was more likely to be in 2028 than in 2024.

This was because of the time it usually takes, even once your mindset is right, to make a bid pitch-perfect; that and one or two more technical things such as financial guarantees.

Under those circumstances, you would probably argue that the best tactic for European cities would be to challenge the chosen US candidate hard for 2024 because otherwise you might live to regret it - particularly if you sat it out and found yourself watching impotently while a more courageous European rival won.

America's last bid to host the Olympics ended in disaster for Chicago 2016 when they were eliminated in the first round of voting despite the presence of President Barack Obama and the First Lady Michelle at the IOC Session in Copenhagen ©Getty Images

However, the stubbornly persistent mood of anti-Americanism that has lurked inside the IOC in recent times seems now to be dissipating in this rather trickier business climate for mega-event owners - a process that the landmark NBCU broadcasting deal may well accelerate.

As a result, I have changed my mind: I now expect the US candidate to take all the beating in 2024.

Normally, you might still see considerable virtue in Paris launching a speculative 2024 bid: its new team - including recently-elected Paris mayor, Anne Hidalgo (who I notice, promisingly enough, wrote a preface to the last sports book I read) - would learn, or re-learn, the bidding ropes; plus, if the project were good, it would leave a positive legacy for city and country, win or lose.

The French capital would then go hell for leather for 2028, when Europe should be in the box-seat, albeit under challenge, perhaps, from the Gulf and Africa, whose candidate-cities might possibly benefit from changes to the bidding rules that the IOC is currently mulling over.

In the real world though, if the US still looks this powerful this time next year, bearing in mind that cities will need to declare their interest by September 2015, I would not be at all surprised if the French decided to keep their up to €80 million (£65 million/$109 million) in their pocket and their powder dry.

As well as reluctance to countenance another losing campaign, the fact that the next French Presidential election is due in April and May 2017, just as the 2024 race will be entering its critical final stages, might lead political sages to conclude that, on this occasion, discretion was the better part of valour.

There is also talk of an Expo 2025 bid, which might need to be lodged in 2016, but which might equally stimulate development of infrastructural assets, such as hotels, that could dovetail well with a 2028 Olympic bid.

A French city has not hosted the Olympics since Albertville staged the Winter Games in 1992 ©Sports Illustrated/Getty Images

I do think a decision not to enter the 2024 race would be a pity: as I wrote last year, the modern Olympic Movement seems to be getting altogether too remote from its Francophone roots, with no Summer Olympics going to a largely French-speaking city since 1976, and no French Winter Games since Albertville 1992.

The way things are shaping up, though, I think the best that French sports leaders can hope for after results of the feasibility study are announced in the autumn is a decision that Paris will bid, without stipulating whether this means in 2024 or 2028.

This would enable planners to start getting their ducks in a row such that, should the fickle currents of Olympic popularity start to flow in Paris's favour between late 2014 and September 2015, they would be in position to take advantage.

Failing that, my present sense is that the capital of chic might leave it to others - Rome, perhaps; St Petersburg conceivably - to try to halt the US juggernaut in 2024, in the hope that it could then sashay away with sport's biggest prize in 2028.

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.

So "podium boys" will be handing out bouquets and offering synchronised kisses to the winners at La Course - the inaugural women's cycle race taking place in the Champs-Élysées on July 27, the same day the men's Tour de France finishes there. Ooh la la.

Of course this knowing subversion of the convention attached to male road racing is aiming at publicity for an event that will involve 13 laps of the Champs-Élysées (90km) and will also feature women motorbike riders, policewomen from the Paris Police Prefecture and a 100 per cent female jury.

The announcement put me in mind of Peter Kay's one-liner:  "My dad used to say 'always fight fire with fire' - which is probably why he got thrown out of the fire brigade."

British comedian Peter Kay has a one-liner which, in a funny kind of way, relates to the forthcoming La Course women's cycling race ©AFP/Getty Images

It has been suggested - humorously, of course - that Marianne Vos, the Netherlands' multiple world and Olympic road race champion, could fully even the scores for her sex by pinching the bottom of one of the attending males on the podium, thus mirroring the action of Slovakia's Peter Sagan after last year's Tour of Flanders, where he finished runner-up to Fabian Cancellara and earned widespread condemnation for his unwanted attentions to one of the two hostesses feting the winner.

But the thing is, even if Vos temporarily lost her mind and did such a thing, it would not be amusing. Just as the La Course subversion of a wearisome and outdated piece of sexism is not amusing.

Of one thing you can be sure - the "podium girls" idea was a male one. It is in the same milieu as bikini-clad beauties parading the round numbers in the ring at boxing matches. The novelty reversal at La Course appears to be challenging, but in fact it is patronising. Whose idea was it? Male or female, it doesn't matter. It was a bad one.

Slovakian rider Peter Sagan (left) lowers the tone at the end of last year's Tour of Flanders, which was won by Fabian Cancellara (right) ©Getty Images

And yet the desire to be picked as a podium hostess on the men's Tour is clearly huge. Tour de France organisers normally have to reduce a potential entry of 500 applicants down to the required 50.

You could argue that such a conjunction seeks to heighten the glamour of elite sport. But it offers no more than a facile notion of glamour. And I don't imagine Vos, or indeed her now retired predecessor as Olympic road race champion, Britain's Nicole Cooke, would find much jollity in the novel podium twist at La Course when there are other fundamentally more important innovations required in order to offer women cyclists what you might term "a fair turn of the wheel" in the sport.

The first "La Course by le Tour de France", to give the event its full title, is part of the International Cycling Union's (UCI) elite women's calendar and it will mean women racing "alongside" men at the most famous finish in cycling for the first time since 1989.

The former women's version of the Tour de France - La Grande Boucle - ailed throughout the early years of the new millennium because of organisational difficulties and lack of funding, The UCI downgraded it in the ratings. It was discontinued in 2009.

The grand days of the Grand Boucle - Germany's Petra Rossner celebrates winning the 11th stage of the women's 'Tour de France' race, which was discontinued in 2009 ©AFP/Getty Images

Last year an online campaign was launched to establish a three-week women's tour to run alongside the men's version, generating more than 95,000 signatures. That ambition has not been met - but the single day's racing in such a high profile setting is seen as a significant precursor to that ultimate aim.

"We must be given a stage and it is great that ASO [Amaury Sport Organisation, the organisers of the Tour de France] has taken the initiative," said Vos at the official launch of La Course.

"They have opened their powerful doors, providing one of the most important stages in the world on one of the most important days on the calendar. The world will be watching. We are catching up, and catching up fast." She added: "I have no doubt it is the start of a new era for women's cycling."

Multiple world and Olympic road race champion Marianne Vos promoting the inaugural La Course race in Paris ©Getty Images

The development was also described as a "game-changer for women's cycling" by Britain's four-time Ironman triathlon champion Chrissie Wellington, who has been part of the campaign.

One factor which is far more significant than the nonsense surrounding the presentations at La Course is the hard fact that the winner will winner will receive €22,500 (£18,247/$30,781), equal to the total on offer for the men's stage finish later in the day.

In conjunction with the inaugural Women's Tour of Britain, a five-day race won by Vos earlier this month, La Course looks as if it truly might be a harbinger of serious renewal in women's road racing.

But as Cooke's valedictory speech, marking her retirement after the London 2012 Games, indicated, there is a long way to go:

"There are so many ways in which the UCI could support the sport for women, but instead they have acted, regardless of their intent, in a way that has caused the sport to lose events. Gone are the women's Milan San Remo, the Amstel Gold Race, Tour de L'Aude, Tour Midi Pyrenees, and Tour Castel de Leon. No HP tour in America," Cooke said in January of last year.

"No Tours in Australia, New Zealand or Canada. Instead of a two-week Tour de France we have nothing. Today, in January, the major race in the women's calendar this year, the one from which I have the pink T-shirt, has no organiser and no route.

Britain's Nicole Cooke, pictured with her Olympic gold medal from the 2008 Beijing Games road race, offered an honest and challenging view of her sport when she retired in 2013 ©AFP/Getty Images

"With sponsors and support lost, the riders in the sport are exposed and vulnerable in so many ways. Many riders receive just token reward or rewards paid out in a capricious and unfair way. Some receive nothing."

Meanwhile there are other ideas circulating on making the podium experience less of a shallow one. Writing on peletoncafe.com.au, Caelli Greenbank asks:

"Is there really any particular meaning to a model hired for a two-hour stint of wearing high heels and a tight dress who probably can't tell Jens Voigt from Fabian Cancellara? Is this supposed to represent cycling somehow?"

She goes on to suggest that the honour of presenting elite cyclists with their prizes should go to other more deserving, and more importantly, more representative individuals:

"What about the woman who started the juniors program at the local cycling club, or maybe the guy who won the last club race, or the local girl who rode all around Australia to raise money for cancer? What about the man who kept cycling once he survived cancer?  As they zip up the winner's jersey and shake their hand, or kiss their cheek, or bear-hug them, the commentators on the live coverage can add a short byline to explain the special circumstances that merited their choice as the podium people. It'll make a great little human interest story to market each race around the world."

Sounds good to me.

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.

"Yes, of course."

With these words, Joseph Blatter, FIFA's President, sent social media networks into a frazzle on Friday (May 16).

What the boss of world football had done, under questioning on Swiss TV channel RTS, was acknowledge that FIFA's decision to award Qatar the 2022 World Cup in the blazing heat of a Gulf summer was a mistake.

What he actually said (in French) was:

"Yes, of course [it was a mistake].

"But in life one makes many mistakes.

"The technical report on Qatar indicated clearly that it is too hot in summer.

"But the Executive Committee, with quite a big majority, decided nonetheless that we can play in Qatar."

FIFA President Sepp Blatter's words will be interpreted by some to be asserting that it was a mistake to award Qatar the 2022 World Cup, but it was nothing to do with him ©Getty Images



The admission sparked an immediate widespread reaction, including a number of much-circulated tweets from Gary Lineker, the former England centre-forward turned TV presenter.

"Blatter 'everyone makes mistakes.' Pretty big one. He's the man in charge. I imagine his resignation letter is being composed as we tweet!!!", Lineker tweeted.

Inside FIFA, though, I suspect the President's words may have been interpreted very differently.

Remember, next year brings a Presidential election, and while we suspect Blatter will run unopposed but for Jérôme Champagne, nothing is yet certain.

The FIFA Evaluation Group report did warn of "a potential health risk" in playing the world cup in Qatar during the summer, but this was discounted by those who voted for the bid ©Getty Images



In this context, I think FIFA insiders, some of them at least, would have interpreted the comments thus:

"It was a mistake to vote for Qatar to stage the 2022 World Cup in summer, but it was nothing to do with me.

[It is generally accepted that Blatter, unlike 14 colleagues some of whom are still Executive Committee members, did not vote for the Gulf state; I believe that he voted for Australia in the first round and thereafter the United States.]

"Re-elect me next year, and do things my way, and you minimise the chances of similar mistakes re-occurring."

Sepp Blatter's words were as much to those within FIFA as they were to those outside
©Getty Images



I should add that I don't think Blatter can entirely escape responsibility for the Qatar decision: after all he presided over a governance system in which a clear majority of his colleagues felt able to discount a FIFA Evaluation Group report that branded plans to play the competition there in June and July as "a potential health risk".

But I would also add, given the super-rich state's cooling technology plans and the option of playing most matches after sunset, that the potential risk seems to me principally to concern visiting supporters.

Of course, no-one can blame reporters for taking the FIFA President's comments at face value.

I would simply observe that one of his most potent weapons over the years has been the tendency of others to underestimate him.

It may be a shock to the system for Premier League chief Richard Scudamore and all those male chauvinist pigs who like to diss women, but girl power is on the up in British sport.

We have already recorded here how Liz Nicholl, arguably the most influential female figure in the sports business as chief executive of funding body UK Sport, reckons the glass ceiling is visibly cracking, with so many female icons post 2012 and Sochi 2014 and performances that in so many cases - not least in cycling, gymnastics, athletics and winter sports - that are superior to men.

"This is a good time for women in sport," she told insidethegames, pointing out that there were more GB female medallists in the Sochi than men, and almost as many as men in Summer Games.

Nicholl herself is at the vanguard of a growing battalion of female power players, like the feisty black lawyer Heather Rabbatts. The ex-Millwall chair, now independent  Football Association Board member and a strident voice in football, claims the recent exposure of tasteless emails sent by Scudamore about women are indicative of "a closed culture of sexism" within the Premier League.

If Scudamore really does believe women remain the weaker sex and easy prey for his double entendre scribbling, perhaps he should make the acquaintance of a teenage girl from Yorkshire named Rebekah Tiler.

She'd quickly put him in his place. Or heave him over her head...

Premier League Chief Richard Scudamore has been strongly criticised for writing a string of sexist emails ©Getty Images



Here is a literal example of the sort of girl power that is putting women on top in several areas of British sport.

At just 15, this grammar schoolgirl can already claim to be Britain's strongest woman, a weightlifter who regularly heaves a combined total of three times her own 69 kilogram body weight and is currently outlifting competitors 10 years her senior.

Her immense strength puts her, pound for pound, in pole position as the nation's leading strongwoman now that Michaela Breeze, the former Welsh Commonwealth Games silver medallist, previously acknowledged as the strongest female in British sport, has retired.

It may seem a huge burden to bear for this intelligently engaging youngster but she is used to having large weights on her well-sculpted shoulders.

So much so that she is now potentially worth her own weight in gold, the colour of the medal she dreams of winning as the first Briton to win an Olympic weightlifting title.

That dream is now being honed in a small gym in the West Yorkshire village of Mytholmroyd - birthplace of former poet laureate Ted Hughes, author of The Iron Woman. It is an appropriate workshop.

No sport, perhaps with the exception of boxing, reflects the escalating encroachment of women into a world once regarded as essentially a male domain than weightlifting.

Sport England's Active People figures show that 12,700 women aged 16 and over are now regularly taking part in weightlifting at least once a month, an increase of over 3,000 in the past 18 months.

Only boxing, on the back of the golden triumph of Nicola Adams at London 2012, has shown a greater percentage participation among women in contact or power sports - rocketing by 8,000 to over 35,000. And in contact sports like judo and wrestling, also rising in terms of numbers, female weightlifters are now achieving greater success than their male counterparts at international level.

Nicola Adams, who became the first woman to win a boxing gold in Olympic history at London 2012, has helped spark a rise in the number of women taking part in contact or power sports ©Getty Images



Tiler's coach Eddie Halstead says: "More and more girls are lifting weights in the gym and we want to encourage more to come into the sport. They won't end up with veins popping out of their shoulders and they won't lose their figures. Weightlifting doesn't turn people into hulks - it's a totally different sport to body-building."

Ashley Metcalfe, the former Yorkshire and England cricketer who became chief executive of Leeds-based British Weightlifting a year ago, tells us: "We have spent a lot of time lifting the profile of the sport for women, making them aware just how exciting it is not just as a sport but for their health and fitness.

"Most of our female lifters are young, fit, good-looking women. Power sports attract more girls these days because the fear barrier has been broken down.

"The sport has been a bit in the doldrums in this country but we now have some exciting young talent, both male and female. Rebekah Tiler, Zoe Smith, Emily Godfrey, Sarah Davis and Mercy Brown are among those who are consistently breaking records in the snatch and clean and jerk. Rebekah and Zoe are both from grammar schools. It helps to have some degree of intelligence to understand the technical side of lifting.

"It's great that the girls are now producing the goods."

It is largely because of weightlifting's new strategy in targeting resources on their best female athletes like Tiler that funding body UK Sport have now restored the sport to their World Class Performance Programme.

"Astonishing," is how her coach Eddie Halstead describes the power of Britain's new weightlifting wonder."What she is doing would be phenomenal for a young man, but for a girl, it is incredible.

"She's the best talent I've seen in a very long time. Zoe Smith [who competed for GB at London 2012] is a quality lifter but Rebekah will go marching on past. If she carries on progressing at the rate she is now, she'll end up lifting 235-240kg combined, which is world-class."

Tiler can not only overcome all her domestic female rivals but most boys of similar age, "although I don't actually compete against them, of course", she says.

Tiler has already won gold in a record-breaking performance at the European Youth Championships in Lithuania this year to become a genuinely awesome prospect in a sport which has not seen a British lifter anywhere near the Olympic podium for 30 years, let alone on top of it.

A former UK Schools sprint champion with the physique of a stocky welterweight boxer and the power of a pantechnicon in both arms, Tiler is causing eyebrows to raise as high as her coach's expectations in this macho, muscled world.

Rebekah Tiler has aspirations of following in compatriot Zoe Smith's footsteps by competing at an Olympics, but it's at Tokyo 2020 where coach Eddie Halstead believes a medal is possible ©Getty Images





Recently she compounded her Euro success by becoming the youngest weightlifter to win a senior women's British title, taking gold in 69kg class in Coventry. Her total of 205kg would also have been good enough to win gold in both the higher 75kg and over 75kg categories.

No dumb belle, either. She attends Bingley Grammar School, where she is studying for her GCSEs and hopes to go to university. "My schoolwork fits in around my evening training quite easily and they have been very supportive in giving me time off for competitions," she says. "The teachers think what I do is cool."

So is supported by a local butcher, Ian Hewitt, a sponsor whose liberal supplies of steak and chicken play a vital role in sustaining girlpower in the Tiler household in Denholme, where Rebekah's three younger sisters, Sophie,11, nine-year-old Lisa and five-year-old Emily are all budding lifters. "The five-year-old copies me, grabs a stick and tries to clean and jerk," says Tiler.

Weightlifters, like fine wine, usually mature with age. They need the years of repetitive training to steadily improve strength and technique as their bodies develop to reach their peak.

Mum Emma says that as a toddler, Rebekah would lift mini dumb-bells at the knee of dad Chris, a keen bodybuilder.

But her first love was athletics. "It was when I got tested at a performance centre in Rochdale that a coach told me, 'You're so strong you should take up weightlifting.' I thought it was a joke - but I was in the gym a week later lifting weights.

"It was a hard decision but a good one because I was stronger than I was fast, although the speed I had coming out of the blocks as a sprinter really helped with lifting weights because I could get off my haunches quicker."

"The first time I saw her was at a kids' competition in the North-East," says Halstead, who has been working with Tiler since 2011. "She walked up to the bar and hoofed it above her head at 90mph. I thought: 'Wow, what an opportunity it would be if I could work with that girl.'

Tiler finds it difficult to keep track of the number of records she has broken - somewhere north of 200 in a sport where they can be shattered as frequently as plates in a Greek restaurant.

Her first senior international will be representing England in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow where Halstead believes a medal is a strong possibility. Then it's Rio 2016. "She'll definitely finish in the top 10 there but what we are looking for is a medal at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

Ambitious as she is, Tiler seems happy to play the weighting game. "Now my mates don't really see what I do as unusual," she says. "Their attitude is just, 'Keep doing it'.

"Some of the lads at school are like 'why are you so strong?! You're a girl, you shouldn't be like this!' I'm constantly being challenged to arm wrestles - but I always win."

Uplifting, you might say.

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

As I was sitting in the garden yesterday enjoying one of those sunny days we get in England, oh at least on an annual basis, I realised what a nice change it makes to be able to enjoy the weather at this time of year rather than worrying about the impending influx of exams.

For this is that rare time in the university calendar when students are forced to resist the temptation of barbecues and beer gardens and instead descend en-masse to the air-conditioned-deprived purgatory of the library for endless bouts of revision.

The extra-challenge of combining studying with top-level sport is something I have written about before on insidethegames at a time when gaining qualifications is, for an aspiring athlete as much as for anyone else, more important than ever before.

In the cut-throat world of professional sport we are faced with today, a youngster must have a Plan B in case their athletic dreams do not materialise. Sports-people also need to have something to fall back on after they retire, for, although it may not always seem the case, there are not enough television studios, newspaper columns and public speaking roles to occupy every ex-pro.

You do not need to look far in the Olympic Movement to find former champions who subsequently put their academic prowess to good use. Sebastian Coe, an economics and social history student turned middle-distance champion turned London 2012 chief, and Thomas Bach, a law and politics graduate turned gold medal winning fencer turned International Olympic Committee President, are two who immediately spring to mind.

Thomas Bach and Sebastian Coe are two examples of Olympic champions who have also flourished after their retirement ©Bongarts/Getty Images



The combination of training and studying can be mutually compatible, in terms of lifestyle, while the routine essential in a good revision timetable also fits well with the rigours of training.

When the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) top brass gather in Montreal this weekend, they could helpfully reflect on the kerfuffle stirred up by this month's announcement of the sanction meted out to Tyson Gay, the US sprinter, in the wake of his adverse analytical finding.

Gay received just a one-year suspension, and a loss of results dating back to July 2012, including an Olympic silver medal, after testing positive for "the presence of an exogenous androgenic anabolic steroid and/or its metabolites".

This was as a consequence of the athlete being given a 50 per cent reduction of the otherwise-applicable two-year sanction for providing "substantial assistance" to the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

This particularly high-profile irruption of the concept of plea-bargaining into the fight against doping got, I think it is fair to say, a pretty spiky reception, with even athletes who might normally think that discretion was the better part of valour when it came to criticising the anti-doping police speaking out.

It is not the main purpose of this piece to argue whether it is right or wrong to write plea-bargaining into the World Anti-Doping Code.

I can see both sides of the story.

Yes, it seems just for a given offence almost always to attract a uniform punishment.

But I can also see how harvesting information from athletes found to have violated the rules might prove a significant help in the fight against doping.

There has been a spiky reception to Tyson Gay's ban being cut in half ©AFP/Getty Images



Incentivising those in this position to cooperate as fully as possible may, in some cases, be a tolerable price to pay for evidence/information that enables real inroads against the big fish of doping to be made.

As WADA director general David Howman points out: "People sometimes forget an athlete's entourage cannot be tested scientifically.

"So it is important to gather information about their behaviour in other ways."

What I thought would be more useful is to give fair warning to those who have just cottoned on to the scope for plea-bargaining in the current rules that in all probability they ain't seen nothing yet.

On January 1 2015, a revised code comes into effect - and whereas at present at most 75 per cent of an otherwise-applicable ban can be suspended, under the new code, "in exceptional circumstances" WADA may agree to an athlete serving no ban at all. And/or returning no prize money. And not paying any fines or costs.

Furthermore, WADA's decisions in this context may not be appealed by any other anti-doping organisation.

And "in unique circumstances", WADA may authorise an anti-doping organisation to enter into "appropriate confidentiality agreements limiting or delaying the disclosure of the substantial assistance agreement or the nature of substantial assistance being provided".

World Anti-Doping Agency director general David Howman has highlighted the importance of gathering information on an athlete's entourage ©AFP/Getty Images



Given the way this month's Tyson Gay announcement was received, I can hardly imagine the reaction when the first big name has the sanctions he/she would otherwise have been hit with suspended in their entirety, so enormously substantial has their assistance been.

So, while views on plea-bargaining and its place, if any, in the fight against doping, may diverge, it seems to me fairly self-evident that WADA and other anti-doping authorities have a big, and rather urgent, education job on their hands to try and foster greater understanding and acceptance of a concept that, like or not, is written into the code for the foreseeable future.

Of course, widespread opposition to a course of action does not necessarily mean that course of action is misguided or wrong.

As WADA's Howman asserts: "We are not afraid of challenge because that's the only way you find out whether these things work appropriately or not."

But I really think that anti-doping bodies would be well-advised to endeavour to build more support for this idea of, if you like, winning time off for telling the authorities what you know, than appears to exist at the moment.

It seems to me that part of the problem lies in the secrecy with which the nature of the substantial assistance provided will almost inevitably be shrouded, at least to begin with.

There is an argument for a small independent panel to be established to scrutinise plea-bargaining agreements ©Getty Images



This may make it particularly difficult for national anti-doping authorities convincingly to rebut charges of showing undue leniency to their own athletes, even if other bodies have the right to appeal what they believe to be unjustifiably light sanctions.

Under the circumstances there may be a case for setting up a small independent panel, drawn from the great and the good of the fight against doping, whose job would be to scrutinise plea-bargaining agreements, including details that could not be made public, and verify that a fair bargain, in the interests of competitors who abide by the rules, had been struck.

Those of us outside the ranks of the privileged few would still, ultimately, have to take things on trust.

And the panel's existence would probably make little difference to those who oppose plea-bargaining on principle.

But, populated by the right individuals, such a plea panel would, I think, afford an important extra layer of protection against lack of consistency or possible abuse.

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.

Sport and branding. Sometimes they go together like salt and pepper; sometimes like soap and pepper. Ask the Socceroos. On second thoughts, best not to ask right now.

The nickname of Socceroos has hung around the collective neck of Australian football ever since 1967, when a Sydney journalist named Tony Horstead had the notion of conflating a sport with a symbolic animal (don't try this at home).

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. But think of the consequences if bright sparks acted in a similar fashion worldwide. England might be the Footybulldogs. France might be Les escargots de foot.

Don't be a fool. Just put the thought down and walk away.

And as if forthcoming World Cup finals in Brazil weren't bad enough for Australia - their qualifying group features Chile, the Netherlands and defending champions Spain – well, now look what's happened.

The team will travel throughout the finals in a bus emblazoned with a slogan that the Melbourne Herald Sun has described as "the lamest of all time".

Australia's Socceroos line up before last November's friendly against Costa Rica. At this point, none of them knew the awful slogan they were doomed to carry around Brazil ©Getty Images

Sit in a chair with enough support to prevent you falling off when you scoff. Or if you are Australian, and haven't yet heard, make sure you have a punchable cushion to hand.

Here is the Aussie slogan: "Socceroos: Hopping our way into history!!"

Just popping my practical criticism hat on for a moment - given the strength of their qualifying group this suggests that Australia are heading jauntily for the plughole.

But let others with more just cause for resentment speak. Twitter was alive with the sound of Aussie pain in the wake of this lexical atrocity.

"What idiot came up with that for the bus slogan?" - @neilsherwin

"I do not have words. I didn't think there were depths of banality BELOW 'Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie'" - @faintsaint1

"Wow! Many cringe!  Such slogan! Amaze! Much awful..." - @KevinAyers442

"Who was the Muppet who came up with our slogan for the World Cup? Hopping our way to world embarrassment for sure" - @GerryGannon

In answer to your agonised question, Gerry - you did. Or at least, your fellow Australian supporters did, according to the online site advertising the competition run by the official suppliers of team buses for the imminent World Cup, Hyundai.

Official Hyundai transport prepares to go into action ahead of the 2006 World Cup finals ©Bongarts/Getty Images

"The 'Be There With Hyundai' contest is your chance to be the ultimate fan by coming up with a slogan for your national team of choice at the 2014 FIFA World Cup", the site announced back in October before opening online voting in February.

"The winning slogans will be placed on the respective team buses, ensuring that the winners' words will travel with their official national teams every step of their journey at the 2014 FIFA World Cup."

So there will be no getting away from this absurdity for the national team of Australia (a little piece of silver lining for Lucas Neill, the 36-year-old former captain of the team who just failed to make the cut for the squad). That said, this marketing process has ensured that others will share their pain.

The bad news for Australia's 36-year-old former captain Lucas Neill was that he did not make the squad for the 2014 World Cup finals. The good news was he wouldn't have to ride around Brazil in a bus with an embarrassing slogan on its side ©Getty Images

The hosts, for instance, will travel with the excitable and frankly suggestive admonition: "Brace yourselves! The 6th is coming!" One presumes this refers to the fact that they have already won the trophy five times.

The Ivory Coast logo has a touch of Socceroo about it: "Elephants charging towards Brazil!" Begging the question of what they will do when they arrive.

And there are echoes of the old "Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!" in Chile's "Chi! Chi! Chi! Le! Le! Le! Viva Chile!"

The French slogan - "Impossible n'est pas Francais" (Impossible is not a French word) - is, frankly, wrong. "Impossible" is a French word.

Top marks for banality go to South Korea - "Enjoy it, Reds!"

And given the rumbling over financial misdealing which has accompanied their recent massive impact in terms of hosting major sports events, the Russian slogan "No one can catch us" is unfortunate.

Italy, meanwhile, will operate under the moniker: "Let's paint the FIFA World Cup dream blue." Makes no sense at all.

The US effort is simply concerning - "United by team, driven by passion." Let's hope passion keeps his eyes on the road.

Not every slogan merits a cringe, to be fair.

The Netherlands, always cool, have a suitable phrase: "Real men wear orange."

England's effort - "The dream of one team, the heartbeat of millions!!" – is almost stirring. Almost.

"One Nation, One Team, One Dream!" does the same job, but more efficiently. Yes of course it's the German slogan.

Work underway at the Sao Paulo venue ahead of the 2014 World Cup finals ©Getty Images

The Socceroos abomination has provoked some in Oz to suggest alternatives, the best of which was probably the Twitter offering from @kazonis, who suggested the Aussie bus should carry the following words: "Let's just park it."

Is it too late to change the Socceroo slogan? Yes of course it is - but that doesn't eradicate the desire to suggest other options.

Just in case there is a late shift, may I run the following up the flagpole to see if anyone at Hyundai salutes them?

"Socceroos: A triumph of hop over experience!"

"Socceroos: Hoppers of the world unite!"

"Socceroos: Travelling in hop rather than expectation!"

"Socceroos: The power of hop!"

OK. I've stopped now.

There is probably only one good thing about the awful Aussie slogan. It may end up being remembered when all the rest are forgotten.

I recall speaking to Olympic 400 metres silver medallist Roger Black at London's Olympia when he was helping launch the two atrocious London 2012 mascots, Manlock and Wendeville. Or was it Wenlock and Mandeville?

Anyway, as there had been a mascot at every Olympics since the 1972 Munich Games, and as Black had himself competed in two Olympics, the Barcelona Games of 1992 and the Games in Atlanta four years later, I asked him which mascot he remembered out of all of them.

"Er..." he replied."What was it in Barcelona? I think it was a cat..."

Sadly he was wrong here, as the Barcelona mascot, Cobi, was a dog.

Pressed on the subject, Black could come up with the only definite answer - World Cup Willie. Yep, the World Cup mascot from 1966 - the year he was born.

Branded sports memories tend not to stick. Perhaps, 50 years from now, people will still chuckle when they recall the slogan which has made Australia's football followers hopping mad. Then again, perhaps not.

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.