Two of the biggest regrets of my journalistic career are that I never saw Muhammad Ali - then an 18-year-old upstart named Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr - win his Olympic gold medal in Rome in 1960 and four years later become the then youngest heavyweight champion of the world in Florida's Miami Beach.

I was a cub reporter learning the ropes on local newspapers back in the early sixties but I have been fortunate enough to cover the majority of Ali's subsequent fights, embracing the Rumble in the Jungle, the Thrilla in Manila and so many memorable, magical moments in so many places - Kuala Lumpur, Atlanta, New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Dublin, Frankfurt and London.

Many highs...and one or two lows. I admit shedding a tear at the ringside in the 18,000 capacity Caesars Palace car park in Las Vegas on October 2 1980 watching an icon disintegrate before our eyes. Ali, a 38-year-old robotic shell of the sublime athlete of his heyday, suffered a savage beating that even his opponent, Larry Holmes, was reluctant to administer, repeatedly beckoning to a dispassionate referee to end his erstwhile idol's agonising humiliation.

It was Ali's career-long cornerman, the late Angelo Dundee who finally did so. "I am the chief second and I stop the fight," he shouted to the referee as a dull-eyed Ali slumped on his stool at the end of the tenth round. It was too late to save Ali's career, but it probably saved his life.

Angelo Dundee (left) probably saved Muhammad Ali's life when he stepped in to stop his fight with Larry Holmes ©Getty Images



But the occasion etched most indelibly in the consciousness came courtesy of television exactly 50 years ago next week (Tuesday February 25) when, aged 22, Ali beat the Mafia-run Sonny Liston, an ageing but seemingly invincible ogre and indeed "shook up the world".

He did so twice, first by forcing Liston to retire at the end of the sixth round and then announcing that Cassius Clay ("my slave name") was no more and that he accepted the teachings of Islam and Malcolm X's influence. "Until then", his late trainer Angelo Dundee said, "I always thought Muslim was a piece of cloth."

I confess when he first fought Liston I did not give him a prayer. Liston was the most terrifying individual I have ever encountered in boxing. Compared to him, Mike Tyson was a pussycat.

There was nothing sunny about Sonny. A sullen, brooding hulk who had served time for armed robbery and who had clubbed most opponents senseless, including another great Olympic champion, Floyd Patterson. I thought Liston would annihilate Cassius and I was not alone.

Liston was a fighter run by racketeers, his manager having close association with two of the mob's most infamous hit men, Frankie Carbo and "Blinky" Palermo who, at the time, had their claws into boxing and had been known to profit from betting coups on fights. He had learned to box while in jail and it was widely reported that he broke bones for the underworld figures who held the majority stake in his professional contract.

Sonny Liston learned to box while in jail ©Getty Images



Clay, the loudmouthed braggart was not to America's liking either. It was a fight with no hero but two villains.

The fight publicist, the late Harold Conrad, was to say: "Liston scared Patterson just by looking at him and here comes this big-mouth kid. Liston didn't train at all for that fight. He worked out a little and went to the gym. He would hang out at a beauty parlour, banging on some of the chicks. I'd tell him, 'This kid is big and strong, he's fast and he can hit.'  Sonny would just answer, 'Ah you're kidding.  I'll scare the shit out of that nigger faggot...I'll put the eye on him.'"

But as it happened, it was Clay who put the eye on Liston. Learning that Sonny, said to be 32, but probably nearer 40, had a phobia about madness, he put on an act at the weigh-in, foaming at the mouth and screaming like a dervish.

It seemed to scare Liston witless and by the end of the sixth round of a baffling fight he became the first heavyweight champion since Jess Willard in 1919 to quit on his stool, battered, humiliated and saying he had a shoulder injury.

The crowd screamed "fix" but I have never subscribed to that theory. Fighters who take a dive don't endure the sort of beating that Liston did that night.

Ali, as he was to become after the fight, was already the master of the mind game and he simply psyched Liston out of it, and did so again in the even more bizarre return at Lewiston, Maine, when Liston fell in the first, caught off balance by the so-called "phantom punch".

Again they said it was bent. But I believe Liston, a tired old man knowing he would be cut to pieces by the arrogant youngster hovering over him and famously yelling, "Get up you bum, get up you bum and fight!" simply bottled it, fearing he was again going to be humiliated and probably sliced to pieces. Like all bullies, he was a coward at heart.

Muhammad Ali held the psychological edge over Sonny Liston ©Getty Images



Six years later Liston was found dead in his Las Vegas home, supposedly from an overdose of heroin. However, the suspicion remains that he was bumped off, curiously one of several of Ali's opponents to die either violently or mysteriously.

It was another old foe, Joe Frazier, who once declared when Ali showed no signs of retiring: "The trouble with him is that he doesn't know how to die."

The irony of that remark is that the septugenarian Ali, ailing as he is, has managed to outlive most of the 53 opponents he faced in his 61 fights, not least Smokin' Joe himself.

Moreover a fistful of foes met brutal endings, like Liston. It was said Sonny died from a drugs overdose but here was a man so scared of needles that when he was training for the second Ali fight and suffering from flu he tried to throw the doctor attempting to inoculate him out of the window.

Many in boxing believe Liston fell victim to loan sharks who had hired him to be one of their debt collectors. "But Sonny wasn't satisfied," publicist Conrad, who was close to Liston, once told us. "He wanted a bigger piece of the action.

"But they weren't going to let anybody cut into their turf. So one night they got him stinking drunk, took him home, jabbed him with an OD and that was the end of Sonny."

Another Ali opponent to die violently was the Argentinean Oscar Bonavena, shot dead outside a Buenos Aires brothel.

Muhammad Ali has outlived many of those he fought in the ring ©Getty Images



Trevor Berbick, the last man to fight, and beat, Ali in 1981, was clubbed to death at a church in Jamaica by his nephew, Harold, suffering multiple blows to the head from a steel pipe.

Sonny Banks, the first man to knock down Ali, died three days after suffering head injuries in a bout with Leotis Martin in Philadelphia. Zora Folley died at the age of 41 in Tucson after striking his head on the edge of a swimming pool.

Others Ali has outlasted include Floyd Patterson, Ken Norton, Jerry Quarry, Cleveland Williams, Archie Moore, Buster Mathis, Jimmy Young and of course, his great pugilistic pal, Henry Cooper.

Of the lesser-known earlier opponents I calculate that at least a dozen have passed on and as many more are untraceable, presumed dead. Among those who have died in recent years is his first-ever pro opponent, the former police chief Tunney Hunsaker.

However Zbigniew Pietrzykowski, the Pole defeated by Ali in the Olympic light-heavyweight finals, is still around at 79.

Ali had reigned in an age when boxing crowns were not tawdry bits of bling. He turned it into an art form, making a ballet out of brutality.

Even though the dancing years have ebbed away and the inimitable shuffle is no longer a dazzling quickstep but a distressingly slow wobble, he remains the most recognised human being on earth, and among the best-loved.

An interesting postscript is that the gloves that "shook up the world" 50 years ago and so abused Liston's lacerated features are now up for auction and expected to fetch at least at half a million dollars.

The gloves that "shook up the world" 50 years ago are now up for auction ©Heritage Auctions



The seller is not revealed but they are from the original personal collection of Angelo Dundee. They will be sold off this weekend in New York as part of Heritage Auctions' Sports Platinum Night. "They are the very gloves Ali wore that night," Chris Ivy, director of Sports Collectibles at the auctioneers assures us.

Golden gloves indeed. Happy anniversary, Muhammad.

You are still the People's Champion.

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.

Something mentioned a lot over the last two weeks has been how easy it is to move around the various Olympic sites in Sochi.

All you need is your little white laminated accreditation card which acts as a visa into Russia, as well as a portal into all manner of desirable, and less desirable, places once arrived.

But what is it like for those who do not have accreditation and are not official rights holders for the Games?

This was not something I had really pondered until I ventured outside the Olympic bubble to visit the La Terrassa hotel which houses the Fox Sports broadcasting operation for Sochi 2014.

After missing out, once again, to NBC in the battle for official Olympic rights in 2011, Fox Sports are allowed neither to broadcast competitions nor use footage of them. But, as they did at London 2012, they have still invested heavily in their Olympic coverage, for the new Fox Sport 1 channel, as well as for their website.

The first evidence they have successfully negotiated the hurdle of being a non-rights holder is, on arrival after what seemed a lengthy journey away from the Olympic Coastal hub, I am greeted by a brand-spanking balcony view of the Park in all its glory.

A virtually identical view, albeit in a different city, to the one they enjoyed on top of Westfield Shopping Mall during London 2012, this view alone is a huge asset to their coverage.

The Fox Sports presenters prepare for action with the Olympic Park as the backdrop
©Adore Creative


"When anchors and hosts are shooting this way it screams that you are at the Olympics," senior vice-president of news Richard Jaffe told insidethegames.  "As a viewer it translates excitement and authority. It puts you there, and hopefully it puts the viewer there as well."

The story of how they secured this view is a fascinating one. After an initial visit to Sochi in 2011 by Jaffe and executive vice-president Jeff Husvar proved unproductive, Husvar found himself on a plane next to Rupert Wainwright, President of film company Adore Creative. Wainwright, winner of a Grammy for directing a music video for MC Hammer, also directed the bid film: Russia: The Door is Open, which helped Sochi's successful campaign to be awarded the Olympics - not to mention successful Russian bids for last year's Summer Universiade in Kazan and the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

"Jeff and I met on a plane and then he got in touch and asked if I could help him out," Wainwright told insidethegames. "At first I said no way because it will be such a nightmare, and I didn't think we should touch it with a barge-pole. But we did some research and then sent a location scout down here who looked at every single hotel in the entire city. Here was the best one, and we kept on and on at them and eventually settled on it and just managed to sign the contract before it was taken away from us."

That was only the start of the process, though, and the restructuring work, which included building the studio in Moscow before transporting it south, has been going on ever since. Wainwright and his team are also remaining present on site in Sochi to ensure that everything runs smoothly for the duration of the Games.

The Fox Sports set in the process of being constructed ©Adore Creative



So they have a location but how do they get around the hurdle of not being able to cover actual sport? The focus is firmly on thinking outside the box - or outside the accreditation - I suppose you could say.

Although all shot from the same building, the coverage interchanges between different studios so as to add a touch a variety while sometimes the camera is turned round to leave the distant mountain hub of Krasnaya Polyana as the backdrop instead of the Olympic Park.

The two Canadian presenters, Jay Onrait and Dan O'Toole, have also been brought in essentially to add a touch of humour to proceedings. Poking fun at current affairs as well as the lack of broadcasting rights, their work so far has included a "no access report" where they tour venues they are not allowed into, as well as a skit where their bodyguards are present at all times, including when they are in bed or in the shower.

In a similarly tongue-in-cheek vein, an "Olympic Still Photography" section forms a backdrop to their coverage to make up for the lack of footage while there is also a strong focus on back stories and more lighthearted angles.

But the most important dimension was getting experts on board. "Our game plan in London 2012 was to find the four most trafficked sports and to get a former Olympian champion as an analyst for each," Jaffe told insidethegames. "We decided to do the same thing here so hired four ex-Olympians in figure skater Michelle Kwan, Alpine skier Picabo Street, ice hockey star Chris Chelios and snowboarder Andy Finch."

The four Olympians, plus Jay Onrait and Dan OToole, are a key part of the coverage
©National Hockey League/Getty Images

"You want someone who knows what they are going through, for example, say it's the day before the Olympics: How are you feeling? Are you nervous? Are you worried about this? I want them to take us inside the locker room and combine the experiences they had with why something has turned out as it has now."

Jaffe adds that, although the coverage is mostly focused on the US it is not 100 per cent so and if there is a Russian story which makes sense to do, "we do it because it is a home Olympics." He adds: "I feel like it's our obligation that if someone does something spectacular, I don't care where they are from, we will focus on them."

But the coverage can also encompass more serious angles and, as they do with every event they cover, disaster planning has been conducted and if necessary they have the capacity to broadcast live on sister station Fox News.

This reveals an attention to detail which is evident throughout my tour around the hotel turned studio complex.

A slight squeak is emanating from a chair, so oil is immediately sent for to avoid it being picked up on the microphones. The studio window is also covered by a curtain when not in use to avoid the summer glare. "And we are at the Winter Olympics you know," I am reminded.

The 65 strong team, which includes smaller crews from Fox Brazil and Sky New Zealand as well as the Adore Creative team, consists of make-up, security staff and drivers as well as roving reporters in other Olympic venues. I also see a day production schedule which includes car and make-up rotas - with an hours make-up followed by an additional "touch up" session essential particularly for the female presenters and pundits.

A visit to the make up room is a vital part of preparing to face the camera ©ITG


In terms of challenges, the huge planning work and multiple visits to Sochi undertaken before the Games has negated most of them but, and this is something I can emphasise with, the Olympics is described as "ruthless from a scheduling standpoint" in comparison with other events - where the longest they would usually cover a sport for is maybe "four or five hours for Nascar."

But the overwhelming message that comes across is that it is all worth it.

"We sent 30 people to London 2012, were the second most trafficked site in the US and got one billion page views and over 43 million video streams," Jaffe reveals. "This shattered every record we have ever had and we even beat NBC Olympics.com. For us to come in on our first one and to beat NBC on our first major Olympics coverage - well I'm sure it didn't please them.

After just three days of Sochi 2014 they have already enjoyed 55 million online page views this time around.

But do they remain frustrated that they do not have the broadcasting rights? "Obviously, I would have loved to have had the rights and that would have been really fun," says Jaffe. "But a lot of people are seeing what we are doing and I think there is enough interest that everybody can share in it."

Further light is shed on future aspirations by Husvar, who admits that "the Olympics just wasn't in our cards in the last cycle" before adding that: "as our business moves forward, we will continue to be interested, engage with the IOC (International Olympic Committee), and try to be involved."

Husvar adds that building a relationship of trust with your National Olympic Committee, and then getting to know all of the Governing Body heads, is vital. He has already met and explained his objectives to the United States Olympic Committee in Colorado Springs.

Preparations are already underway for the Fox Sport coverage of Rio 2016
©Getty Images



So, while Fox do not have the coverage and are unlikely to have it until post Tokyo 2020 at the earliest, they have done a pretty good job of negating this handicap and plans are already underway to create similar coverage at Rio 2016.

It may be somewhat different and outside the box but the coverage is also a further example of the Olympic ideals of diversity and inclusivity and, although I leave the La Terassa Hotel clutching my accreditation badge slightly tighter, it is an illuminating privilege to see a different perspective of journalism in action.

Mike RowbottomPhew. For a while there it looked as if Renaud Lavillenie was one of those athletes who would have to settle for being an Olympic, world indoor, double European outdoor and triple European indoor champion.

But we needn't have worried. After his monumental 6.16 metres pole vault in Donetsk which eclipsed Sergey Bubka's 21-year-old world record, the 27-year-old Frenchman has it all - or nearly, as his medal cabinet still lacks a world gold, albeit that he has one silver and two bronzes.

"Fantastic" was the word the watching Bubka chose for Lavillenie's historic vault at the same meeting - his home-town meeting indeed - where he had set his mark of 6.15 in February 1993.

Strictly speaking, however, Bubka's description was inaccurate. Although reaching the heights he set in a 20-year international career which saw him break the world record 35 - yes, 35 - times has been no more than a fantasy for those who have followed him in the event, for Lavillenie, in the space of the last two months, it hardened into a distinct possibility.

An overjoyed Renaud Lavillenie tries to take in his achievement of becoming the new world pole vault record holder ©AFP/Getty Images

Lavillenie cleared 6.04 in Rouen on January 25 - a one centimetre improvement on his previous best of 6.03 set in 2011 - and reached 2.08 in Bydgoszcz on January 31 to become the second highest performer in history.

The Frenchman described in his IAAF diary entry for December 31 how he had prepared for the indoor season with what he described as "one of the best training periods of my career", and had been free of the injury problems which had hindered him last year. So the background was promising.

"Just to give you some indicators," he added, "early this winter I have been jumping with short approach runs: two, four, six and eight strides; and I have broken all my records. For example, I cleared 4.00m with a two stride approach, and 5.20m with a six stride approach.

"I then went to a training camp, in Reunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean. I took a longer approach and I put on spikes again. I was able to use bigger poles than the ones that I expected to use."

Lavillennie revealed that, as well as using longer poles, he was now using pedals - although the latter was only for recreational cycling, which he has taken up in earnest within the last few months.

"After this great period of training," Lavillenie concluded, "I hope that I will be able to make all my efforts concrete this winter. Last year, my indoor season was excellent but we always want to do better than the previous year, so my challenge will be to win everything and to jump higher and higher."

That said, Lavillenie has still had to take giant strides to elevate himself above a legendary performer whose record has been one of the longest standing in male athletics.

Just to give you the idea - the Frenchman now stands top of a world all-time indoor list in which the next seven best performances, from 6.08 to 6.15, stand to Bubka, who has 11 of the best 15 efforts to his credit. In the outdoor listings, Bubka occupies the first 13 places, with his 6.14, achieved at high altitude in Sestriere in 1994, heading the pile.

ergey Bubka, pictured celebrating his latest mark in 1991, broke the world pole vault record 35 times in an international career from 1981- 2001 ©Getty Images

Albeit that Bubka's tenure of the world record position eventually fell short of the 25-year span in which Jesse Owens's long jump mark stood, from 1935 to 1960, or the mark which is the current longest standing world record in men's athletics, the 74.08m discus throw registered by Jurgen Schult of the German Democratic Republic on June 6, 1986, it was still a huge endeavour for Lavillenie.

Jurgen Schult, the East German discus thrower whose effort of 74.08 in 1986 is the longest standing male world record ©Getty Images

I wish I had been in Donetsk to see him accomplish his feat. The last two times I have seen Lavillenie competing in the flesh, as it were, were two occasions which turned out to be, respectively, bittersweet, and simply bitter as far as he was concerned.

Never has a gold medallist been more wretched than Lavillenie was as he won the European indoor title for a third time in Gothenburg last March.

Lavillenie cleared 6.01 metres,the best height recorded at that point in the year, but at the end of the competition he sank onto the track in despair after what he had been convinced was a successful last-attempt clearance of 6.07m - four centimetres further than his best and closer than any other man had managed to get to Bubka's 1993 world record of 6.15m -was ruled ineligible.

As Lavillenie, distraught, hid his face in his hands, while the photographers and television cameras were drawn towards him despite the fact that the women's 60 metres final was about to start, the bar remained mockingly intact on its supports above him.

A distraught Lavillenie contemplates the 6.07m clearance which got away at the European Indoor Championships in Gothenburg last year ©Getty Images

No wonder the Frenchman had raved with frustration and thundered a mighty kick of rage into the hoardings before subsiding in disbelief.

He later accepted his victor's bouquet as if it were infested with greenfly, hurling it swiftly over the barriers.

"I am very sad about the rules," he said afterwards.

"Everyone saw that the bar was still up."

Lavillenie was right - but as officials later explained, in clearing the bar he had shifted it further than was admissible.

The International Association of Athletics Federation regulation which operated in this case was Rule 182.2.a, which states that a vault shall be declared ineligible if "the bar does not remain on both pegs because of the action of the athlete".

Cold comfort indeed for Lavillenie.

Five months later there was the further cold comfort of a silver medal at the Moscow World Championships, where the Frenchman - the last active competitor in the event - had to opportunity to complete his athletics "grand slam" of titles with a third and final attempt at 5.96m.

Among those watching intently was his younger brother Valentin, who had remained at his side during the competition despite failing to record a mark in his opening height of 5.50m. Whether this actually helped big brother's concentration remains open to question.

After brushing the bar off with his right thigh, Lavillenie remained on the landing pad, head in hands, for a good few seconds, before setting off with grim determination to find and congratulate Germany's Raphael Holzdeppe, who had already finished but emerged as world champion on countback and was already at the centre of a seething mass of photographers.

Two excruciating moments for Lavillenie. But now his ambitions will know no bounds, and he will now set his sights on winning another world indoor title in Sopot next month before seeking to complete the only gap in his medal collection at the Beijing World Championships next summer.

All clear...after the disappointments of 2013, Renaud Lavillenie puts himself on top of the world in the pole vault ©AFP/Getty Images

Of course there is one other rewarding spin-off for Lavillenie after his stupendous feat in the Ukraine. He will now be able, should he desire, to operate the lucrative method employed by his predecessor as world record holder by edging his mark upwards centimetre by centimetre, world record bonus by world record bonus. Such is the mastery he has now earned.

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.

With the Winter Olympics well underway in Sochi, we can look back with pride at what was achieved at the London 2012 Games.

One of the outstanding successes of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games was the use of the 70,000 committed and enthusiastic volunteers - the "Games Makers" - who really did make the Games happen. No athlete gets to represent their country at a Games without a volunteer helping them along the way.

What lessons can the Sochi volunteers learn from them? According to Jenny Hicklin, the "Accidental Volunteer" who was based at the Velodrome in London and is now working at the transport hub in Sochi, the 50 or so London Games Makers out there will bring a lot of confidence, experience, knowledge and friendliness to the operation. This friendliness in turn is reciprocated by the Russian volunteers.

No doubt we would all like to volunteer at an Olympic and Paralympic Games or a major sporting championship. Sadly, this is not always going to be possible.

One of the outstanding successes of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games was the use of the 70,000 committed and enthusiastic volunteers ©Getty Images


But this doesn't mean that you can't volunteer locally. Community sports clubs are crying out for help, and there are many ways you can get involved. Join In is the volunteering charity created out of the 2012 Games. It has launched a recruitment drive, spearheaded by our Patron Eddie Izzard, to attract a nationwide network of coordinators to help grassroots sports clubs grow local sports participation. With seven out of ten sports clubs saying they need more volunteers to help them grow, Join In is rolling out its Local Leaders programme nationwide.

This scheme will see up to 250 volunteers becoming Local Leaders and using their knowledge and contacts to help Join In build lasting relationships between local sports clubs, community groups and potential volunteers.

"Accidental Volunteer" Jenny Hicklin with Sochi 2014 bronze medal winning snowboarder Jenny Jones ©Join In


Much has been said about sports participation and how we can get more people playing sport, but it has always been my view that one of the missing links to unlocking this is increasing the number of people who help out at local clubs. Our Local Leader recruitment campaign is something we trialled last year and will help us deliver our aim of recruiting and retaining 100,000 volunteers in community sport across the United Kingdom.

An extra pair of hands at a club can make a huge difference. The ripple effect of this will lead to clubs and their memberships expanding and more people getting active in their local community. If we can achieve this, it will be a lasting legacy of the 2012 Games.

Dave Moorcroft is Join In's director of sport. Find out more here.

It is almost impossible not to admire the success of UK Sport's elite sports funding and performance programmes.

The body's hard-nosed approach, with cash awards geared to outstanding achievement, has ensured that Olympic and Paralympic sports golden windfall of Lottery funding has not been squandered; it also powered Britain up the medals tables in Beijing and London.

Now though I fear we may be getting a tad overzealous.

Sentence two of UK Sport's February 4 press release outlining updated funding awards is the nub of it.

It reads: "Most rigorous annual investment review process ever confirms goal of becoming the first nation in recent history to be more successful in both Olympic and Paralympic Games post hosting is deliverable with targeted investment."

Don't get me wrong: to win more medals in Rio than in London would be both a stupendous achievement and infinitely preferable to finishing 36th in the Olympic medals table, as Britain did in 1996 in Atlanta.

Britain finished 36th in the Olympic medals table at the Atlanta 1996 Games ©Getty Images


But now that the country is again an Olympic power to be reckoned with, would this produce a significantly greater legacy for British sport than if the team finished a highly creditable fifth or sixth in the medals table?

After a week or two of fist pumping, the difference would be at best marginal, I'd say.

Furthermore, now that the underlying performance level of so many sports has risen so high, I suspect that some of the chief determinants of whether Britain matches London or falls some way short, at least at the Olympics, are essentially outside UK Sport's control.

Much, I think, will depend on issues such as whether track cycling changes its qualification criteria to permit more than one athlete per country per event and whether British athletes deliver in the new Olympic sports of rugby sevens and golf.

More importantly, there really is more to sporting legacy than Olympic and Paralympic medals, particularly now that, I repeat, 36th place is a dim and distant memory.

It's winter sports time, so let me use the much-cited example of Eddie Edwards who, along with Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, is probably the best-known Winter Olympian Britain has produced.

His comical efforts on the Calgary ski jump have been much scoffed at since 1988 by sports officialdom.

But with his single-minded determination to do his own thing and his oddball courage, he must have inspired more kids not to be deflected from pursuing their dreams, whatever those dreams may be, than a lorry-load of genuinely elite Olympians.

Eddie Edwards may not have won an Olympic medal but he must have inspired many children not to be deflected from pursuing their dreams ©Getty Images

Britain's medal lust was mitigated somewhat in the run-up to London because of the desire for Team GB to be represented in as many sports as feasible in its home Games.

That mitigating influence has now gone, leaving us with what is starting to appear to me too blunt an instrument.

Yes, earmark the bulk of elite performance funding to medal prospects.

But, to produce the best all-round Olympic legacy, a proportion should be ring-fenced for sports which, while they should be prodded continually to use the money wisely and adopt best performance practice, are in all likelihood going to be pushed to win a medal, be it in 2016 or 2060.

You never quite know when an inspirational Edwards-type maverick is going to emerge who, while not getting within a country mile of an Olympic podium, may inspire a significant number of youngsters to begin to make the most of their lives.

My other gripe is that UK Sport's methodology seems inadvertently to work against team sports.

UK Sport says, in essence, that everyone plays by the same rules.

"UK Sport's investment principles are reviewed every four years to align with targets agreed in consultation with Government," it told me.

"They are consistently applied to individual and team sports, to summer and winter, Olympic and Paralympic, on a meritocratic basis entirely focused on future medal-winning potential."

I accept that, but think of it this way: Snowboarder Jenny Jones' bronze medal at Sochi should, one imagines, help her sport to achieve a favourable funding settlement for the run-up to Pyeongchang 2018.

The extra cash, though, is unlikely to be lavished entirely on Jones herself, but used to nurture more Jenny Jones', ie to bring the sport as a whole up towards her level.

And quite right too.

Team sports though, expensive by their very nature, have, moreover only one shot in their locker - or one per gender - in terms of medal potential.

Jenny Jones' bronze medal at Sochi 2014 should help her sport to achieve a favourable funding settlement for the run-up to Pyeongchang 2018 ©Getty Images


The world's best handball player could be a Briton, but if the team as a whole did not perform and showed little prospect of improving to the point where it could be considered world class within a time horizon of around eight years, it seems clear to me that it would struggle to justify funding.

One cannot be quite categorical about this because of the complexity of the analytical tools UK Sport presses into service.

"UK Sport uses a number of different types of evidence when applying the investment principles at annual review points," it told me.

"Each sport's current and previous performance is scrutinised using major global event results and milestone targets agreed with the sport at the start of the four-year cycle.

"In addition, more rigorous evaluations of sports' future performance and medal potential in Rio and Tokyo have been undertaken using techniques such as trajectory, situational and precedent analysis.

"Analytics, current and previous results in major events are then considered in the context of information gathered through continuous improvement tools such as Mission 2016, the talent health check, and athletes' insights to create the most rounded, professional and rigorous understanding of a sport's current and future world-class performance potential."

I merely observe that of the 19 Olympic sports receiving slices of UK Sport's £272 million ($451 million/€332 million) investment cake in the run-up to Rio, only one - hockey - is a pure team sport.

For all its scrupulously objective complexity, the system can have brutal, and frankly rather mystifying, outcomes if you happen to be a) an outsider or b) an athlete whose Olympic/Paralympic prospects hinge on an ample and reliable flow of cash.

Of the 19 Olympic sports receiving funding from UK Sport, hockey is the only pure team sport on the list ©Getty Images


As evidence of this, I submit what has happened to British water polo in recent years.

When the funding pot for the Rio cycle was first divvied up just before Christmas 2012, while men's water polo was cut, the women's team got an impressive increase to £4.54 million ($7.53 million/€5.54 million).

This compared with £2.93 million ($4.86 million/€3.58 million) given to the sport in the London 2012 cycle.

In August 2012, the British team had placed eighth and last in the Olympic women's water polo competition, though it put up a good fight in the quarter-finals, losing only 9-7 to Spain, the eventual silver medallists - and current world champions.

So what happened when the Rio funding adjustments were announced on February 4?

That £4.54 million ($7.53 million/€5.54 million), or whatever was left of it, disappeared, or more accurately was redistributed, cut literally to nothing.

"Water polo was among the sports that were not able to demonstrate they had a realistic chance of performing well within the top eight in Rio 2016 and targeting a medal performance in 2020," UK Sport told me.

"We therefore made the decision not to fund in line with our investment principles, and to ensure this resource was re-invested to enhance and protect medal opportunities in the challenging Rio environment."

What changed so radically between December 2012 and February 2014?

Well one thing was that the team failed to meet its performance target at the 2013 World Championships.

This called for them to finish in the top 12.

They came 13th; furthermore, I am told, there were no play-offs for ninth to 16th place at the tournament, which might have enabled them to improve their ranking.

So is that what it comes down to? An Olympic programme obliterated for the want of one World Championship place?

If not, then I think UK Sport seriously needs to explain what else contributed to its decision to the affected athletes, who must be devastated.

British water polo's funding for Rio 2016 has been cut literally to nothing ©AFP/Getty Images



Frankly, it seems to me that the odds on the team finishing top eight in Rio and vying for a medal at Tokyo 2020 were every bit as long in December 2012 as on February 4, 2014.

That, surely, would have been the time to cut off funding; instead it was sharply increased.

Since then, notwithstanding the marginally disappointing Worlds, the team has appeared to be doing OK: they have qualified, after all, for this year's European Championships in Budapest, a championship place which, I am told, they may not now be able to take advantage of.

They are/were, if not potential champions, then at least consistent second-drawer performers, and may well have played a part in lifting sports participation rates among British women, which would be to the benefit of everyone.

At all events, nothing spectacular or unforeseeable, one way or the other, had happened in the pool; yet, in funding terms the plug has been yanked unceremoniously and the team beached in mid-Olympic cycle.

Quite apart from the team themselves, one wonders what the sport's leaders are supposed to say to the youngsters being developed with the help of what I am told is £90,000 ($150,000/€110,000) a year in funding from Sport England.

Change nationality, perhaps; or take up slopestyle.

There is, at least, an appeal process, which British Swimming announced this week it intends to make use of.

To me, a longer-term solution would again have been to ring-fence a proportion of UK Sport's Rio cycle funding for exclusive investment in team sports.

They could then compete for it among themselves, in line with accepted performance criteria, rather than vying with primarily individual Olympic sports which, by their nature, have far more medal opportunities.

Good as the UK Sport programme has been, it always struck me as a great shame that World Cup-winning rugby coach Sir Clive Woodward's talents were deployed, in the run-up to London 2012, at the British Olympic Association (BOA) and not UK Sport.

Had he been appointed performance supremo for Olympic and Paralympic team sports, leaving the brilliant Peter Keen in charge of their primarily individual counterparts, then I think that the results obtained might well have been even better.

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.

It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the fourth and final luge event at the Sochi Winter Games – the mixed team relay, which is making its Olympic debut - will be won today by the nation that has already earned victory in the first three luge competitions.

Germany's dominance in the sport, which sends competitors hurtling feet first down a mile-long channel of twisting ice at 130 kilometres (80 miles) an hour, has been the central prop thus far in a Winter Games performance which has seen them reach the top of the medal list with the Games tipping into the second half of its programme.

While the German team may be besporting themselves around Sochi in team jackets which make Joseph's Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat look like Harris Tweed, the colour with which they have been mainly preoccupied has been gold.

Natalia Geisenberger, clad in one of Germany's natty Sochi 2014 jackets, inspects the gold medal she has just received for her performance in the women's luge event @ Getty Images

Going into today's competition, five countries have bettered the German total of eight medals – but none has so far been able to match their gold standard of six. (A very satisfying start to his first Olympics in situ for Germany's new IOC President Thomas Bach...)

In terms of efficiency, it puts one in mind of that great German footballer of the 1970s, Gerd Muller, who turned almost every chance into a goal. (Quick note to any Dutch football fans – sorry to have reminded you of the man whose goal beat your boys in the 1974 World Cup final. And a quick note to any English football fans – sorry to have reminded you of the man whose goal beat your boys in the 1970 World Cup quarter-final. Bonetti! Labone! Sort it out! Oh, it's probably too late now ...)

He shoots, he scores...Germany's hit rate at the Sochi 2014 Games has begun to resemble that of their legendary footballer Gerd Muller, seen here shooting the decisive goal of the 1974 World Cup final past Dutch defender Rudi Krol @ AFP/ Getty Images

Germany's golden strike rate – courtesy of Felix Loch in the men's single, Natalia Geisenberger in the women's single and the two Tobias's, Arlt and Wendl, in the doubles - has taken people aback in Sochi.

But most observers can hardly be surprised that they have earned such rich reward thus far on the winding chute of the Sanki Sliding Center. After all, luge is a part of this nation's great winter Games tradition.

Germany head the overall medals table since luge became a full Olympic event in 1964, having won 30 so far, of which 14 have been gold. One medal behind in second place – the former German Democratic Republic. As Arlt exclaimed, with some justice, in the wake of a victory which deposed Austria's Olympic champions of 2006 and 2010 to the silver medal position: "Germany is on top of the world in luge. It's our sport."

Germany's triumphant luge doubles pair in Sochi, Tobias Arlt and Tobias Wendl @ Getty Images

In terms of opponents, the field has been pretty limited for the main part of the sport's time in the Games. Put it this way - when the United States took silver and bronze in the pairs at the 1998 Nagano Winter Games, it was the first time any nation other than Germany, Italy, Austria and the USSR had won any medal in luge.

Since then only one other nation, Latvia, has found its way onto the luge medal podium at the Games. It is a tight group at the top – but the level of competition there is ferocious.

By winning bronze behind Loch in the men's singles event at Sochi, Italy's 40-year-old veteran Armin Zoggeler put himself top of the all-time individual Olympic luge rankings with six medals over the space of a 20-year career.

Italy's Armin Zoggeler celebrates his unique achievement of winning a sixth Olympic luge medal on the Sochi podium @ Getty Images

But if that table were judged in the same way as the medals table at the Games, then one man would be above the Italian whose fierce competitiveness has earned him the nickname of "Il Cannibale".Yes. You've guessed it. A German.

Georg Hackl will not trouble the Olympic scorers further given that he retired after the 2006 Games, where, like Zoggeler this week, he competed in the year he turned 40. But this slim, moustachioed soldier from Berchtesgarden in Bavaria has three consecutive Olympic victories to his name – from 1992 to 1998. Which is one more than the Italian has managed.

Zoggeler is a 6ft man mountain. Hackl, by contrast, is 5ft 8in - and no more than a man hillock. How he managed to defeat conspicuously more powerful opponents on big occasion after big occasion was something which seemed baffling to him.

What made Hackl's achievement even more baffling at the 1998 Nagano Games was that each of his four starts was slower than his Italian rival's - something which, in theory, should have made a crucial difference.

Asked the perennial question again after two more superbly executed runs had extended his first-day lead to just over half a second, Hackl replied with a gentle smile: "I don't know this myself, frankly."

Some contributing factors, at least, seemed clear. Hackl was a trained mechanic and metalworker, who devoted many hours to constructing his own luge. Nobody rode on a better sled.

And the rigorously toned physiques of his opponents may actually have been a disadvantage. Hackl was said to "gel" effectively as he moved - that is, he reduced wind resistance by relaxing and keeping his muscles loose.

There is an analogy here with sprinting, where – as any top performer will tell you – relaxation is the key. No strain, more gain.

After Hackl had come from behind to win the 1994 Olympics by a 100th of a second with his final run, the reported reaction of Austria's silver medallist Markus Prock was: "Again Hackl! He is always lucky!"

But how does someone manage always to be lucky? "His mental strength is phenomenal," Thomas Schwab, the then German coach, said. "It borders on virtuosity."

The American Adam Heidt, who finished ninth in 1998, reflected: "It's like a poker game. You don't show anything you have, you just keep smiling. Hackl is good at that. He's the best."

After the first day's competition in Japan, the Canadian and US teams protested unsuccessfully against the new, aerodynamic, yellow booties Hackl and the other Germans had worn. Hackl defended them as normal advances in design, worth perhaps 200ths of a second per run.

In the wake of his third Olympic success he laughed off another American question about the booties - "they were really special," he said. "Especially the colour."

Asked what were the chances of his continuing to the 2002 Olympics, he screwed up his face and put his finger and thumb together. "Things are more difficult now for me than when I was 20," he said with another grin. "We all grow older. Just look at yourselves."

Sixteen years on, I can confirm that the advice this multiple Olympian offered us in Japan has turned out to be correct. Thank you for that, Georg...

The aerodynamic apparel of lugers has given rise over the years to jokes about safe sex and flying sausages. References of the latter kind appeared to have got Hackl's hackles up – he was once reported to have taken out a writ to prevent his local paper referring to him as the "Speeding White Sausage".

Germany's Georg Hackl en route to the first of three Olympic luge titles at the 1992 Albertville Games - and looking nothing like a speeding white sausage @ Getty Images



Before driving down to Nagano town centre for the medal ceremony, Hackl stopped in at a little clubhouse the Germans had established at the site and managed a quick beer. (It may not surprise you to hear that we media types with him did likewise.) He then emerged, to ringing cheers, with something clamped triumphantly in his hand - a German sausage sandwich.

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.

The first Russian Olympic gold came in ice skating but Nikolai Kolomenkin's moment of glory was fully 16 years before the first Olympic Winter Games in 1924. He skated to gold during the 1908 London Olympics.

The Olympic Charter now describes winter sports as those practised on Ice and snow, but back then skating was part of a "winter" sports programme which included football, rugby union and hockey.

The events took place in late October and were among the last in an Olympic Games which had lasted the best part of six months.

The National Skating Association of Great Britain was put in charge of organisation. William Hayes Fisher, (later Lord Downham), chaired the Special Committee. This included one of the competitors, Edgar Syers, who as the honorary secretary of the figure skating club sat on the British Olympic Council.

The competition was held at the Princes Club in West London. Some overseas skaters chose to train in Berlin but the Olympic venue itself was specially opened two weeks before competition for practice.

There were strict rules on amateurism at the London 1908 Olympics ©Getty Images



For 10 hours a day the club was reserved for Olympic training, but for the remaining time, the general public were allowed in to use the rink. No concerns about security back then.

As with all other sports at the 1908 Games, there were strict rules on amateurism.

"A skater is not recognised as an amateur if since January 1st 1893 he has practised in his own person any sporting bodily exercise as a means for gain." Nor was he or she allowed to have taught skating professionally.

The rules also barred anyone who had "sold or pledged prizes won in sporting competitions" or "knowingly and without protest started in an open skating competition against a competitor who is not an amateur".

Twenty-one competitors from six countries were deemed to fulfil these criteria. This was what organisers called "an excellent and representative entry".

Each country was allowed to enter three competitors in each individual event.

The special figures event was held for the one and only time in London and Kolomenkin reigned supreme. He competed under the alias Panin, because in those days, being a sportsman was not always considered entirely respectable for a Russian gentleman. He was also apparently worried that his fellow students might make fun of him. It was clear he loved his sport for he played football and also cycled rowed and swam. He was also a good enough shot to compete in the 1912 Olympic pistol shooting event.

Figure skating made its Winter Olympic debut at the first games in Chamonix 1924 ©Getty Images



From all accounts, he was very modest, and only grudgingly allowed details of his life to be published in a newspaper.

The official report described Kolomenkin's efforts in the special figures as "far in advance of his opponents, both in the difficulty of his figures, and in the ease and accuracy of their execution. He cut in the ice a series of the most perfect intaglios with almost mathematical precision." This should not have come as a surprise. He had matriculated with a first class degree in mathematics from his university.

The skill involved was all very well, but the correspondent from The Times seemed a little bored by proceedings.

"The casual spectator is apt to find these tedious. The shades of difference which make them so absorbing to the learner escaping his uncritical eye," he wrote.

With one gold medal in the bag Kolomenkin also seemed set for a battle royal with the incomparable Swede Ulrich Salchow in the men's individual competition. They went toe to toe in the first phase, which involved the figures that were Kolomenkin's speciality and it was hard to separate them for "casual spectator" or expert alike.

Unfortunately, Kolomenkin felt unwell before the free programme and withdrew from the competition. This left the way clear for Salchow. He led a one, two, three for Sweden and the following year he executed the jump that gave him lasting fame.

Crowds at the London 1908 Olympics were treated to a feast of sport over six months, including the less common summer pursuit of figure skating ©Getty Images


Salchow was used to success in London. In 1902 he had won the world title at the Niagara Rink. In those days the competition was mixed and he beat a girl who was to become famous in her own right.

Florence Syers, from Kensington in London, was known as Madge by her friends. She was a trail blazer for women's sport . In an era when gender parity was unheard of, she had the beating of most men, Salchow excepted. Her success forced the International Skating Union to introduce women's competitions.

The Sporting Life newspaper said that skating "had not yet excited the great British public".

Even so, Theodore Cook's official report of the Games waxed lyrical about the crowd: "The rink was filled to overflowing with an enthusiastic crowd of onlookers, who witnessed perhaps the most strenuous, delightful and varied display of figure skating that has ever taken place.

"Syers was ahead from the start and showed her class in the free programme. She was as far in advance of her opponents as her compulsory figures had been. She excelled in rhythm and time-keeping, and her dance steps, pirouettes etc. were skated without a fault."

She also competed in the pairs with her husband Edgar. Curiously the other British couple in the event was another married couple, Phyllis and James Johnson who took silver behind the German pairing of Anna Hubler and Heinrich Burger. Madge and Edgar had to be content with bronze.

Troubled with illness in later years, Madge died in 1917 at the tragically early age of 35.

Since those heady days at the Princes Club, ice skating has become one of the crown jewels of the Winter Olympics.

Skaters such as Norwegian Sonja Henie, Dick Button, John Curry and Katarina Witt became superstars but not all became millionaires as a result of Olympic gold.  Jeanette Altwegg, the 1952 champion, chose instead to work for a children's village in Switzerland.

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

Cards on the table. I am not the greatest fan of winter sports.

I suppose it goes back to the time many years ago when I took my one and only skiing holiday with my wife, an accomplished downhiller having spent some time in Canada.

While she was high above merrily skimming around on the red run for the experienced skier I was stuck down below falling about on the novices' green run being bellowed at by an unsympathetic Austrian instructor for repeatedly failing to master something called the Snowplough Position.

In the end I chucked the skis into a snowdrift and stomped off for a warming glass of gluhwein in the village hostelry where I spent the rest of the week.

Subsequently, I have to say that of all the international sports events I have covered in more than half a century, the one which lingers in my  consciousness as the most abysmal is the Winter Games of 1980 in Lake Placid.

It was so badly organised under the auspices of a local vicar (one Rev Bernard J Fell) the memory still sends cold shivers down my spine.

Small town America at its worst.

Lake Placid 1980 was a badly organised games ©AFP/Getty Images



I have attended several since without ever becoming enamoured by them, though Lillehammer was quite civilised, but I had hoped I might finally be wooed by watching Sochi on the box from my comfort zone.

Instead, thanks to the BBC, instead of being turned on I have been totally turned off, as I suspect have many more back home.

Commentaries and punditry ranging from the excruciatingly hyperbolic to embarrassingly orgasmic have been showered up on us by cheerleaders with microphones waving verbal pom-poms.

In particular those "experts" who regaled throughout the undoubtedly admirable performance of Jenny Jones winning the historic bronze medal in the women's slopestyle on Sunday exceeded even the appalling jingoism we usually get from NBC whenever an American gets near the Olympic podium.

They possess a bafflingly wide variety of slopestyle jargon in their vocabulary (I always thought a McEgg was something you got in a bun at McDonald's) but objectivity appears a foreign language.

For BBC read OTT.

So much so that the BBC had to issue an apology after receiving just over 300 complaints from viewers who variously described the coverage as 'partisan, puerile and idiotic'.

The BBC commentators got carried away as Jenny Jones claimed slopestyle bronze ©Getty Images



One rightly condemned the "shrieking with joy" as one of Jones' foreign rivals fell.

Most of the time the constantly whooping presenters Ed Leigh and Tim Warwood, both former snowboarders, bemused us with those curious slopestyle phrases like "third metres of rad", "phat" and, even "huck it", which sounded so much like something else even the professional aplomb of the usually capable Hazel Irvine was ruffled to the extent of saying sorry to viewers for what we, and she, misheard as offensive language.

There was also the moment when Jones' team-mate Aimee Fuller, who had failed to make it through to the final, joined the over-effusive commentary team but was overcome with emotion she had to put down the mic. Not only was she speechless, but apparently sobbing, screeching as Jones began her final run, "I can't look – someone else commentate."

And this was not enough, as Jones waited for her score Leigh declared:

"I can feel my pulse in my lower intestine." Warwood sniggered: "That's not your pulse, Ed."

How David Coleman and David Vine must be turning in their proverbial graves.

Dare I say it, but that's the problem with employing jocks rather than journos.

We have been introduced to some curious slopestyle phrases during the events in Sochi ©Getty Images



As I was also saying last week the problem is we in Britain just don't seem to take the Winter Olympics seriously.

And we never will while television continues to dispense such ridiculously oversold commentaries, which I fear will spread to other aspects of the Games whenever Team GB gets the scent of a medal.

Goodness knows what would have happened had Jones won gold rather than bronze.

The commentary box probably would have disappeared in an avalanche of mouth-frothing hysteria.

As the late Michael Winner used to say in those insurance commercials: "Calm down dears!"

This overkill could well be the result of the Beeb having to justify their massive Games outlay in terms of cash and personnel by convincing viewers that everything that happens in Sochi is earth-shattering.

Their hope is that those at home will be as beguiled as they were when Torvill and Dean captivated the world exactly 30 years ago. It is too hard a sell, as we don't have a T and D any more.

But we do have so far is a Jenny Jones, as personable and presentable an advert for a British Olympian as you could wish. Good luck to her...

The BBC's outlay for coverage of the Sochi Games has been significant ©AFP/Getty Images



But let's keep things in proportion. Alas, those wading through the floods to get to the Dog and Duck on Sunday didn't find those at the bar fervently discussing the glorious bumps and grinds of Jenny Jones but the inglorious decline and fall of Manchester United.

The BBC's much-criticised coverage has been compounded by their decision to screen the lamentable Friday night piste-take Après-ski. Fronted by comedian Alan Davies it is crass, corny and about as funny as broken ribs.

So will I ever warm to this year's Winter Olympics? I might if I turn down the volume on the box.

Actually, I do see what the International Olympic Committee is trying to accomplish by bringing events like slopestyle into the Games. A sort of hip-hop on snow it obviously has a particular appeal to kids, but as the Games venture more into the realm of It's a Knockout, you wonder how long it will be before putting snowball becomes an Olympic event.

I was remarking on this to my winter sports enthusiast missus, suggesting that some of the antics for which you now see people winning gold medals in the Winter Games are what you might try for a giggle while on an Alpine holiday. "You wouldn't find anything like that in the Summer Olympics," I sniffed.

"Beach volleyball to you," she retorted coldly...

There was no answer that.

I may have mentioned this before but this is my first Olympic Games as a journalist.

So, in comparison with more experienced and, dare I say it, more cynical media colleagues, I arrived expecting the unexpected and with what I hope was an enthusiastic and open mindset.

That said these expectations, in a Sochi specific sense, were not particularly high.

In my short time at insidethegames by far my favourite stories to write have concerned Sochi 2014. They are invariably critical, usually nitty-gritty political, and always provoke a good reaction - whether they concern gay rights hysteria, security fears, corruption allegations, environmental damage, poor organisation, doping, alien invasion... You get the drift.

The Opening Ceremony of the Sochi 2014 Olympics may go down in history as having been one of the most ambitious and accomplished of all time. The complexity and sophistication puts it on a par with the Lillehammer 1994 Games, which is widely regarded to have been a Winter opening without rival.

But there was one problem that became the focus of attention after the ceremony finished. You might not have noticed it if you were watching on television, as the delay from live to broadcast meant that a rapid replacement of prior footage could wallpaper over what really happened.

In the segment when the Olympic Rings were being spectacularly visualised from gigantic snowflakes, one of them failed to expand and achieve its circular form.

So what? You may say. In the press conference that followed, it was apparent that this was a source of frustration for the organisers, who implored reporters to focus on their achievements instead of this tiny failure. The artistic director even said that this was one of the simplest technical moments in the Ceremony.

One of the Olympic Rings fails to appear during the Sochi 2014 Olympic Opening Ceremony ©AFP/Getty Images


However, there is good reason why reporters will focus on it, as the presentation of the Olympic Rings is the second most important symbolic moment in the Ceremony, after the lighting of the Cauldron.

It wasn't always like this. In years gone by, the Rings would have just been erected within the stadium from the start of the show. However, in recent years, this segment has become a moment where the hair will stand up on the back of your neck and that moment was lost, at least for those who were in the stadium, which included Vladimir Putin, who was sitting next to International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach and not far from UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon.

So, the significance of this moment is easy to understand. After all, as much as the Games are about the athletes, they are also significantly about those Rings. The entire economic foundation of the movement relies on their sale to the highest bidder. The success of the Games rises and falls on the basis of who has the right to use the Rings.

Thus, the rings have come to symbolise more than just the Olympic values and so their failure to be properly visualised during the Opening Ceremony is to compromise the integrity of that powerful symbol. It is equivalent to the Olympic Cauldron failing to ignite. This need not mean embarrassment but it does mean that an important moment was lost for Sochi.

The Olympic Ring blunder was witnessed by all at the Sochi Olympic Stadium including Thomas Bach and Vladimir Putin ©AFP/Getty Images



It would be unfair for the world to judge the artistic merit of the Ceremony on the basis of this one technical fault. Art may deserve a bit more flexibility in terms of how we evaluate success, compared to sport, where only perfection matters.

However, what took place also means that we cannot award the organisers a perfect 10 for their delivery, even if it was the best Opening Ceremony of all time. But at least that means that the next host city has something to strive for how, beyond Sochi 2014.

Besides, the beauty of television means that it won't be difficult for the Olympic organisers to easily dodge international commentary on what happened. For the majority of viewers - and for the record - it never happened.

Professor Andy Miah is chair in ethics and emerging technologies in the School of Creative and Cultural Industries and director of the Creative Futures Research Centre at the University of the West of Scotland, Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, USA and Fellow at FACT, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, UK. He is author of "Genetically Modified Athletes", co-author of "The Medicalization of Cyberspace" and editor of "Human Futures: Art in an Age of Uncertainty".

They promised an Opening Ceremony which would spotlight Russia's heritage and that was exactly what we got. Sochi's big night was rich in classical music, dance and staggering special effects from the very outset .

"Most people did not expect such a sophisticated show from us," said ceremonies producer Konstantin Ernst. Those who had seen Sochi's handover ceremony at Vancouver 2010 should not have been surprised. Then and now they had that little thing called "class".

It was precisely 20:14 hours  when it all began.The sound of Borodin's haunting Polovtsian Dances accompanied the ascent of a little girl called Luvov, played by 11-year-old Liza Temnikova from Krasnodar, a would be Olympic gymnast. Her flight on the high wire recalled the performance  of Australian youngster Nikki Webster,  who also flew through the air at the Sydney 2000 Summer Games.

"What mattered most was to have a little girl, not a woman," said artistic director Andrei Boltenko. "It was a heavy workload for Liza but we decided to take the risk. We wanted her to be kind and human."

As Luvov soared towards the heavens,artificial snow fell in the Fisht Olympic Stadium. Back in the days of bidding for the Games, Russian President Vladimir Putin had promised there would be snow in Sochi whenever it was needed

As in Beijing 2008, the costumes made extensive use of LED lights which switched to white red and blue, the national colours of Russia, as the choir of the Sretensky Monastery sang their national anthem.

By tradition, Greece were first into the Stadium, followed by Australia as the parade of teams made their entry according to the Russian alphabet.

The United States created quite an impression during the Parade of Nations in their Ralph Lauren designed uniforms ©Sports Illustrated/Getty Images

The Italians' outfits were designed by Giorgio Armani, those of the United States by Ralph Lauren. There were precious few national costumes, though the Bermudans wore their famous knee length shorts. Great Britain, predominantly in dark blue, wore Russian style hats, an echo of their 1960 uniform in Squaw Valley. Back then they were described as "Macmillan hats" after British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan who had just visited then Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev.

All teams had entered up a stair case in the centre of the stage. Viewed from above, the image of each country as seen from outer space was projected on the floor as they entered. Each team did only a half-a-lap of the Stadium before taking their seats. This was an  idea which had been used most  notably  at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha. Here too, it dramatically shortened the athlete parade which was by no means as lengthy as Tolstoy's most famous work.

War and Peace was instead the theme for a balletic presentation - a depiction of Natasha Rostova's first ball. The starring role played by Svetlana Zakharova, a prima ballerina with the Bolshoi.

Dancers perform a Dove of Peace routine during the Opening Ceremony
©Chicago Tribune/Getty Images

It's blue-sky thinking time at the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

It remains to be seen quite how radical the changes ultimately engendered by new President Thomas Bach's Olympic Agenda 2020 turn out to be, but IOC members appear for now to be embracing the spirit of innovation with some enthusiasm.

One aspect of the first day of the 126th IOC Session in Sochi that surprised me this week was the repeated support voiced for the idea of introducing more mixed-gender events onto the Olympic Games programme.

There are, as IOC members lined up to point out, plenty of sound reasons for such an initiative.

The Movement has made pretty good progress on gender equality, in terms of the absolute numbers of male and female athletes who compete at the Games, so perhaps it is time to adjust focus slightly. Mixed-gender events send an important and easily decipherable signal to societies in which girls are still brought up to feel inferior to boys. It might well improve the chances of small countries winning team medals.

I would certainly agree both that lots of good might come of this and that more mixed Olympic events are in any case coming: sailing is introducing a two-person mixed multihull event at Rio 2016; swimming is seemingly not far behind, with mixed relays set to be included in the 2014 World Short Course Championships in Doha in December, some four years after a mixed relay featured at the inaugural Youth Olympics in Singapore.

The Youth Olympics has already gone down the road of mixed events, with the 4x100 metre freestyle relay at the inaugural event in Singapore 2010 ©Getty Images


It is not terribly difficult, moreover, to think of other sports which would be well advised to follow suit as quickly as possible.

For example, athletics: mixed-gender 4x100m and 4x400m relays would be a great way to round off the Olympic track and field programme for a sport which, though the absolute bedrock of Olympic competition, could certainly do with some judicious gingering up.

For example, golf: I can imagine few better ways for this new Olympic sport to counter the rather fusty, conservative image that still dogs it in some circles than to introduce a mixed-gender pairs competition.

For maximum impact, I'd be minded to go for a foursome, rather than a four-ball, format, with male-female pairs playing alternate shots.

You could even argue that mixed-gender pairs would be a positive development in  canoeing and rowing, although I am not sure the case here is quite as strong.

As for mixed-gender tandem in Olympic cycling - hmm, I wonder.

Tandem cycling might be one mixed event not greeting an Olympics any time soon ©Getty Images



The truth is, as anyone who has taken part in a brainstorming might testify, it is easy to get carried away.

Whole worlds can be transformed in not much longer than it takes to write this column; then, little by little, the cold light of day intrudes, exposing flaws in all but the most authentic masterstrokes.

So, if I might be permitted to interject the slightest reality check into a most stimulating debate, it would be to argue that this will – and should be – a gradual, not an overnight, revolution.

New mixed events need to be thoroughly tried and tested by the relevant International Sports Federations (IFs) before being let loose at Olympic level, the apex of the global sporting pyramid.

I see little reason to doubt that the Olympic sports programme of, say, 2032 will feature many more mixed events than we have at present; but it could take quite some time for this proliferation to materialise.

I also think it is important to avoid gimmickry, and to ensure that IFs do not feel pressured to go down the mixed event path come what may, in order to procure a bright, new IOC-approved feather for their cap.

Thomas Bach's blue sky thinking has cultivated a refreshing spirit of debate ©AFP/Getty Images



I sensed perhaps the merest hint of this in an intervention made by Rita Subowo, an IOC member from Indonesia.

Ms Subowo said that, while she agreed with the idea of encouraging gender equity by introducing more mixed events, "I don't know how to implement it in my sport, in volleyball, because the height of the nets is different".

But, she added, almost quoting that famed same-sex songwriting pairing, Lennon and McCartney, "we will work it out".

I must confess this left me with the faintly sinister image of a "smart" volleyball net capable of detecting the gender of the next player to strike the ball and whirring up or down accordingly.

Hats off for now though to the new IOC regime, for the refreshing spirit of debate it is inculcating.

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.

Obviously it's relatively early days for the recently installed President of the International Olympic Committee, but Mr Bach is already on his mettle as far as the impending Sochi Games are concerned.

His wily assurance that athletes would naturally be free to express themselves during post-competition press conferences drew what looked and sounded like a flat denial from the organisers, only for the matter to be resolved when the organisers insisted that their flat denial had been misunderstood. Or was it "taken out of context"?

Whatever, freedom of expression will Rule OK in press conferences, which is good news for all the media representatives now gathered in the seething Black Sea resort and busying themselves with pre-Games reports featuring, among other things, the uncomfortably companionable toilet arrangements in the biathlon venue. Perhaps this is some kind of complement to the biathlon, given that it will require those seating themselves in the gents to offer the combined skill of making polite conversation while doing what they arrived to do.

Toilet arrangements at the biathlon and other venues are promising to earn Sochi the reputation of being the Friendly Games ©Steve Rosenberg/BBC

Naturally, many reporters have focused on the massive security presence all around them, above them and, for all we know, underneath them - although that story has yet to surface.

If pre-Games rhetoric was an Olympic event - well it is, really - and was scored, say, under the system which used to hold sway in figure skating, then Bach would surely be looking at a perfect 6 for his freedom-of-speech effort, although perhaps only a 5.5 for his most recent sally against those world leaders, invited or uninvited, who have decided to make a point of not attending the Sochi Games, which is being widely taken as a judgement upon the controversy over gay rights and the new Russian law which has flared in the space of the past year.

US President Barack Obama is among many world leaders "boycotting" the Sochi Games, with implied criticism of Russia's stance regarding gay rights ©AFP/Getty Images

Bach has a point when he asks politicians not to visit their disagreements "on the backs of the athletes" at the Games. But after all, it is only the politicians who are boycotting, not their athletes, as was the case in the 1980 and 1984 Games. Some might see even this as a positive thing...

These successes, however, are as rhetorical double salchows to the triple lutz which lies ahead in the President's programme - that is, characterising the Games.

IOC President Thomas Bach addressing the Session in Sochi this week
©AFP/Getty images

Already, surely, the President will have potential statements prepared for the Closing Ceremony, at which, custom has so often dictated, the latest Olympics will have to be labelled the "most something", or perhaps the "something-est" in history. The 64 billion rouble question is: what will the "something" be?

The Sochi Games could already be called the most expensive Games given their most popularised figure of $31 billion  (although just to make things confusing, last year's estimate of $51 billion, offered by the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak has since been dramatically downgraded to $6.4 billion, which officials say is the true figure minus costs for improved transport links and other infrastructure). But such a truth is not what the host nation will be looking for on this occasion. Most compact Games? Again, true, but not the answer. Most heavily fortified Games (move over, Salt Lake City...)? Same goes.

Maybe the President will have to fall back on the diplomacy of "truly exceptional", the epithet given by his predecessor, Jacques Rogge, to the 2008 Beijing Olympics - Games which, incidentally, Rogge's predecessor Juan-Antonio Samaranch proclaimed as "the best I have ever seen."

Perhaps Rogge was remembering 1996 Atlanta Games, when the organisational travails, and indeed the bombing which resulted in two deaths and more than a hundred injuries, moderated even Samaranch to the observation that they had been "most exceptional".

The Closing Ceremony of the 1996 Atlanta Games which, beset by organisational problems and a fatal bomb blast, were described merely as "most exceptional" by the then IOC President Juan-Antonio Samaranch ©Getty Images

What is devoutly to be wished, of course, is that Thomas Bach will be able to declare that the Sochi 2014 Games have been "the greatest ever".

They might yet be, we will soon see - although for many people the background to these Games, with the serial allegations of corruption, the crudely and one senses temporarily ameliorated attitude to gay rights, and the real and present danger of terrorist attacks, has already characterised the Sochi Winter Games adversely.

However things turn out once the 22nd Winter Games are officially underway, the latest version is already a world away from the two which preceded it in Vancouver and Turin. There will be nothing ad hoc or carefree about these Games.

What can be said of them, unequivocally, is that they are a supreme expression of willpower - the will of President Putin, and by extension the nation over which he presides. Every sporting element of these Games has been created from scratch. The expense is matched only by the ambition and confidence of the enterprise.

That much was evident when I was one of the journalists invited to Sochi for the World Press Briefing in November 2012 and was taken on a two-day whistle-stop tour of the alpine and coastal venues.

On day one, our coach travelled past solid lines of lorries, diggers, cement mixers and mini-buses full of construction workers heading for the mountain ranges behind us, their wheels throwing up dust into the mountain air. The dust was flying too when we reached our destination just a few hundred metres away from the rolling, olive green water of the Black Sea. More lines of lorries. More mini-buses. More frenetic activity. It went on all day. It went on all night. It went on come rain. It went on come shine.

One of the workers who helped turn Sochi into 'the biggest building site in the world' in preparation for the 2014 Winter Games ©AFP/Getty Images

In his address to the gathered journalists Dmitry Chernyshenko, President and chief executive of Sochi 2014, described the locale as "probably the biggest building site in the world."

Tellingly, he added: "Every Games should surpass the previous edition - should be better, more efficient." And there you have it. The Russians have not gone to all this trouble merely to create a successful Games. It has to be a transcendent Games.

Dmitriy Chernyshenko, President and chief executive of Sochi 2014, has voiced Russia's towering ambitions well ahead of the Opening Ceremony ©AFP/Getty Images

And that, of course, holds true for tomorrow's centrepiece in the Fisht (short for Finisht) Olympic Stadium. "We've got an ambitious job to create the most outstanding Opening Ceremony ever," Chernyshenko asserted.

Such is the fearsome level of expectation with which IOC Presidents now have to contend. Good luck with it all, Mr Bach!

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.

Four years ago at the handover in Vancouver, Sochi's ballet dancers gave a tantalising glimpse of  what to expect at the Opening Ceremony this week. They danced to the third movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony Pathetique. This same music had been used at the very start of the 1980 Olympic Opening in Moscow, the most spectacular Ceremony seen up to that time.

The 2014 Ceremony, to be held indoors in the Fisht Stadium, will certainly be as spectacular as many in recent history.The winter openings were not always so elaborate.

In the Lake Placid Games of 1932 it lasted less than half-an-hour. The Games were opened by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, not yet President but Governor of New York. The festivities began at 10 o'clock in the morning. The Great Britain team was comprised of four female skaters, from whom Mollie Phillips became the first woman from any nation to carry her country's flag.

At Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936, Nazi flags lined the roadside and until International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Henry Baillet Latour intervened, so did anti-Jewish slogans. A flame burned from a tower on the mountains as Adolf Hitler became the last head of state to open a Winter and Summer Olympics in the same year.

Molly Philips carried Britain's flag at the Opening Ceremony of the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, the first woman from any country to be given the honour ©Philip Barker



In post war years, the memory of those Games was an embarrassment to local authorities and the cauldron was pressed into service as a cattle trough. It has since disappeared.

There was a sensitive problem for Ceremony organisers at the 1952 Winter Games in Oslo. King George VI died a few days before .

"The musical programme for the opening was changed to a more solemn tone," said the official report.

King Haakon of Norway had been due to make the opening declaration but he flew to London for the funeral with Crown Prince Olav and Princess Ragnhild was asked to perform the ceremonial Olympic duties.

After the march past of the teams, there was a short speech and then the flags were dipped as a minute's silence was observed.

Karl Ritter von Halt, president of the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Olympic organising committee, speaks during the opening of the 1936 Winter Games, which was marred by anti-Jewish sentiment ©AFP/Getty Images





The Olympic Flame had been lit in the Norwegian village of Morgedal and brought by relay, the first time this happened at the Winter Games.

Walt Disney was given the job of designing the ceremonies for the 1960 Games in Squaw Valley, but even he could do nothing about the weather on the morning of the opening ceremony. A Sierra Nevada snowstorm threatened to ruin the spectacle but as the Greek team marched in, the sun appeared. Many at the time called this "The Miracle of Squaw Valley".

A colourful "Tower of Nations" depicting each participating country stood at the centre of the stadium and balloons were released as the flame was lit.

The opening words were spoken by American vice president Richard Nixon.

The sunshine appeared just in the nick of time at the Squaw Valley 1960 Opening Ceremony, designed by Walt Disney © AFP/Getty Images



When the Winter Games returned to the United States in 1980, it was again the Vice-President who opened them, but the reason seemed to be political. At the time of the Lake Placid Games, President Jimmy Carter was campaigning for a boycott of the Moscow Games in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and was hostile to the IOC.

"At the last moment I was informed that he had delegated his authority to vice president Walter Mondale," Wrote IOC President Lord Killanin later.

Lake Placid was the third and to date last city to stage the Olympic Winter Games twice. Innsbruck held her second opening ceremony in 1976 at  the Bergisel ski jump stadium where two cauldrons burned to mark the fact. Twelve years earlier in 1964, the Winter flame had been brought from Olympia in Greece for the first time. The ceremony  was subdued after two fatal accidents in training. Almost half a century later, another tragedy hit the Winter Games and a visibly shaken Jacques Rogge opened his speech at the Vancouver Games with a tribute to Georgian Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, who was killed during a training run.

Grey skies greeted the Olympic flame as it arrived in Sarajevo for the 1984 Games but the colour purple provided the dominant theme for dancers. They wore legwarmers and headbands as they performed. The television series Fame was popular at the time. A specially written March of all The Continents greeted the competitors. The ceremonies at the Kosevo stadium were modest but well received and Yugoslav President of the Presidencies Mika Spiljak made the opening declaration. These were the first Games at which IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch presided and he clearly retained an affection for what he called "Dear Sarajevo".

Sarajevo’s Opening Ceremony in 1984 was modest, but well received ©AFP/Getty Images



In 1988, a massed choir sang the official song Come Together in Calgary as first nation tribes on horseback made a dramatic entry. The use of horses on such a scale was also seen twelve years later at the summer Games in Sydney. When Australia arrived in Calgary, the band played "Happy Birthday" in honour of the Aussies' bicentenary that year.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police provided an escort for the Governor General Jeanne Sauve, representative of the Queen who arrived in an open landau to open the Games. She made the announcement in French and English, as the Queen had done at the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal.

The Canadian snowbirds flew overhead as the flame was lit by 12-year-old Robyn Perry.

Albertville was the central resort of the 1992 Games. The Opening Ceremony was arguably the most bizarre of them all. Described by the American magazine Sports Illustrated as "Mind Warping" it began shortly before sunset. The organisers promised the Ceremony would "rupture the quiet tradition of the previous editions". An aerial ballet offered an original depiction of the Olympic sports, but what was harder to fathom was the decision that the narrators would speak in bizarre rhyming couplets.

The placards were carried by girls who wore giant costumes that resembled desk ornaments shaken to produce the effect of a snowstorm. Football superstar Michel Platini  brought the Flame to the stadium and joined youngster Francois Cyrille Grange to light the cauldron, but some were left with the feeling that it had "ruptured tradition" too much.

The most memorable moment of the Lillehammer 1994 Opening Ceremony came when a ski jumper heralded the arrival of the flame ©Getty Images



In 1994, the Norwegians reverted to a more classical theme and created a magical winter setting in Lillehammer to welcome the Games.