So no more Olympics for Ben Ainslie. And no more Ben Ainslie for the Olympics. It's like the momentous parting of the ways which occurred when Steve Redgrave finally decided enough gold was enough.

But as was not the case with Redgrave, the 35-year-old who steps figuratively ashore as the most successful Olympic sailor of all time - with four golds and a silver in a career which began at Atlanta 1996 - has another major competitive arena in prospect. Involving boats again, naturally – but much bigger boats.

Ainslie made his long-term ambition clear in January when he launched Ben Ainslie Racing (BAR), a team sponsored by JP Morgan, which is now taking part in the America's Cup World Series by way of preparation for an attempt to become the first British boat to lift the America's Cup itself.


And his official retirement today from the Games has only confirmed the hints he gave in the aftermath of his London 2012 victory, a culmination of what he called the "hardest couple of weeks" of his life. "You can never say never," he said, "but I don't think I can sail one of these again. It's killing my body so I don't think you will see me in Rio. But it's the best way to bow out at a home Olympics."

On the eve of the London 2012 Games I asked Ainslie about how he dealt with the contending demands of his Olympic and America's Cup ambitions.

"You have to be able to compartmentalise the different areas you want to focus on," he responded. "If I'm going racing the only thing I'm thinking about is that. I'm not thinking about the America's Cup or anything else that's going on in my life.

"The America's Cup is primarily all about the team, and the Finn sailing, although I have a great support team, is different. When I'm out there racing I'm alone, with full responsibility."

Twelve years ago, soon after Ainslie had won a gold medal in the Laser class at the Sydney Games and in doing so taken his revenge over Robert Scheidt, the Brazilian whose cute tactical moves in the medal race had earned him the Olympic title ahead of the Briton four years earlier in Atlanta, he took part in a mini race at the Royal Albert Dock which offered the press the opportunity to join in.


I was "crewing" on the boat skippered by another triumphant Olympian, Iain Percy, who had won the Finn class in which Ainslie now operates. The first mini-race was won by our boat, but Percy was confident there would be an immediate response in the next from the opposition boat skippered by someone he described as "the most competitive man in the world". And of course, there was.

As we spoke shortly before London 2012, I could not forbear asking Ainslie whether he concurred with his friend's sentiment. Well, he didn't disagree. But he made it clear again how mental compartments came into the process.

"I guess Iain knows me pretty well, better than most people," he replied. "I think sailing is the one thing in my life that I want to try and be the best at. There's nothing else in my life where I feel like I have to be competitive. Sailing is the one thing I want to be best at, to reach the highest level I can and to achieve things, so that's why I'm so determined to do well.

"I am competitive, but nothing like I am when I'm sailing. If someone beats me at cards, or my nephew beats me at a computer game or whatever it is, I laugh about it. I just don't like being beaten when I'm sailing, full stop."

And there, essentially, is the attitude that has got Ainslie where he is today.


He was only 19 in 1996 when Scheidt taught him that bitter lesson at the Atlanta Games – a lesson which was to prove invaluable.

The Briton lay in silver medal position before the final race, and after much pre-race manoeuvring the organisers put up the black flag - an indication that any boat jumping the start line at the next attempt would be disqualified.

"Robert was pretty cunning," Ainslie recalled. "Because he was sitting near the committee boat and must have heard them call out his sail number, that he was over the line, so he just sheeted in and started over the line with 10 seconds to go, knowing he was over it. When one goes, others go because they don't want to be given the jump. So about 20 boats went. I was among them and we all got disqualified and the net result was that Robert won the gold and I got the silver. Yes, in its way it was brilliant."

Four years later in Sydney the positions were reversed, and a couple of abandoned starts meant Scheidt was forewarned about the Briton's tactics. But he still couldn't stop him. Ainslie managed to get into a perfect spoiling position a matter of seconds before the start, and he soon isolated the Brazilian as the rest of the fleet sailed away, blocking his wind and weaving across his path. There was apparently plenty being said between the two boats.

In the end, Scheidt broke clear after ramming the Briton's boat, and then set off to try to catch the distant race ahead. Scheidt almost made it, taking advantage of a huge wind shift, but with Ainslie desperately catching up to see if more action was required, the Brazilian was penalised and the gold was secure with the Briton.

Bryn Vaile, who won gold for Britain with Michael McIntyre in the Star Class at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, has had close hand experience of the nitty-gritty of competitive action on the water for 30 years as a sailor and national selector.


"You can effectively stop an opponent by sitting in their wind," says Vaile. "It is called covering. It was originally introduced as a defensive measure, but what someone like Ben does is use it as an aggressive tactic. It's aggressive covering, if you like. You use the rules aggressively, rather than defensively.

"It's similar to the kind of manoeuvring you can get in Formula One. There are times when Ben's objective is to manoeuvre things so that he gets to cross the line ahead of a particular opponent.

"When Ben went to his first Olympics in Atlanta in 1996, the Brazilian, Robert Scheidt, made sure he got gold and Ben got silver by using that tactic. Ben didn't forget that. And when they were at the Sydney Olympics four years later, Ben replied in kind – and did it better.

"Ben's friend Iain Percy, who has won Olympic titles himself, describes him as 'the most competitive man in the world', and I know what he means. There is something of Ayrton Senna, or Michael Schumacher, in him."

That is, greatness.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the past five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames.

In terms of the host city for 2020, just Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo now stand in what is certainly not the greatest bid race in the history of the Games. One need only look back to the enthralling 2012 race featuring Paris, Madrid, Moscow, New York and ultimate victors London to draw that conclusion.

But on the other hand, there are eight completely different sports battling it out for the right to appear at either Istanbul, Madrid or Tokyo in 2020.

They are baseball, climbing, karate, roller sport, softball, squash, wakeboard and wushu.

There are however, just seven bids after baseball and softball recently confirmed an unprecedented joint bid for the Olympics, making the race perhaps even more entertaining.

Like the unveiling of the 2020 host city, the announcement of which sport will appear at the Games will be made at the all-important International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session in Buenos Aires in September next year.

By that time, each bidding sport would have faced extreme scrutiny in their various attempts become part of the greatest sporting event on the planet.

As well as submitting endless bid documents and undertaking numerous presentations, each sport will have had one of their major Championships evaluated by the IOC.

In terms of the Evaluation events, karate was perhaps the sport that got lucky.

Of the eight, it was the only sport where the IOC attended its premier competition as the inspection team turned up for the 2012 World Karate Championships in Paris.

The World Karate Championships are held every two years, and given that the sport is not on the Olympic programme, there is no bigger karate competition for the world's elite.

I must admit that I am not a complete expert in karate.

After several years as a participant, I gave up the sport around the age of six shortly after receiving a hugely painful kick to the nose from a much older child (although I'm assured that in today's karate, children are not so woefully mismatched as I was).

Before heading to Paris, I was fully aware that karate was an internationally popular sport but I was still a little taken aback when I arrived at the magnificent Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy to find a sell-out 16,000 capacity crowd creating a deafening atmosphere at the 2012 World Karate Championships. It is the first time I have sampled such an electric atmosphere since London 2012 and whenever a French athlete emerged, the arena was simply rocking.

The media interest in the event was also huge with around 300 journalists and 17 television stations in attendance.

Meanwhile the action out in the centre saw around 1,000 karatekas from 114 countries competing.

The standard was simply phenomenal as the athletes fought with blistering speed and skill.

It was a superb show and one certain to impress the IOC inspectors in attendance.

But I couldn't help but feel that karate faces an obvious hurdle in their 2020 bid, which is, incidentally, their third consecutive bid to make the Olympic programme.

That hurdle is the fact that there are already three combat sports on the Olympic programme.

They are boxing, taekwondo and wrestling.

Could this hurt karate?

No, according to World Karate Federation (WFK) President Antonio Espinós.

"We have never thought that there were too many combat sports at the Olympics," the colourful Spaniard told me on the side-lines of the Championships.

"More importantly, we never got the perception from the IOC that there are too many combat sports.

"In the Olympics and the Olympic Movement, there is a place for everybody.

"There are obviously several combat sports at the Olympics but that is because people all around the world like combat sports and participate in them.

"That is certainly not a bad thing for karate.

"This is now our third bid in a row to become an Olympic sport and we believe this will be the successful one.

"We have been learning from the Olympic Movement during former bids and this has allowed us to improve the WKF and karate, as we are showing the IOC here."

Later in his closing press conference, Espinós responded to another of my questions by declaring that the competition "was the greatest World Championships in history".

"There is no way that the IOC cannot be impressed by this," he added.

"The athletes, the crowd and the facility have been truly outstanding and this is obviously very good for our Olympic bid."

I discovered shortly before speaking to Espinós that each of the bidding sports is having its major Championships accessed by just two IOC inspectors, one of who is a member of the IOC Olympic Programme Commission and one of who is a member the IOC director general's office.

For the 2012 World Karate Championships, IOC Olympic Programme Commission member Mike Fennell and project officer at the IOC director general's office Pierre Fratter-Bardy.

Following the 2012 World Karate Championships, Fennell and Fratter-Bardy will compile a report which will be carefully reviewed by the IOC alongside the reports from the other bidding sports next month.

In the bidding process, eight different members of the IOC Olympic Programme Commission are attending the eight Evaluation Championships to help compile the full report.

This is because the IOC Olympic Programme Commission is responsible for reviewing and analysing the programme of sports, disciplines and events, as well as the number of athletes in each sport, for the Olympic Games.

Interestingly, Fratter-Bardy told me that no final decision has been made on how many of the bidding sports will still be in the race by the time we get to Buenos Aires in September 2013.

Rumours are growing the shortlist will again be shortlisted, meaning that there could be just four, three or even two sports for the full IOC membership to vote on for inclusion at the 2020 Olympics. Alternatively, all eight could remain.

And perhaps more than one of the bidding sports could be included in 2020 depending on how many sports the IOC decide to drop from the current Olympic programme.

Only as 2013 arrives will we start getting a clear picture of how things are panning out.

But if the Evaluation events are anything to go by, karate certainly has a fighting chance of making the 2020 Olympics.

Tom Degun is a reporter for insidethegames

You don't know what to expect when you interview Sepp Blatter. For a man who wanted to be on the stage since he was a child, he has always been the sort of showman who likes to surprise his audience. A book of Blatter sayings would be an instant bestseller.

Yet what struck me when I had a long chat with him at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich last week, is that there seems little love lost between him and Michel Platini, UEFA President, often seen as his successor.

That Blatter and Platini are on opposite sides of goal-line technology is well known. But the vehemence with which he dismissed the Frenchman's cherished idea of having an additional referee behind the goal line was striking, "If the five officials can help the referee, then this could be a solution, but if they are used as goal line judges then it is a waste of time."

He was just as dismissive of the other idea dear to Platini – of holding the 2022 Qatar World Cup in winter. No, said the man who heads world football, "Qatar won on the basis of it being held in June/July and it cannot be changed".

But what was striking were his words on UEFA. We had started talking of how, in his first term, having defeated Lennart Johansson, then UEFA President for the top job in world football, he faced opposition from UEFA. With the Europeans having eight members in the 24-man executive and the strongest of the confederations, this was a formidable problem. But since then Johansson has gone. Blatter helped Michel Platini get on to the UEFA executive and take over from Johansson, so you would expect FIFA and UEFA to sing from the same hymn sheet.

It seems that little love is lost between Sepp Blatter (R) and Michel Platini (L), who is often seen as his FIFA successor

This does not seem to be the case when you hear what Blatter has to say about UEFA. "I see my world, the world of football. UEFA, they only see Europe. They have the best players, not only coming from Europe, and they have the best competitions. They think they are the leaders of the world. They have a problem with me, I don't have a problem with them. "

Blatter, despite being a Swiss, has always seen himself as a citizen of the world. This prompts the question of whether one of his problems in FIFA has been that he is running essentially a European organisation, but with a personal outlook that is non-European. So I wonder if it is possible that he felt like a non-European among the Europeans?

His response is swift, "It's not only possible, it's a fact." But that, he insists, is not a problem for him, "It's a problem for them". Then with a laugh he adds, "Really, it's a problem for them, they cannot understand."

FIFA, under Blatter, has always made much of its worldwide remit, how his organisation out matches the United Nations. Even before the great man entered the room in the FIFA headquarters where we were meeting, I had seen evidence of this. There in front of me was the organisation's world outlook, in the most dramatic form. On the table in front of me was the latest FIFA World magazine. The cover shows a cricket pitch and a batsman using his bat to cover drive a football. The headline reads: "Whole new ball game? Going in to bat for Indian football."


With India facing England in a Test series, the talk turns to the appeal of the game in that country. As I mention to Blatter how Swami Vivekananda, one of the greatest of Indians, had advised his countrymen over a century ago that they would get to god quicker if they learnt to play football, Blatter nods and says in some wonder, "I have witnessed myself one of the oldest football stadia I ever have seen in Calcutta." Blatter sees India as "the sleeping giant" of the game and it is clear that FIFA would like nothing better than for the second most populous country in the world to take to football. Indeed, this could be his legacy. It would involve changing many things in India, not least the sporting perception of cricket being the religion of the country.

But while FIFA, which is investing huge resources into India, works on that, Blatter has to also think about the world's perception of his own organisation. Given how buffeted it has been by various corruption issues that have arisen in the past two years, can the 76 year-old Swiss, who has been in charge of world football since 1988, really believe FIFA has got rid of the stain of corruption?

No sooner have I asked then Blatter is in his stride, "Listen, it is my duty to bring back FIFA to calm waters and we will do it. We are in the last round of our reform process, which started at the end of the Congress of 2011. We have the ethics committee in two chambers with two independent chairmen. We have the audit and compliance committee working with an independent chairman. We have now the last of these three working groups finishing its job and this is the revision of statutes. We have started the consultation with the confederations.

"We will present this to the Congress (in Mauritius in 2013) and we will be at the end of our reform process when the Congress will accept the changes of the statutes, including the members of the jurisdictional bodies. Not only the ethics committee, but also the different committees, and the board of appeal, will be elected by the congress itself in 2013 for a four-year term. And therefore the reform process, which has been initiated in 2011, according to our road map will be realised."


There is almost a head masterly tone as Blatter goes through his litany. However, the fact remains that for this talk of changing FIFA, the organisation until two years ago was in a cosy, comfortable world of seeing no wrong. It was forced to take the reform road, not because there were reformers from within FIFA, but because of external, media, pressure. This began with under cover reporting by the Sunday Times, exposing the inner and far-from-pleasant workings of FIFA, and has now seen five of the 24 man FIFA executive members forced to leave the organisation. They have either been found guilty of taking bribes, or quit before they were found guilty. It started in November 2010 with the departure of Reynald Temarii and Amos Adamu immediately after the Sunday Times sting operation. Then, following further revelations, Mohamed Bin Hammam and Jack Warner departed. Ricardo Teixeira, a long time member from Brazil, has also departed

Many of the departed, like Warner, Bin Hammam and Teixeira, were close allies of Blatter. So why did Blatter not recognise what was happening before the media made the world aware?

Blatter's response is, "What should I recognise before? I am the President of FIFA. We have started all our, let's say, efforts to clarify what happened in FIFA when we came to the decision to have the World Cup for two consecutive times in focus and we have realised that something was wrong there. And now the executive committee, if you look at the composition at that time and the composition now, then you will see that five of the members are not any longer there, they are out of FIFA. So there has been action taken and I am working for the FIFA, for people that are now in FIFA. And after the congress in 2013, then they can start the campaign for the FIFA Presidency. Because the new FIFA statutes will then be well installed and then I'll be a happy man to give FIFA to my successor whoever those they want to be."

Blatter then went on to talk about press speculation, particularly in the British and German press, about himself. "There have been some people, they were advocating for years and years I was on a payroll somewhere. Now they have realised that I was not on a payroll, even the federal court in Switzerland said no, Blatter has never been in a payroll."


Blatter's defence is interesting. This suggests that FIFA's corruption issues relate to the two World Cup bids. Yet media talk of FIFA corruption started long before the vote on two World Cups in 2010. Indeed, it started soon after the collapse of ISL, FIFA's marketing partner in the early years of this century. Blatter also neatly skates over the fact that for several years the organisation resisted release of court documents relating to ISL. The court documents, originally declared sealed and confidential by the Zug cantonal court, were finally released in May this year, in large part due to media pressure, as the court acknowledged. It showed ex-FIFA president João Havelange, the man who was Blatter's mentor, and his former son-in-law, Ricardo Teixeira, had received almost 22 million Swiss francs (today around £9 million/$14 million/€11 million) between 1992 and 2000 from ISL. Teixeira was shown to have received, in today's money, the equivalent of $13 million (£8 million/€10 million) between 1992-1997, while Havelange received, in present day terms, 1.5 million Swiss francs (£1 million/$1.6 million/€1.2 million) in 1997. The bribes had been paid to them at a time when such payments were not illegal in Switzerland. However, both men had sought for years to prevent release of the ISL file. The closure of that file had been ordered in Zug, where ISL was based, in exchange for the repayment into court of the sums listed. FIFA was a party to opposing the release of ISL documents.

So while Blatter is right to stress that he was falsely accused of being on the ISL payroll, the fact was that the organisation had fought for many years in the courts, not to release the damaging ISL papers. But when I ask whether the release of the papers give the impression that while he, personally, had nothing to hide, his organisations had something to hide, Blatter, keeping a very straight face answers, "Yeah, but when we started the reform, I said now be open."

He is much more forthcoming when explaining the problems faced by FIFA in going from an organisation which did not have much money to one which is now quite a sizeable corporate body.


"We have had let's say, a problem of growth. We were growing too fast and by growing too fast we had to have good administration, it needs a good internal management. I was betrayed by both of the secretary generals I have had in the first phase and in the second phase. And it's only now in the third phase I have at least now the manager who is a manager, who knows how to manage an organisation. And so therefore, there was, I agree, that in the first years of my tenure of office, the transition from a small, let's say, a club, a transition from a club to a corporate company. [This was] done so fast that not all parameters were met. But now they are met."

And Blatter would now like his critics, particularly his critics in the British media, to look at this new FIFA that he says is emerging, "You know, your colleagues of the English press, they should have a view what has happened in FIFA in the past. And when we had the crisis, I have realised that there is a crisis, I went in and we are going to solve this crisis. And I'm working for that very hard and it's right for me. It's of tremendous importance that we bring to an end this reform, and not in 10 years."

By then Blatter should long have departed from FIFA, as his term ends in 2015. But will he have gone? This is where he provides the most tantalising hint, "I will not stand again. I have to finish. I have to put it into my mind that you cannot be eternal." But then, as if realising that this might be too revolutionary an idea, Blatter adds, "There may be circumstances that I'm still there and nobody will take on FIFA. I don't know."

Mihir Bose is one of the world's most astute observers on politics in sport, particularly football. He wrote formerly for The Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph and was the BBC's head sports editor. Most recently, he published The Game Changer: How the English Premier League came to dominate the world. Marshall Cavendish £14.99

Follow Mihir on Twitter.

www.mihirbose.com

Making a comeback is among the most emotive phrases in sport. Usually it happens when a sports personality is either broke or bored, and, more often than not, it all ends in tears – or jeers.

Boxing faces the unwelcome prospect of two self-inflicted black eyes in the coming fortnight. On Saturday (November 24) night Manchester's MEN Arena will be rocking to the roars of "There's Only One Ricky Hatton" as the hubris-fuelled 34-year-old Hitman makes what many consider an ill-advised return to the ring against a former world champion, the Ukrainian Viacheslav Senchenko.

He does not need the money – he is reputed to be worth £26 million ($41 million/€32 million) after a career that saw him become arguably Britain's most idolised and best-supported world champion.

What he does need is the restoration of his pride and dignity following devastating defeats by Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, and personal redemption after plunging to the depths of despair which saw him succumb to drink, drugs, binge-eating and brought him to the brink of suicide.

But most of all he misses the roar of the crowd.


Six days later the same venue will witness another comeback with the ring debut of cricket legend Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff, also 34, as a novice heavyweight in an event even more consider a shameful exercise that cheapens the sport. The worrying possibility is that both Hatton and Flintoff could be seriously damaged, both having had to shed several stones in weight in a comparatively short time.

Of the two, Flintoff's sporting resurrection in a sport vastly more dangerous that the one which made him an icon is the more disturbing.

On the same night as he comes out fighting, 35 miles away in Liverpool a genuine heavyweight bout takes place with the British champion and former Olympic bronze medallist David Price, following his brutally brief encounter Audley Harrison, defending his title against seasoned slugger Matt Skelton who, like the giant Liverpudlian knows how to take care of himself.

But can Flintoff? "Car crash television," is how top promoter Frank Warren described the ex-cricketer's scheduled contest with American Richard Dawson, which like the British title fight, will be screened live by BoxNation.


Price is among those who fears for Flintoff. "What he is doing is disrespectful, to boxing, especially if it turns out to be a farce on the night," he tells us from his training camp in Portugal. "That would be a dreadful advert for the sport. I am sure he is taking it seriously – and he needs to. At least he seems to be in shape."

Flintoff retired from cricket because of injuries, including dodgy knees. So how can he be fit for boxing, which demands the ultimate in fitness and where knees are literally pivotal? "I remember my first amateur fight, I thought I was fit and about 20 seconds into the bout I realised I wasn't," says Price. "All the sparring in the world can't prepare you prepare you for the real thing.

"I'm just hope he doesn't get badly hurt. When that that first punch lands on his chin is when he'll know this isn't cricket.

"I wish him well but I can't see him making a career out of it. I think this is a one-off, a sideshow."

Actually, it is the focal point of a three-part Sky 1 documentary – From Lord's to the Ring – in which Flintoff reveals that in retirement he has battled similar demons to those which bedevilled Hatton.

Barry McGuigan, whom promotes the Manchester bill has been training Flintoff with his son Shane. "I'm not going to put him in with someone who's too good," he had promised.

So step forward a heavyweight from Hicksville. Dawson, 11 years younger than Flintoff at 23, is a 6ft 2in two-fight novice whom fights out of Okmulgee, Oklahoma.

He has won both his hometown contests this year, one by a first round stoppage, the other on points. They will box over three two-minute rounds.

"This is a stunt which should never be allowed to happen," argues Price's manager, Frank Maloney. "There are people around it who should know better. Giving Flintoff, who has no experienced of boxing a licence to fight a professional is a joke. It is nonsense, dangerous nonsense."

But McGuigan, who spearheaded a campaign for better safety measures when chairman of the Professional Boxers' Association, is confident Flintoff has acquired sufficient defensive skills to acquit himself capably. "I've never seen an athlete who is 34 years old train as hard and make that level of commitment. He understands how tough the sport is and his respect for boxers has gone through the roof."


Having agonised about giving Flintoff a licence, the last thing the Board of Control will want is a farce – or even worse cries of a "fix", with punches pulled or Dawson giving a passable impersonation of Tom Daley.

Hopefully he comes not looking for an easy payday but as a young American prospect who won't want his unbeaten record blemished by losing to the British equivalent of a retired Major League Baseball player.

He'll surely be trying, and as Price says, Flintoff ducking bouncers is one thing, avoiding big right-handers another.

Maybe the bookies have got it right, Ladbrokes making him 5-4 on to retire hurt.

Obviously, the born-again Hitman and the ex-Batsman will be amply rewarded for their endeavours.

But for my money, their respective comebacks are totally eclipsed by the astonishing achievement of a young putative British Olympian who is being described as "a walking miracle".


Last month Serita Shone pushed a bobsleigh for the first time since she broke her back in a terrifying 85mph crash in practice just a year ago which doctors feared would leave her paralysed for life.

Her return may have been confined to the dry push-start track at Bath University, but it highlighted the incredible recovery she has made a year after the accident at Winterberg in Germany where she was a novice brake-woman in a two-seater bobsled practicing for her first competition, the British championships.

In doing so, she has astounded her family, friends and medical experts.

Serita, 23, from Weymouth, was in a bob that flipped through the air, hit the roof of the tunnel and almost cut her in half as it smashed down on top of her.

She fractured her lower spine in two places, the L1 and L2 vertebrae, and was warned she might never walk again.

"If someone told me Serita would be back pushing a sled on the push track within a year, that would just never have been in the equation," says British Bobsleigh performance director Gary Anderson. "I walked into hospital in Germany and the doctors told me that Serita wouldn't walk again. I don't think they realised just how determined she is. What she has done is amazing."

She had to be airlifted to Marburg University where the skills of a surgeon, who performed two highly-complex operations on her spine five days apart, spared her from a future spent in a wheelchair.

Subsequently Serita has been working with physiotherapists since the turn of the year and was only allowed to start working with weights in June.

"I don't want to be defined by this," she says. "I want my defining moment to be an achievement in sport. The accident has made me who I am now, but I want to get back in the bob as a driver. My aim is to work my way up to being the number one ranked driver in Britain. Hopefully that will lead to the Olympic team and, one day, an Olympic medal."


A former heptathlete, Serita will continue to split her time training at the universities of Bath and Loughborough and there is a possibility she could make a return to an ice-track in early next year which means the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi remains a target.

"It is still an aim, but I've got to work very hard and keep improving to be in for a shout for that," she says.

"I'm still going to try, but I'm not oblivious to the fact that I need to be realistic and probably my long-term aim is 2018.

"If a spot for Sochi comes for me, then I'll quite happily take it and work my behind off to get there. I'm determined. I want to be the best I can be. I want to get back in the bob and prove that, rather than breaking me, it can make me."

We are now approaching the plethora of annual sports awards, and one of them is the prestigious Laureus international event, which includes a Comeback of the Year category.

No doubt, Hatton and Flintoff will be duly nominated should they survive their forthcoming bouts intact.

But my vote is going to this extraordinary ice maiden because her fight really is what I call a comeback, as well as an uplifting example of courage and determination that ranks high even in this most remarkable of sporting years.

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 Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

Suddenly the 2018 World Cup bidding campaign seems a very long time ago.

At its conclusion in December 2010, relations between the world's oldest Football Association - whose candidate, England, was among the losers – and FIFA, world football's governing body, were at a low ebb.

Yet today finds Joseph Blatter, FIFA's long-serving President, dropping in on St George's Park, the FA's new national football centre at Burton on Trent in the English Midlands.

Well might the FIFA boss take an interest in the facility; after all, the organisation he heads is helping to pay for it.

FIFA's $500,000 (£315,000/€392,000) contribution, approved in March this year, is earmarked for the centre's medical hub.

I understand that the FA is hoping the facility will in time earn FIFA's imprimatur as a medical centre of excellence under the world governing body's F-Marc football for health initiative.

The FIFA payment is part of the so-called Goal football development programme that was launched by Blatter himself in 1999, a year or so after he became FIFA President.

In its 13 years of existence, Goal has channelled a total of $250 million (£157,000/€196,000) into development projects around the world.


Many countries have received multiple contributions: several – including Bahrain, Burma, Ivory Coast, North Korea, Tahiti and the Irish Republic – are onto their fifth Goal-assisted project; two – the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nicaragua – their sixth.

According to a list provided to me by FIFA, only 10 member associations – British Virgin Islands, Indonesia, Italy, Macao, Poland, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Scotland, Spain and the USA – have still to apply for a Goal project.

Yet this is the first time Goal funding has been allocated to the FA.

In this context, the decision to turn to FIFA for a contribution to St George's Park seems to me a further indication of a new atmosphere of détente between the FA and the world governing body.

FA chairman David Bernstein began his reign in belligerent mode, calling unsuccessfully in May 2011 for a delay in the election that saw Blatter installed for a fourth term as FIFA President.

Bernstein had urged FIFA's Congress to "allow time for an additional candidate or candidates to stand and compete in an open and fair election", arguing that only by doing so would the winner have "proper credibility over the next four years".


At this year's FIFA Congress in Budapest, however, the FA chairman's tone was very different.

"I was very impressed today," he told reporters.

"There is still much work to be done...but they have now seen the light."

In his statement in the FA's annual report, moreover, Bernstein emphasised that the FA had "worked hard to increase its representation at both FIFA and particularly UEFA [the European body]," adding: "We now have healthy levels of influence around both organisations."

Frankly, this has to be the right approach: no matter how badly one might feel reforms at FIFA are needed, the FA – like any other national body – has a much better chance of moulding the debate from within FIFA's decision-making structures than outside.

Some might argue, nonetheless, that using FIFA's money to help pay for the £80 million ($127 million/€100 million) Burton centre is a step too far.

The Goal programme, they might allege, is football's version of pork barrel politics.

Indeed, my colleague, Mihir Bose, once memorably described Goal as "the most deeply political project any sports body has ever undertaken".

I suppose there are two answers to that.

Number one: just suppose, for the sake of argument, that Goal has been a factor in Blatter's long reign, with recipients of funding feeling inclined to manifest their gratitude by supporting the man who implemented it at election-time.


Well, there aren't going to be any more election-times for the Swiss master-politician.

At 76 years of age, he truly is, I believe, serving his final term.

Secondly, with 199 member associations now having been awarded at least one Goal project, the programme has been taken up so widely that there seems little to be gained by the FA – which is still engaged in something of a balancing-act with its finances – passing up its chance to join in.

So, just under two years after the emotional finale of that extraordinary World Cup bid double-header in Zurich, the state of FIFA-FA relations is well on the way to being stood on its head.

Today's formalities in the Staffordshire countryside may put the seal on this new - and potentially significant - entente cordiale of football.

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 by clicking here.

John Apostal Lucas passed away without fanfare recently in Columbia, Missouri, and his death stills yet another of the few great voices of the Olympic family and the worldwide Olympic Movement that had lived to chronicle the stories and the individuals who were giants in the evolution of both the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

This gentle scholar attended every Olympics since 1960, and ran on the great stadium ovals in every Summer Games city through Athens in 2004 as part of his ritual, created over five decades of attending the Games, observing its comings and goings, and writing scores of books and papers about the history of the world's greatest sporting event.

John Lucas was 84 when he died, but he will be recalled as one of the foremost Olympic historians on the face of the earth, but his writings were not those of an academic, hidden away in some untidy, cramped office on the Penn State campus, where he taught Kinesiology.

Dr. Lucas lived as he wrote, as the track and field coach at Penn State from 1962-1968 and at Maryland from 1958-1962 as a track assistant.

He was a runner of some ability as a youth, finishing seventh in the 10,000 meters at the 1952 Olympic Trials, just shy of becoming an Olympian. He attended Boston University as an undergraduate student before earning his Master's Degree from Southern Cal, and later his Ph.D. from Penn State in 1970.

Though he taught kinesiology at Penn State for decades, it was the Olympic Games that he came to love and put his agile mind to in terms of the intrigue of the Modern Games, the giants who presided over the Games, and the athletes who struggled for their dreams and the podium.

I came to know him in the 1980s as a regular participant in the USOC's now extinct Olympic Academy, a gathering of scholars, youth and experts who would come together in the summers to study the quadrennial phenomenon, the Games, and the trends and movements of a sporting event that grew in dramatic proportion following the star-crossed 1984 Los Angeles Games, the boycotts and the explosion of corporate involvement, television and ultimately, the entrance of professional athletes into the Games.

He brought me to Penn State in the late 1990s to lecture to his beloved class, "History, Philosophy and Politics of the Modern Olympic Games," along with his colleague, Professor Elizabeth Hanley, one of the pillars of the foundation of the US Olympic Academy.


I spoke of the horrendous boycotts of 1980 and 1984 that almost killed the Games, and the damage it had inflicted on the athletes who would never again compete in the Games, thanks to the blunders of the Carter Administration.

But John Lucas, unlike over 500 American athletes, did indeed get to Moscow and those stained Games.

"Mr. Jimmy Carter," he told the class, "did not tell me that I could not go to Moscow. So, I went to Moscow, because Mr. Jimmy Carter could not stop me."

As I write today, I am staring at the last of scores of hand-written letters (typewriters and computers be damned) that he sent me, dated June 12, 2011, scribbled on yellow legal-sized, lined papers in his own, distinctive  fashion, exceeding the borders on the sides of each page, without indentation or breaks.

"Dear Mike, we are no longer young men," he penned. "There are good persons to take our place, but possibly not right away. My wife of 58 years, Joyce, passed away and so I am now living in Brookline, a comfortable retirement home. I want to go to London, but I'm not stubborn. I'll be over 85 when the Games in London begin."

"I think about the IOC, Pierre de Coubertin (founder of the Modern Games and the subject of a Lucas book), Avery Brundage, Juan Antonio Samaranch, Peter Ueberroth, et al, constantly."

Lucas included a note he received from IOC President Jacques Rogge some months before, extending his condolences on the loss of his wife and thanking him for his support and efforts on behalf of the Olympic Movement.

The envelope also contains a clipping alerting scholars and others to what was to be one of his final lectures, an April 6 session at the Paterno Library titled "Athens 1896 to London 2012, A Perspective on the Olympic Games".

It was to be one of over 500 such lectures delivered on three continents by Lucas, author of multiple books and essays.

"The Olympic Games of the future can become much better only if the IOC is made up of better men and women," he was inclined to tell me,"and if the National Olympic Committees have international and humane agendas that balance their admirable desire to send  honest athletes in search of gold, silver and bronze."


Juan Antonio Samaranch bestowed the title of "Official Olympic Lecturer" on Lucas in 1984, and we became accustomed to seeing him at the door of my office at the Games as they opened. He would be clad in shorts, what looked like a cargo vest, rumpled Penn State hat, and running shoes, ready for a day's work at any of a score of venues.

The good news - although you could easily have missed this - was on ticketing.

Whatever the shortcomings of the overall ticketing system, that £659 million figure raised from tickets for the London 2012 Organising Committee (LOCOG)'s operating budget was a colossal achievement, testifying to the warmth with which the British public embraced the Games – in spite of tough economic times – and auguring well for the country's ability to attract future international sports events.

To put it into some kind of context, it helps to convert it into what, these days, is the reference currency of the International Olympic Committee (IOC): the US dollar.

At the present exchange rate, it comes to more than $1 billion – $1.05 billion to be exact.

One of the London 2012 tickets that helped raise £659 million for LOCOG 

Nearly six months have passed since the 2012 SportAccord Convention in Québec City.

It was a notable gathering for the most senior figures in the Olympic Movement for many reasons; not least for the way that it shaped the bid race for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

For the majority of the week, we had all been waiting for the announcement of the shortlist of bidders for the 2020 Games and it terms of drama, it didn't disappoint.

At a press conference attended by the five bidders – Baku, Doha, Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo – the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Director for the Olympic Games Gilbert Felli and communications director Mark Adams took to the stage.

After pleasantries, it was left to Adams to reveal that just Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo had made the shortlist in an announcement that caused an audible gasp around the room.

Perhaps the elimination of Baku from the IOC Executive Board wasn't a major surprise given that their bid was not recommended by the nameless Working Group that conducted a report into all five bidders.

But the elimination of Doha appeared to carry more sinister undertones.

In the months leading up to Québec City, the Qatari capital had been given assurances by the IOC Executive Board that they would be able to bid for an October Games – outside the traditional July/August window – in order to avoid the searing summer temperatures in the country that can reach over 50 degrees.

But having opened the door, why had the IOC suddenly slammed it shut?

The answer was clear only in the small print of the Working Group report on the Applicant City.

Essentially, Doha's bid to host the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics was ended after television executives objected to the dates proposed.

They warned the IOC that if it was moved from its traditional July/August date to October as the Qatari capital planned then it would "become a weekend Olympics".

Perhaps we are already getting our answer.

Madrid and Spain are currently in one of the worst economic crisis in their history which is putting question marks over whether they can actually afford stage the Games.

Japan have just back into recession in a move that certainly doesn't help Tokyo's bid while the problem of a potential Turkish bid for Euro 2020 simply won't go away for Istanbul.

Let us not forget that this has all happened after Rome pulled out of the race for the 2020 Games earlier this year because of the major economic crisis in Italy.

So it is perhaps fair to say that for the IOC Executive Board to drop the one of the world's richest countries who has one of the world's fastest growing economies seems a little unfair.

In Qatar though, you would not know any different.

My last week in the futuristic capital city Doha has been spent largely at the stunning Aspire Dome, which could almost host the Olympics on its own such are the number of truly world class facilities it possesses.

From the beautiful, outdoor and indoor football pitches to the magnificent indoor athletics to the giant Khalfi Stadium, it is truly a sight to behold.

Standing in the middle of everything is The Torch Hotel, which is undoubtedly the finest establishment I have stayed in despite the fact that it took me hours to work out how to turn the lights off with the iPad that controls everything in the room.

The reason for my being in Qatar was the Aspire4Sport Conference and the wonderful October weather made the whole experience particularly nice.

There were numerous interesting sessions at the conference, but for me, none were as interesting as the session featuring the Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) general secretary Sheikh Saoud Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.

While on stage, I asked Sheikh Saoud whether Qatar would come back to bid for the Games in 2024 and beyond.

I assumed he would still be bitter about the 2020 elimination but he was quite the opposite.

"That question was one that was asked straight after we were disqualified from the 2020 race," he responded politely to me.

"But the Emir [the ruler of Qatar] made it clear that our objective is to stage the Games. So we will continue on that path and we will continue to bid. Every time we bid, we are listening and learning to see how we can make our bid stronger.

The expected grilling Lords Coe and Deighton underwent during this week's London 2012 debrief at the London Assembly turned out to be more like the kind of grilling my home cooker provides – that is, patchy.

To be sure, there was the opportunity for both these architects of what has been widely acknowledged as a monumentally successful enterprise to bask in a spot of retrospective glory.

But the heat was turned on them with some intensity by Assembly members when it came to the vexed topic of tickets – and the future of the Olympic Stadium.

When the noble Lords entered the lofty glass edifice of City Hall's main chamber – with the backdrop of the Tower of London behind them – they moved in unison. Perhaps they were remembering the words spoken by Russell Crowe's character to his fellow slaves in the film Gladiator as they waited together in the Colosseum: "Whatever comes out of these gates, we've got a better chance of survival if we work together."

Maximus and his friends faced armed soldiers borne on chariots with scythes attached to their wheels; Coe and Deighton faced Assembly members Andrew Boff, Stephen Knight, Nicky Gavron and, most menacingly, John Biggs.


Knight moved in smartly after Deighton – who at one point stopped rather testily to correct one questioner over his name, which is pronounced Die-ton rather than Day-ton – had defended the information provided to the Assembly on ticket sales, maintaining that it had been selective in order for members to be able to see "the wood for the trees".

Deighton added: "What we tried to do was give you information rather than a data dump," before offering Knight the option of coming back to the London 2012 office to see the database for himself if he wanted.

Knight acidly thanked the London 2012 chief executive for this offer; but it was clear that he didn't want.

At which point Boff stepped in with a headline phrase: "Data dump? Yes please," adding: "If you have got clever data guys, why don't you just sent the data rather than us coming to you?"

Boff took the two men to task over the 2,470 tickets that were unsold for athletics, and the 2,952 tickets unsold for basketball. Deighton responded that the first total related to seats close to the Olympic Flame, which might not be safe for spectators to sit in.


"So you allocated tickets to get burnt, or you just didn't sell them?" Boff asked. Rhetorically, one assumes.

The basketball figure was down to late calculations over restricted views in the arena. But Deighton, who was evincing signs of exasperation at this point, repeated the fact that the sell-out rate for tickets had been higher than 99 per cent, and that the discussion of these figures was not statistically meaningful.

Gavron took up the running, recalling how she and family members had managed to get tickets to a morning basketball session where the O2 Arena was "half empty". She added: "There were swathes of empty seats in very good positions. Why was that?"

At which point Lord Coe, metaphorically locking briefcases with the man next to him in an approximation of the linked shields with which Roman soldiers were schooled to defend themselves, stepped forward: "That's not how we would recognise that," he said. Which seemed a polite way of saying "Rubbish".

"All our statistics make very clear that these were full venues," Coe added. "We are confusing two issues here - tickets for sale, and seats made available for accredited individuals."

The harshest judgement on the ticketing process, however, came from Biggs, whose intensity and deliberation are faintly reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter.


"There was a perception that it was less than transparent, and that a lot of ordinary people - not wealthy people - wanted to get lower priced tickets, and that they didn't game the system effectively," Biggs said.

"That they lost out simply because they applied for what they wanted to go to and they didn't get the ticket, whereas someone down the road applied for 27 sessions and got a handful.

"The perception was that it was a sort of scatter-gun that won, or a deep pocket that won, and the promise to make tickets available for people of more modest means didn't really work."

Coe faced the question too of whether the Olympic Stadium would become a white elephant, given that debate continues over who will fund the changes necessary to make the conversion required while retaining the athletics track which Britain's Olympic bidders told the International Olympic Committee (IOC) would be a lasting legacy of the site.

"No," Coe replied. "On the contrary. I think the Mayor is quite right to take his time to get a convincing sustainable plan. It is much better to make the judgement for the long term.

"If you are saying to me 'Was I always going to defend the global promise made by me and the Mayor that there would be an Olympic legacy in this stadium', then, yep, I will always do what I said when I said I wanted to deliver that."

After an hour, Coe and Deighton's places were taken over by the Mayor of London and Dennis Hone, respectively chairman and chief executive of the London Legacy Development Corporation. And it soon became clear that Biggs, sitting at the extreme end of the horseshoe of members so that he was almost facing the hot seats sideways on, had only been warming up on the grilling front. His plat du jour was Boris Johnson.

After Johnson had run through a timetable of work on the Olympic Park and confirmed that the Olympic Stadium would re-open "in 2015, or 2016 at the latest", Biggs moved in.

"Do you have the money to turn the Olympic Stadium into a global Premiership facility?" he asked.

"What I can say is that the cost of doing a stadium up in the way that Londoners will expect is considerable," Johnson responded.

"It was not designed for football. The decision was taken a long time ago not to do it that way. There is a discussion going on about how to achieve that. I think it would probably be wrong right now to go into too much detail."


Biggs continued, without missing a beat: "I think we can take the answer then that what is proposed is currently unbudgeted and unfunded. Do you take it as a failure if the Olympic Stadium is not re-opening until after the Closing Ceremony of the Rio Olympics?"

"Um," ummed Boris. "I think, that, er, unlikely."

"But would it be a failure?"

"Um, I think it unlikely."

"But would it be a failure?"

"I think that the Park is going to be a great success, and, um, that Stadium is going to be an outstanding success, and as I said just now I think it unlikely that you will be able to snatch any failure or sign of, you know, gloom."

"I have no desire to snatch a failure," responded Biggs, with a grin that was truly chilling. "I want a resounding success. But it does require decision-makers to be clear about whether they have the resources to do the job and if not to define a job that can be done on a realistic timescale."

As discussion moved on, Johnson became restive. And the source of his restiveness was Biggs, who, it seemed, was offering the Mayor some quiet advice.

"I am getting barracked," Johnson said to the chair of the meeting. "Are you dealing with him?"

The burly figure of deputy chair Darren Johnson removed himself from his seat at the centre of the horseshoe and made his way slowly to the Labour member for City and East London, leaning down to speak into his ear. Biggs nodded. It was like watching Roy Keane with his blood up waiting until the referee's lecture was over. Here is a contest – not sporting, but with sport as its context – which will continue to prove a compelling spectacle at least until the London Olympic Stadium opens its doors once again to...whomever.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the past five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames.

What's a hungry rat got to do with delivering the communications services for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games?

Well it was one of the last things I was thinking about when BT was appointed official communications services partner of London 2012 – but one thing I learnt very quickly on was to always expect the unexpected.

When we were appointed, Sebastian Coe, London 2012 chair, said: "It's inconceivable that we could deliver the 2012 Games without BT on board. We need someone we can trust who could provide the technical know-how and the creative solutions to ensure our London 2012 Games are the very best they can be. BT gives us this."

So we decided not only to meet these expectations but exceed them. An exciting but daunting four and a half year task lay ahead.

At the start of our journey we set ourselves some core risk management principles and posted logical milestones along the route leading to London 2012. Among these was the decision to use only tried-and-tested technology; while the milestones included a freeze to any design changes well before the Games opened. And, as you'd expect, we built in some extremely rigid and exhaustive testing schedules and events – these principles served us well.


London 2012 was previewed as the most connected Games ever, a prediction that proved more than true. As with the Rio 2016 debrief this week, it's normal for succeeding Games teams to learn from their predecessors. We certainly did that by sending our moles to both Vancouver and Beijing, but with technology evolving at such a rapid pace, we were well aware that things had moved on.

At Beijing 2008, for instance, a private network was provided for photographers' images to be copied back to the main press centre (MPC) for editing and transmission. At London 2012 we would send them across the BT infrastructure wirelessly, enabling real-time uploads – direct from cameras. This meant, images from the Games could be published on internet sites within seconds – rather than minutes or hours.

Among others, staff at several major global broadcasters remarked that London 2012 was easily the best Olympic Games service they'd experienced.

The maximum measured throughput on the network we designed for the Games was nearly 7Gbps, of which a quarter was internet traffic. The media placed the greatest demands upon the infrastructure, while public and London 2012 traffic was a comparatively small proportion.

So, what about network performance I hear you ask? Well core network availability during Game-time was 100 per cent: in terms of Severity Level 1 faults – these are categorised as affecting an entire venue or a major facility such as the IPC – there were precisely zero. In fact, across all 94 venues only a handful of minor service-affecting incidents were reported over the 19 days of the Olympic Games and 12 days of the Paralympic Games.


BT's London 2012 Delivery Programme team of 1,000 people clocked up one million hours delivering the communications infrastructure, along the way installing more than 5,500 kilometres of optical fibre in the 94 competition and non-competition venues. There were 11,500 fixed telephones originating and answering 500,000 calls between them.

Not many press releases make me cheer.

But last week's announcement that Hanoi is to host the 2019 Asian Games had exactly that effect.

No, I didn't have a bet on; and I have nothing against Surabaya, the Indonesian city Hanoi beat in the vote at the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA)'s general assembly in Macau.

My excitement had more to do, first, with what the Vietnamese capital represents for many of us who came of age in Europe in the 1960s and 1970s and, second, with what I found in the country, particularly the grey, damp, chilly north, when I spent a couple of weeks there in 1996.

The OCA vote was on November 8.

Forty-five years earlier – to the day – Hanoi's battered residents, awoke to find the faces of 15 captured United States airmen staring out from the morning newspaper to mark what, according to The Times, was "claimed to be the 2,500th shooting down of a United States aircraft over North Vietnam".

Another short Times article from Saigon cites American sources as stating that the total of American aircraft shot down over North Vietnam had risen to 730 "after the loss of three more bombers in the past 24 hours".


Regardless of whose statistics you believe, the northern half of this elongated, cobra-shaped country took a fearful pounding during that cruel, misguided war.

It seems to me a matter for the most heart-felt celebration that the theatre of these hostilities should be judged ready, half a century later, to provide the playground for one of the planet's foremost pageants of peaceful competition.

What is more, Nha Trang, once home to a well-known air base, is set to host the 2016 Asian Beach Games.

Given that 16 years have slipped by – somehow – since I visited Hanoi, it is pointless me attempting to pontificate on sports facilities, or the state of transport and tourist infrastructure; too much will have changed.

However, I am confident that one priceless asset will not have changed since our plane departed Ho Chi Minh City's airport: the spirit of the people.


I know this sounds corny, but wherever we went down to about Hoi An, we kept noticing the same character trait in those we encountered.

I would describe it as an undemonstrative, but unshakeable, sense of self-belief.

The language barrier was a daunting one, but it seemed to say, "We stood up to a superpower and – do you know what? – we got our way".

Those with direct experience of the war would no doubt rather they had not had to endure what they went through to acquire this mindset.

But now that it has been acquired, it strikes me as a pretty formidable national, or semi-national, quality.

Their experience seemed also to have left the Vietnamese with a resourcefulness which meant that, though nominally ruled by Communists, this was one of the most business-minded societies you could experience.


Personal computers, then few and far between in the north, appeared to be in use 24/7, by friends and neighbours when not their actual owner; minibus drivers, who provided the most efficient long-distance transport service for backpackers, routinely struck deals with hoteliers in destination-cities for depositing foreigners (ie custom) at their particular hotel.

Especially in the north, and in spite of that language barrier, we found evidence too of a quirky sense of humour many Europeans would empathise with.

Soldiers at the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, for example, no doubt under orders to remain stony-faced, were clearly trying to make each other laugh as they escorted gawping tourists during their visit.

Unexpected incidents like that helped to build a picture of a nation capable of getting through most things with dignity and a smile.

Laying on the 18th Asian Games ought to be well within its capabilities.

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.

When Lord Coe was duly anointed as the new chair of the British Olympic Association (BOA) last week, did we hear the trumpeting of a white elephant in the room?

Just a few hours before it had been revealed that the £486 million ($772 million/€608 million) Olympic Stadium will be mothballed at least until 2015 – and possibly later.

So, it will lay dormant for another three or four years while £200 million ($318 million/€250 million) – double the original estimate – is spent on converting it into a multisport venue with retractable seating over the immoveable running track, a feature now recognised as essential for a football tenant – most probably West Ham United.

There is even the possibility that, if the refurbishment is not completed on schedule the Stadium, reduced to 60,000 capacity, would not be ready to host the IAAF World Athletics Championships in 2017, or any other athletics event.

No wonder Coe said tersely: "As a vice-president of the IAAF I will be watching the situation closely."


There is no doubt that this is a serious blow to Coe's promised legacy of 2012, the glorious drama of the iconic Olympics and Paralympics now threatening a farcical postscript.

Moreover, the question of who will pay for the upgrade remains unresolved, with West Ham, some £80 million ($127 million/€100 million) in debt, saying they would contribute only £10 million ($16 million/€13 million) on the premise that the landlord should provide facilities.

The present hiatus underlines the own goal scored seven years ago, when, despite knowing the Stadium's only viable future was with a national sport like football, the successful Games bid team rejected the idea of installing Stade de France-style retractable seating, which in that more clement economic climate could have been included for little more than the cost of West Ham's striker from Mali.

Was this because the bid team did not wish to imitate anything their French rivals had done? If so it was, as they say, l'incroyable faux pas.

The possibility of the taxpayer having to subsidise a Premier League club is causing some angst at Westminster where the Shadow Sports Minister Clive Efford told the insidethegames: "These delays can only mean more public money is spent on maintaining the Stadium. I would rather see this money go to community sport."


If the opposition sports spokesman is a little coy of saying more it is surely understandable. For Labour were in Government when the original decision was made on the shape and size of the stadium.

Those influencing that decision included not only Tory peer Lord Coe but Labour Secretary of State Tessa Jowell and leftie former London Mayor Ken Livingstone.

The Games bid team clearly was anxious not to make the cost of the stadium seem exorbitant knowing that that the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, was sceptical about the whole project. Indeed, I am reliably informed that when then bid was won he held his head in his hands and groaned:"Oh my God, what have we let ourselves in for?"

Knowing that football and athletics are such uncomfortable bedfellows when a track surrounds the pitch, incorporating a roll-over seating plan from the start would now be seen as sensibly cost-effective in the light of the uncertainties enveloping the Stadium today.

A deal with a London football club would have been a no brainer in that situation.

The fact that the Stadium will be redundant for so long has disquieting echoes of the fate of several at previous Olympics, not least Beijing 2008 where they are building a shopping mall and hotel to attract major events that have been few and far between, with no sign of permanent usage by anyone.


With all this rumbling on London's Olympic Park is already beginning to resemble something of a shell of its former glory, with the spectre of a doubtful future for the Olympic Stadium looming large as the centrepiece.

But in the manner of the late Clive Dunn (Cpl Jones in Dad's Army) Coe assures us: "Don't panic!"

He dismisses the prospect of white elephants and insists this is simply a period of transformation. "It will be a thriving park. It is important to make the right decisions and not force ourselves into time frame where those decisions don't become sustainable."

Coe's lap of honour following the conclusion of the Games is expected to conclude with him being named "Man of the Year". His appointment "by acclamation" to the BOA role surely will cement his ambition to become President of the IAAF in 2015 and ultimately even, the IOC.

The sporting world is his oyster. I have even heard it rumoured that he might succeed Sepp Blatter at FIFA.

But these have been an oddly disconcerting few days for the good lord.

Apart from the Stadium controversy his new book has been strangely, and unfairly, savaged by a prissy Guardian interviewer who declared she found him "a crashing bore".

Now I have known Coe for 40 years. He may be many things but boring?

Never. How could he possibly be with the sort of life he has led?

Perhaps she didn't ask him the right questions.


Actually, his biography "Running My Life" published by Hodder & Stoughton, is a rather good read, if a bit pricey at £25 ($40/€31).

Now he faces a grilling at the London Assembly alongside his trusty right hand man at London 2012, Paul (now Lord) Deighton, Mayor Boris Johnson and Denis Hone, chief executive of the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC).

It seems odd to have a post-mortem on a Games that was far from a fatality but the London Assembly inquisitors will do their utmost to find fault, of that we can be certain. We can we equally sure that Coe will handle them will his usual aplomb.

Much of it will be nit picking over tickets and security but I suspect the nitty-gritty will surround the Stadium and in particular how much it will cost in maintenance while it lays idle.

In a similar situation the taxpayer had to fork out £1 million ($1.6 million/€1.3 million) a month before the Millennium Dome was rescued by AEG, the American entertainment corporation to become the now hugely prospering O2.

Technically, Coe is not responsible now for what happens to the Stadium, it is in the hands of the Mayor and the Legacy bods.

But as the Government's advisor on the L-word, he must have a say in the matter.


The futures of the Aquatics Centre and Velodrome are certainly secure and doubtless a suitable anchor tenant eventually will be found for the stadium.

But one wonders whether a trick is being missed here - just as it was by Coe and co seven years ago.

When the refurbishments to the permanent sports facilities are completed, could there be sufficient room in the rest of the Olympic Park to create a theme park – a London Disneyland maybe?

OK, so there was nothing Mickey Mouse about London 2012 but what an opportunity to demonstrate, as the O2 has done, that sport and the entertainment business can be a winning team.

Better that than an Olympic circus ring, complete with white elephant.

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 Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

It was of course the US Presidential election.

The world watched as incumbent Barack Obama saw off challenger Mitt Romney for the most powerful role on the planet.

In the Olympic world, the result is undoubtedly positive for America.

Obama, and First lady Michelle, are close friends of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and the result this week means that there are likely to be two powerful supports when America bid for either the 2024 Summer Games or 2026 Winter Games – most likely the former.

But anyway, that is another story.

There was in fact, another election this week that wasn't nearly as competitive as Obama versus Romney.

It was the election that saw Sebastian Coe stroll into the position of British Olympic Association (BOA) chairman unopposed.

Originally he faced competition from Richard Leman, the President of GB Hockey.

But Leman wisely decided that to take on the London 2012 chairman following arguably the best Olympics and Paralympic ever was not a brilliant idea as he decided to stand aside and let Coe take over by acclimation.

Vacating the BOA hot seat was Colin Moynihan, who decided to step down after seven years in the role.

In those seven years, Moynihan has not exactly been shy and retiring.

His public attacks have ranged from blows on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in his laudable campaign for life-time bans for drug cheats to Coe's London 2012 Organising Committee.

His row with London 2012 revolved around the Joint Marketing Agreement for the Games and the funding of the Paralympics. Moynihan had called for more money earmarked for the Paralympics to be given to the BOA before the dispute was eventually resolved in April last year.

During the height of the row, an irate Coe was heavily questioned by the media about his feelings for Moynihan.

It is perhaps the only press conference of Coe's I have attended where he has genially lost his cool and he simply couldn't fail to hide the fact that he no longer considered Moynihan a friend.

Since that dispute in 2011, Coe and Moynihan have not been seen together publically.

It was something that was on my mind when I spoke to Moynihan at the BOA headquarters on what was his last full day as chairman.

Greeting me with a warm smile, he answered all of my questions with the relaxed nature of a man who was stepping down from a challenging position.

But when my question came on his friendship with Coe, I felt very much like I was getting a politician's answer – which was hardly surprising given that I was speaking to a Conservative Peer who was formerly the Sports Minister.

"That particular issue didn't affect our personal relationship at all," he told me.

"I have known Seb since before we went to the [Moscow] Games in 1980 together and he has been a good friend and colleague over the last 30 plus years.

"That has always been the case. Hosting a home Games was always going to lead to some differences of interpretation but nothing that impacted on our personal relationship in anyway."

I wonder if Coe sees it the same, or perhaps, when not speaking to the media, Moynihan does either.

The acid test came the next day.

Coe was elected and he and Moynihan sat together for a press conference.

To my recollection, it was the first press conference in which two had sat directly next to each other since one they staged in Singapore at the 2010 Youth Olympic Games.

There was no clear animosity between two, who after all are two of Britain's most influential sporting administrators of the last two decades.

Without looking like brothers in arms, or even making any slight attempt to, Moynihan wished Coe "the best of luck" and Coe thanked Moynihan.

Noticeably, Coe did not wax lyrical about his predecessor. He said that he admired the fact that Moynihan had always put athletes at the heart of BOA operations and his strong stance to drug cheats but that was all. There was unsurprisingly no glowing character reference.

With that, it was all over.

Moynihan left quietly, and almost rather anti-climatically for somebody who has dominated the sports pages with his outspoken views for the last few years.

Coe took over as BOA chairman with little fuss.

What is means for the BOA in the coming years is intriguing.

With the BOA in financial trouble, Coe is likely to cut staff to reduce costs. The wheels are already in motion in that respect, with Sir Clive Woodward's departure being the notable one. What will happen to BOA chief executive Andy Hunt, Moynihan's key appointment, will be interesting.

The BOA's marketing value is also likely to soar. With the Olympic Rings, they will be tracked by many high profile sponsors and having Coe, the symbol of London 2012, at the helm will only increase that value.

As for Coe himself, things are equally fascinating.

Right now, his stock could not be higher and the double 1500 metre Olympic champion is one of Britain's few sporting administrators who is loved internationally by all.

On my trip to Sochi last week, I ran into several International Olympic Committee (IOC) members licking their lips at the prospect of getting Coe a ticket into their exclusive club now that he is a National Olympic Committee (NOC) chairman.

One even told me that he thinks Coe could be the IOC President in eight years' time.

His more obvious route into the IOC is becoming International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) President with incumbent Lamine Diack likely to step down in around three years' time.

But with Coe, don't be surprised if the IOC finds a loophole to get him there sooner.

Not long ago, Britain's IOC vice-president Sir Craig Reedie - one of Britain's four current IOC members - told me he would be "very comfortable having Seb as a member" while another IOC member, Switzerland's Denis Oswald, told me he would be "very happy if he could join us [in the IOC] soon."

It is clear with that with Seb as the new face of the BOA, Olympic sport in Britain is in a good place.

But I shall leave the final word to Prime Minister David Cameron.

It is rare that the Prime Minister would comment on an individual being elected as an NOC chairman.

But Coe is no ordinary chairman, and Cameron was happy to applaud the man he appointed as his Olympic legacy ambassador in the press release the BOA sent out this week.

"Seb Coe demonstrated inspirational leadership in delivering the best ever Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer and as a double Olympic gold medallist himself there can be no better choice for BOA chairman," Cameron said.

"He fully understands the support that athletes and sports governing bodies need in this country.

"Combined with his role as the Government's legacy ambassador Seb will play a crucial part in maximising the benefits from London 2012, helping our athletes achieve gold in Rio and British businesses win new trade and investment deals."

Tom Degun is a reporter for insidethegames

The coastal cluster, followed by the mountain cluster. It sounds like a mouth-watering new range of chocolate confectionery, but is, of course, the twin siting of what will be the most compact Winter Olympics and Paralympics ever – the 2014 Sochi Games.

This week's World Press Briefing, based in a gated village of a hotel sumptuously located within a steep-sided, fir and birch-lined valley deep in the Krasnaya Polyana mountains – and not far from a much larger gated enclave belonging to the Russian President Vladimir Putin – offered assembled media a whistle-stop tour of the venues which are being built from scratch both on the coast and inland.

The weather varied over the two days of sightseeing. The enterprise never wavered. It is relentless. It is daunting. But most of all, it is ongoing.

As our bus traversed the 48 kilometres route to the coastal city of Sochi – as far south as Nice, and traditionally Russia's most popular summer resort – we travelled in bright sunshine past solid lines of lorries, diggers, cement mixers and mini-buses full of construction workers heading up towards the mountain ranges behind us, their wheels throwing up dust into mountain air that has been pristine for countless years. 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 activity.

On day two, as we made the shorter journey up to the Alpine venues, clouds had covered the mountaintops, drifting down almost to ground level at our hotel, and the rain sheeted down. And the building operation continued in the mountains without a beat with workers, clad in yellow waterproofs, proceeding in the downpour.


In his opening address to the briefing, the Mayor of Sochi, Anatoly Pakhomov, had spoken proudly of how Sochi could count on 300 sunny days a year. Sochi yes – but Krasnaya Polyana no. "The local guys say it will probably be like this until the snow comes," said our guide, Olga. So that's winter sorted for 20,000- or-so workers – pioneering in the rain, with rest breaks. They will certainly be earning their roubles.

Olga's introductory remark as we stood outside what will be the Main Press Centre – the first of our venues to be visited on the coastal site – was unfortunately timed. "As you can see, it is very nice," she said, as a sudden gust of warm wind turned the air into a dustbowl, which sent the assembled media reeling backwards with screwed-up faces. Upon reflection, it did look pretty nice – with an interesting, wavy roof. Once the media have come and gone, the whole place will become what we were reliably informed would be the biggest shopping mall and entertainment centre in the region.

The Iceberg Skating Palace, which will host figure skating and short track speed skating, is not far from completion, and will have its test event next month when the International Skating Union (ISU) stage a World Cup event there. It is an imaginative design, all icy blues and white, lines flowing like water.


The interior is still pretty basic, however, and as we trudged in for the statutory views of the empty room which will become the mixed zone, and the empty room which will become the media working room, and the empty room...you get the picture...we encountered a gloriously jolly figure standing like a proud daughter of the Revolution with a long-handled painting roller set temporarily at her side. The task of turning the corridors white was halted as our international cohort passed through. Irina smiled on radiantly, then shook her head with a mixture of pleasure and disbelief as she became the focus of numerous camera phones.

Other subjects chosen were less positive. One visitor knelt carefully on the floor to get a close-up view of a small pile of dusty rubble in a corridor. Horror. Will the Games be ready on Time?

The answer is yes, because behind all this is the power, money and steely support of the President who holidays in the region and who is set on ensuring that Sochi becomes a means of demonstrating all that the new modern Russia wants to show of itself to the wider world.

Inside the Adler Arena, where the speed skating will be held, preparations were underway to lay down the first layer of ice on which the Russian Championships will take place next month, followed in March by an ISU World Cup event that is expected to draw all the main Olympic contenders.

Facilities for the ice hockey are – like every other venue at the Sochi 2014 Games – purpose-built, and expansive. The biggest games will be played in the Bolshoy Dome, whose vast white roof was populated on our visit by the tiny figures of workers resembling roped mountaineers edging up an ice sheet.


Inside, the vast, dense cube created by Panasonic, across which images and information will stream, awaited its hoisting high over a surface that awaited its icy coating.

Inside the neighbouring Shayba Arena there was also concrete where ice will be, but both goals were in situ and blue seating was completed all around the rink. The second-string ice hockey arena is no less imposing than the Bolshoy. And there are two additional rinks built separately for training and warm-up.

The main Olympic stadium – named the Fisht Stadium after Mount Fisht, which rises to 9,409 feet further along the Caucasus range – is still a way from completion, but is already taking shape as the centrepiece that will stage the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

As we set off on our return journey into the mountains, another solid line of lorries carrying sand and hard core waited impatiently for us to move out of the way.

Up in the mountains on our second day trip, the coach made its way through the driving rain along a narrow, winding road with steep falls alongside. "Our driver will be very careful, so don't worry," said Olga. At which point everyone began to worry just a little.

First stop was the RusSki Gorki Jumping Centre, where, for the first time at a Winter Games, the ski jump and Nordic combined events will finish in the same place. (Although not, one trusts, at the same time.)


Sochi 2014 will feature 12 new Olympic disciplines, 11 of which will be Alpine events, and one of which will be the women's ski jump. They will take off from the smaller of the two jumps, the K95, which runs parallel to the K125 jump the men will slide down.

Both runs were discernible in the gloom and rain as we entered the venue building for our briefing. Quarter of an hour later they were invisible under cloud.

The Sanki Sliding Centre, where the luge, bobsleigh and skeleton events will take place, felt most like a Winter Games venue as it was fully active with luge sliders taking part in an international training week. The track, which has the unique safety feature of three upward stretches, has been gaining good reports from those who have had the chance of testing it this week.

One of the areas of most intensive excitement at any Winter Games is the finish area of the Alpine downhill and slalom skiing. As each competitor hurtles and bumps down the final vertiginous white wall and then curves to a snow-ploughing halt in front of the packed crowd, everyone has half an eye on the clock, and then the scoreboard, to discover the exact value of the latest sally down the slopes.


It was odd indeed, after we had moved on to the Rosa Khutor Alpine Centre, to be standing at the confluence of the men's and women's downhill runs, and also of the slalom course – these will be the first Winter Games where all finish in the same spot – and to consider the frenzy which, in 15 months' time, will inhabit what is now a nondescript stretch of mud and building materials.

Sochi 2014 has operated, in epic fashion, on the notion of "if we build it, they will come" (and yes, I do know that wasn't the exact line used in the film Field of Dreams, from which the saying stems.) There is similar certainty about the arrival of the one element without which any Winter Games, no matter how hi-tech, cannot take place – snow.

While some of the highest peaks in the Krasnaya Polyana range are dusted with snow now above the dense tree lines, the snow will arrive in earnest, locals insist, by February, the time of the Games. Which is good to know.

By then, Irina's corridors will be a thing of beauty. And no doubt the small pile of rubble will have been cleared away.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the past five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames.