Come out fighting has been given a whole new interpretation after the admission by the world-ranked Puerto Rican featherweight boxer Orlando Cruz, who competed at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, that he is gay.

When Welsh rugby hero Gareth Thomas, a former Lions captain, "came out" in 2010 many could not believe this was happening in a world as macho as rugby.

Yet if there is one sport even more macho it is boxing, surely the last place you would expect to attract gay men other than as spectators. However, 31-year-old Cruz is by no means the first gay boxer, although calling them such has, in one instance, had tragic consequences.

Emile Griffith, born in the United States Virgin Islands, was a six-times world champion at welterweight and middleweight in the sixties, now installed in boxing's Hall of Fame.

There was always speculation about his sexuality – he talked with a lisp, had an effeminate gait and had worked as a milliner designing women's hats. We certainly raised our eyebrows when Griffith was fought at Wembley against Britain's Brian Curvis.

When we went to his dressing room afterwards he was passionately kissing one of his cornerman. But those were the days when no-one asked questions (as it was despite all the then speculation about the late Jimmy Savile's now known sexual aberrations with young girls) and to admit to being gay, especially in an environment like boxing, would have been professional suicide.

Emile Griffith was the first fighter from the US Virgin Islands ever to become a world champion but he is perhaps best known for his controversial third fight with Benny Paret in 1962 for the welterweight world championship

Griffith, now 71, has finally declared the homosexuality that was always an unspoken backdrop to his career. Unspoken, that is, except, tragically, for the man from who he first won the welterweight crown, the Cuban Benny "the Kid" Paret. They fought three times and on the third occasion, at Madison Square Garden, Paret taunted him with the word "maricón" – Spanish slang for faggot.

An outraged Griffith had to be restrained at the weigh-in and in the 12th round he battered Paret unconscious and while the Cuban was propped up against the ropes angrily struck him repeatedly for several seconds before referee Ruby Goldstein belatedly hauled him off. Paret never regained consciousness, and died ten days later.

In his biography, Griffith says: "I keep thinking how strange it is...I kill a man and most people forgive me. However, I love a man and many say this is unforgivable and this makes me an evil person. So, even though I never went to jail, I have been in prison most of my life."

"Maricón" was also used by another boxer, Argentine heavyweight Oscar Bonavena – against none other than Muhammad Ali. It transpired that Ali had put him up to it to boost ticket sales.

Yet early in Ali's career (as indeed in Mike Tyson's) there was speculation that he too was gay because he was rarely seen with women. This notion he later scuppered rather emphatically with his philandering – as did the lisping Iron Mike.

Google "gay boxers" and you will find quite a number of American club fighters who claim to be gay – and here in Britain one who went public was the White Collar boxer Charles Jones. Forget The Dark Destroyer, The Real Deal, The Hitman, The Hayemaker. He was the Pink Pounder. "I'm not a gay man who happens to box," said the then 43-year-old London architect whose bout with Igor the Pianist at London's Real Fight Club was the subject of a 2003 ITV documentary. "I'm a boxer who happens to be gay and doesn't give a toss who knows it."

Ronnie Kray (L) killed gangster George Cornell after he called him "a fat poof"

One gay boxer who did give a toss was Ronnie Kray, one of the notorious twins who terrorised London's East End in the sixties. He had six pro bouts at lightweight in 1961, winning four. Brother Reggie won all six of his before they retired to employ their violent ways in more frightening directions.

Most of East London knew that Ronnie was "queer" but only one man said it to his face. Gangster George Cornell called him "a fat poof" before Ronnie shot dead the Blind Beggar in London's Whitechapel.

When Mickey Duff, their erstwhile promoter, banned them from his shows, his wife received a present from the twins – two dead rats in a box.

Innuendo has enshrouded a number of other British fighters, most famously Lennox Lewis. Following gossip that he was having an "affair" with an England footballer, Colin Hart, of The Sun, bravely asked Lewis before his fight with Evander Holyfield whether he had heard what was being whispered.

"You mean the one about me being gay?" responded Lewis, thankfully with a laugh. "Let's put this silly rumour to death once and for all. I'm certainly not gay. I love and adore women. I date girls, not boys." The Miami-based former world heavyweight champion is now a happily married father of three.

By its very nature, boxing attracts more than its share of gay followers, many from show business. I still dine out on the tale of an encounter during the weigh-in-before the first Ali-Frazier fight in New York in 1971. John Condon, the wonderfully laconic PR for Madison Square Garden, asked some of us whether we would like to meet Burt Lancaster, who was intently watching the fighters strip for the weigh-in. Burt Lancaster? Macho star of Trapeze, the man who snogged Deborah Kerr on the beach in From Here to Eternity. You bet!

It would seem that even Burt Lancaster enjoyed watching boxers strip for the weigh-in

With Hart and the late Reg Gutteridge, the Cockney commentator then with the London Evening News, we walked across with Condon. "Hey Burt," he called. "I want you to meet some Limey friends." Lancaster turned, his lips red with lipstick, cheeks rouged and eyelashes mascara-ed. "Hi fellas," he simpered. "Don't you just love their muscles?"

"F... me!" exclaimed Gutteridge. "He's a bleedin' iron."

Lancaster, father of five, was later to be arrested in Hollywood dressed as a woman.

Funny old game, fighting. Women's boxing star Christy Martin announced she was gay just as her legendary career was ending.

Boxing may be the oddest sport to have gay participants but there have been – and still are – many lesbian and gay athletes in professional sports, from golf to gymnastics.

American tennis players Bill Tilden, Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King, Olympic diving champions American Greg Louganis and Australia's Matthew Mitcham,  British Paralympian Lee Pearson and England Test cricketer Steven Davies were quick to declare their sexual orientation, as was British basketball star John Amaechi, the first NBA professional ever to do so

Donal Óg Cusack, the Cork All Star hurling goalkeeper, came out in 2009 when his autobiography Come What May was serialised in an Irish newspaper. He wrote: "This is who I am. Whatever you feel about me or who I am, I've always been at peace with it."

American diver Louganis is this week attending the first South Asian Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Inter-sex (LGBTI) Sports Festival, in Kathmandu.

Featuring athletics, football, volleyball, karate, kabaddi and basketball, around 570 athletes are expected to take part in this event, which includes a beauty contest for transgender women.

Louganis, 52, won gold medals at the Los Angeles 1984 and Seoul 1988 Olympic Games on both the springboard and platform. He is the only male and the second diver in Olympic history to sweep the diving events in consecutive Olympic Games.

Opening gay Olympic diving champion Greg Louganis mentored the US diving team at London 2012

In 1984, Louganis received the James E Sullivan Award from the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) as the most outstanding amateur athlete in the United States. Since 2010, Louganis – diagnosed as HIV positive – has been coaching divers of a wide range of ages and abilities in the SoCal Divers Club in California. He was also the mentor to the US diving team at the London 2012 Olympics.

In Britain, there are at least three contemporary Olympic stars, all household names and one a gold medallist, who are widely known to be gay, although they have not come out.

Just about every Olympic sport has acknowledged or accepted gay competitors but, so far, Justin Fashanu is the only British professional footballer to have been open about his sexuality, suffering years of abuse and eventually taking his own life in 1998.

Unquestionably, there are gay footballers but they daren't come out because of the stick they would take in the dressing room, on the field and from those Neanderthal elements among the fans.

It is a situation of which, among many other things, our national sport cannot be proud.

Despite the efforts of Luis Suárez and John Terry, it is doing its best to kick out racism.

Now is the time to rid itself of its inherent homophobia, as most other sports commendably have in a year, which has been such a magnificent watershed for equality and diversity.

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.

I stumbled upon an old leading article from The Times the other day.

It was published exactly 100 years ago and bemoaned Team GB's performance at the Olympic Games.

"It is not that we are a decadent people – we are nothing of the kind – but that we do our best to appear so in the eyes of the world," thundered one extract.

"We have every reason to be ashamed of the way in which, having such excellent material, we muddled our chances away," asserted another.

This after a Games in which Britain finished third in the medals table.

I bring this up not to draw an exact parallel with London 2012 – too much has changed in the intervening century for that to make much sense – but to make the point that our judgment of what constitutes success and failure depends entirely on context.

Yes, there was a time when accumulating the third most impressive Olympic medals haul was not seen automatically in the UK as an unmitigated triumph and a cause for national rejoicing.

This makes me feel better that the departure of a man whose tenure at the British Olympic Association (BOA) has coincided with the most impressive British Summer Games performances of recent times has left me, more than anything, wondering what might have been.

Sir Clive Woodward on Thursday (October 4) announced his departure as director of sport for Team GB, saying: "Post London 2012 is the right time for me to leave the BOA".

Sir Clive Woodward talks at a media conference held at the London 2012 Olympic Park during this summer's Games

His statement confirmed an exclusive news story published by insidethegames a few hours earlier.

Sir Clive said he would now concentrate on his "coaching, corporate speaking, media and other business interests" and congratulated "everyone concerned on the best Olympic performance of a host nation in the modern Games era".

In spite of this, I am still left with the feeling that British Olympic sport did not get as much out of the six years that England's rugby World Cup-winning coach spent in its midst as it could have.

Looking on from outside, it seemed as if sports politics, along with the understandable reticence of some of those steeped in particular sports, kept getting in the way.

Once the system masterminded at UK Sport by Peter Keen had delivered such spectacular results at Beijing in 2008, one always suspected there would be limited scope for others to bring radically new ideas to the table.

I have little doubt that Woodward could have distilled the theories first deployed in the cause of English rugby into a set of principles applicable to most sports in just the way Keen managed to so brilliantly from his original base in cycling.

Indeed, I would be amazed if he had not already done so.

Sir Clive Woodward (front, left) at Loughborough University with the Olympic Flame prior to the London 2012 Olympic Games

I would just have liked to have seen more evidence of the two men working properly side by side.

The logical approach, it always appeared to me, would have been to use Woodward as a sort of Peter Keen of Olympic – and Paralympic – team sports, including team events in sports we usually conceive of as individual, such as athletics and swimming.

Backed up by the financial levers of penalty and reward wielded so adroitly by Keen and UK Sport this might have made the success story that has been Team GB in the first dozen years of the 21st century yet more spectacular.

After all, our Olympic team sports – for which, of course, far fewer Olympic medals are at stake – have yet to attain the heights of the likes of cycling, sailing and rowing.

(It could be argued that sailing and rowing are team sports in the sense that most events are for more than one athlete per boat; but there is a difference between these and team-only Olympic ball sports such as volleyball and basketball.)

So it is with a sense of undimmed admiration, combined with a certain frustration, that I watch Woodward depart from the BOA (although he has accepted a role as a Team GB ambassador and will continue to chair the British judo review panel).

Matching that 65-medal home Games haul in Rio is already looking tougher and tougher.

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 at here.

Saturday, 06 October 2012

Chris Turner, who works in the Communications Department of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), is not what you would describe as a flapper. His genial and very British presence has calmly and efficiently organised countless press events down the years.

Like a good footballer, Turner always appears to have time to spare. But right now even he is feeling just a little pressed. Understandably so, given that he is curating the largest exhibition of athletics memorabilia ever to be gathered together as part of the IAAF's Centenary Celebrations.

When the doors open at Barcelona's Museu Olimpic i de l'Esport Joan Antoni Samaranch – next to the 1992 Olympic stadium – on Saturday next (October 13) Turner could be forgiven for exhaling a large sigh of relief and ingesting an even larger gin-and-tonic.

"It's a great honour to be in this position," he told me. "But it is also a huge responsibility which weighs down heavily on your shoulders. I have had sleepless nights worrying about it. I do have the occasional panic attack.

"The other night I woke up thinking about the bibs Michael Johnson had given us from the 1996 Atlanta Games. I was thinking, what have I done with them? But of course they were actually locked up in a safe. Everything has been itemised and insured, but at times you realise the enormity of what you are dealing with.

"All the donations are free of charge. I've never had so much goodwill for any project in my life."

Michael Johnson of the USA has donated his bibs he wore when he claimed the gold in the men's 200m during the 1996 Olympic Games

If the goodwill has been unvarying, there has been a curious difference in approach from those who have donated to a collection that will span in time from 256BC to the present day.

For instance - a request to Steve Ovett, not normally someone who is keen to be roped into set-piece athletics celebrations - earned no response for a while. But after a few days the man who now resides in one of the finest properties on Australia's Gold Coast sent word that something was on its way. Specifically, the message passed on to Turner by Ovett's new partner Carolyn Schuwalow, was: "He won't tell you what he has sent but you will like it."

And Turner did like it. Oh yes. It was the Olympic 800 metres gold medal Ovett won at the 1980 Moscow Games, and the vest in which he did so, complete with its stitched-on cloth number – 279.

But the Curator was a little taken aback at the form in which it arrived. While the spikes and vest in which Ovett's great rival, Seb Coe – remember him? – won 1500m gold at the 1984 Los Angeles Games had been documented every step of the way on their temporary journey from the Nike Museum, Ovett had simply bundled his priceless material gains into a big envelope and sent it via DHL without letting the IAAF know of its transit. And so it just turned up - pure Ovett gold.

Steve Ovett's 279 vest, which he wore in the race against Sebastian Coe during the 1500 metres at the Olympic Games in Moscow, will be on display at the exhibition

Insouciance of the same kind, if not on the same scale, was displayed by the US long jumper Dwight Phillips, who carefully retained the iconic number in which he won his fourth world title in Daegu last year, 1111 – did somebody at the IAAF make a calculated gamble here? – but happily discarded his tatty and ripped bodysuit, telling his manager she could throw it away. She, however, chose to sew it back up and has now been able to offer it as one of the exhibits.

One of the first items to be gathered came from Cuba's IAAF Council member Alberto Juantorena, who has donated the spikes he wore when winning the 400 and 800m double at the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

As visitors to the exhibition will see, they have at some point in the past been spray-painted gold, and a lot of it is now flaking off.

Spikes were also accrued from another Olympic champion of the 1976 Games, Jamaica's 200m winner Don Quarrie. These, however, have been preserved a little more thoroughly than Juantorena's footwear, having been dipped in bronze.

Jamaica's Don Quarrie 200m gold medal winner of the 1976 Olympic Games has donated his footwear

While the largest part of items has been donated by the IAAF's Brazilian Area Representative, Roberto Gesta de Melo, who owns his own athletics museum in the middle of the Amazonian jungle – true fact – there will be a fair temporarily loaned by Turner himself, who has been an avid collector of track and field memorabilia, with special emphasis on Finland, and extra special emphasis on the javelin, for more than 20 years.

One of his prize exhibits is a programme of the match at Iffley Road, Oxford where Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile on May 6, 1954, signed by pacemakers Chris Brasher, the 1956 Olympic 3000m steeplechase gold medallist and Chris Chataway, the 1954 European 3 miles champion, as well as the man who achieved the landmark timing of 3min 59.4sec.

How did Turner manage to get those three priceless monickers together, given that he is not old enough to have been there on the day in question? Well, Turner's godfather is Nick Stacey, better known as the social activist, the Reverend Nicolas Stacey, who was a 1952 Olympic sprinter and who was also, during the 1960s, Rector of Woolwich, where Turner's father -  Sir Colin Turner CBE, DFC - was the sitting MP for Woolwich West. Easy when you know who.

"I started with this project just before last year's World Championships in Daegu, and every day since we have new items arriving," Turner reflected. "We could have spent so much longer on it – the response has been so massive you have to wonder, what else is out there?"

Not to worry – there's plenty enough in there. Any athletics follower able to make the trip would be well advised to do so.

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. 

J.P. Morgan BAR are heading into event two here at the America's Cup World Series in San Francisco, the last event was certainly a whirlwind, we were limited in our training time on the water and I was coming into the event straight off the back of the Olympics. This time we have a base here in San Francisco and it's starting to feel a little like home. We have had an opportunity to get some decent training time in on the water and we've been lucky enough to train alongside the Oracle Team USA guys as well as some of the other teams when they arrived here.

It's been great to train with Jimmy and Russell we have definitely learnt a huge amount, we still have a lot of learn, but I certainly hope that we can have better form than last time and I feel that we are definitely capable of raising our game. It was pretty difficult getting focused and into the flow of things last time, I feel much more focused and prepared and the whole team is starting to really come together.

Olympic gold medallist Ben Ainslie prepares for "Super Sunday" in San Francisco

The big interest is of course on Sunday or "Super Sunday" as it's more commonly known around here. The opportunity is certainly there for the taking, you have to keep yourself in the hunt going into that race if you have a good race there then the results can be great.

San Francisco itself is buzzing, we are in the middle of a host of events, from Fleet Week to Oracle World, there is a great atmosphere helped somewhat by the balmy Indian summer weather we are experiencing, the chilly winds have been replaced with sunshine and the temperature is rising. It would be great if the expected thousands of spectators turn out, we had a bit of an experience of that at the Olympics at home, it's good for sailing, there is a lot of interest and it's great for the sport. There is so much interest in sailing here in San Francisco and the America's Cup. America is so vast things can easily get lost, especially with all the football, basketball and baseball going on, but that doesn't seem to be the case in here in San Francisco so it is great to be a part of that.

Ben Ainslie and his team must change their strategy as they head east towards Alcatraz 

In terms of the racing, we have a difference course, it has moved a little further east towards Alcatraz, so that will require a certain change to strategy as we deal with some potentially slightly lighter winds this week. It's a different challenge and there are some different players in the game at this event, so it should make for some fun racing.

I think the main thing I have learnt over the last few weeks is the importance of the nuances, the techniques. As the racing is so close you have to have really good technique on the boat, just basic things like trimming the wing on my own, learning the best technique for doing that. If you can get the boat handling around the course slick then that makes a huge difference to the results.

It's still early days but I think we have stepped up another level from last time. Frustratingly I seemed to have picked up a virus this week, so I'm hoping that a day's rest and a good night's sleep will help ahead of racing tomorrow.

Thanks for the support.

Ben Ainslie is Britain's most successful Olympic sailor, with a total of four gold medals and one silver. His next aspiration is to bring back a fifth gold in the Rio 2016 Olympics. To find out more click here.

We've had the performances, the parades and the plaudits and no doubt there'll be gongs galore for those who showered us with 2012's gold-dust, both in the sporting theatre and backstage.

But before London's Olympics and Paralympics become a distant memory it is worth remembering that there are others whose contribution to their unprecedented success has gone largely unrecognised and disappointingly unsung.

They are the forgotten ones who weren't up front when the bows were taken but without them there may well have been nothing for Coe and co and the Boris bunch to celebrate.

Quite rightly, the endeavours of Tony Blair, Tessa Jowell, Sir Craig Reedie, Colin Moynihan, Paul Deighton, Sir Keith Mills, Sue Campell, David Cameron and Hugh Robertson, among a host of others, have been liberally acknowledged.

But I believe there are three people who deserve to be equally lauded on the winners' rostrum – albeit sadly one of them posthumously.

They are ex-Prime Minister Sir John Major, Simon Clegg, former chief executive of the British Olympic Association (BOA), and the late David Welch, who was sports editor of the Daily Telegraph.

All three pitched in different ways to help bring the Olympics to London at a time when there was unbridled scepticism from the public, press and politicians that a bid would be not only winnable, but even worth the effort.

London 2012 Chairman Sebastian Coe and former Chef de Mission Simon Clegg during the Barclays Premier League match between Chelsea and Manchester United at Stamford Bridge back in 2008

Let's begin with Sir John. We may not share his politics – although these days it is hard to share those of many who inhabit the ideologically barren corridors of power at Westminster. But is not hard to share his views on sport or applaud his genuine enthusiasm for it.

We once suggested the cricket-loving Chelsea fan would have been happier as Sports Minister than he was as PM. He did not demur.

Indeed, had Lord Coe not agreed to be nominated for the soon-to-be-vacant chair at the British Olympic Association (BOA), Sir John might well have been an ideal candidate.

(Note to David Cameron: Here is someone surely worthy of a significant role in overseeing a national sports strategy).

Without Sir John, much of the success of 2012 simply would not have been possible. The fact that so many of Britain's medal-winning Olympians have been able to train, travel and hone their skills without financial impediments to the envy of much of the world, is down to him, and his insistence that sport should be earmarked as a substantial beneficiary of the National Lottery he helped instigate 18 years ago.

He may not have been Britain's most illustrious political leader but at least this was a worthy legacy.

This summer Sir John was a frequent visitor to the Games and he certainly deserved his VIP tickets.

Prince Harry and former Prime Minister Sir John Major enjoy the atmosphere at the track cycling in the velodrome during the London 2012 Olympic Games

Nobody should suppose that the remarkable transformation in Britain's Olympic record would have happened without the Lottery. It gave previously little-regarded and hitherto under-funded sports, notably rowing and cycling, both of which have secured a host of medals in the Beijing 2008 and London Games, the resources which enabled them first to compete with other nations and then surpass them. Individual elite talent and determination were for the first time properly supported.

The achievements of Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah, Sir Chris Hoy, Greg Rutherford, Ellie Simmons, David Weir, Sarah Storey et al were a tribute to their own immense ability and dedication but all have acknowledged how much they owe to the support they have received from coaches, team managers and sports scientists.

Without the Lottery that input would have been much less.

So Sir John's was, indeed a Major contribution.

Similarly the part played by Simon Clegg has been generally overlooked.

When he took over from Dick Palmer on January 1 1997 as the BOA's chief executive he almost immediately became a leading light in the campaign to get the Olympics in 2012.

He elicited cross-party support from the political leaders at the time in both the Houses of Parliament and the London Mayor, reflecting that this was needed to "bully" a fairly sceptical and cynical Government of the day.

Clegg was a major player in a six-year PR and political campaign to get the Government on board and on returning from the successful bid in Singapore in 2005 he called a meeting of all the governing bodies and stakeholders, producing a blueprint of an aspirational target of fourth place for GB in 2012.

"What was needed of course was more money from the Government – and to do that the BOA needed a really bullish target," he told me recently. "We rather cleverly bullied the Government, who didn't want to go there, into accepting fourth place in the medal table for an extra £300 million ($480 million/€370 million) for high performance sport.

"The reason we conceived the bid in the first place in 1997, having failed twice with Manchester, was that nothing would move more higher or more quickly up the political and social agenda of this country than staging a Games, which had to be in London.

"We achieved the former by getting a Minister for the Olympics but whether we've moved sport up the social agenda we won't be able to see until 2020, when we need to look back with the benefit of hindsight on whether 2012 has real catalyst for change."

Ipswich Town chief executive Simon Clegg and manager Paul Jewell

Clegg was the BOA chief executive up to Beijing 2008 and a board member of the bid.

His was the framework on which the BOA's highly-praised 2012 operation was constructed.

This included introducing the Britain's Olympic Ambition programme in 2008, which provided talented potential Olympians with an opportunity to experience the Games atmosphere. This was repeated in London and is likely to be so in Rio.

After being involved in a dozen Summer and Winter Games Clegg parted company with the BOA at the end of 2008, succeeded both as chief executive and Team GB Chef de Mission by Andy Hunt, whose own position is now believed to be under threat as winds of change again blow through the cash-strapped organisation.

Clegg is now chief executive at Ipswich Town Football Club but has not lost touch with the Olympic scene, returning for the London Games, as an attaché for the western Pacific island of Guam's six-strong team.

He points out that while they won no medals they did break one Olympic record – entering the heaviest man for any event in any Games, Ric Blas, a 34 stone judo player.

He also reminds us that as part of the initial 2012 PR campaign he visited every Fleet Street sports editor among whom the Telegraph's David Welch became the most ardent supporter.

"It was not easy getting the media on board. There were only a handful who showed any real enthusiasm but David was a tower of strength from the outset.

"He immediately saw what getting the Olympics would mean for Britain, and British sport. His backing cannot be underestimated."

Indeed not. Under Welch, who died of cancer in June of last year, aged 63, the Telegraph became an influential flagship for the 2012 campaign, leading from the front – and back-pages.

Of course, there are many others who played substantial roles in the 2012 story, but one hopes that this particular trio will be especially remembered for their respective parts in making it happen.

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 may still be six years away, but the first major milestone of the Russia 2018 World Cup was reached this weekend as FIFA announced the 11 cities and 12 stadiums that will host matches at the tournament. The world knew that Moscow, St Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Saransk would be staging games. The news of note was that they would be joined by Kaliningrad, Samara, Rostov-on-Don and Volgograd. Yaroslavl missed out, as did Krasnodar, the latter probably due to its comparatively weak transport network, which FIFA had noted in 2010 compared unfavourably with the other prospective host cities.

Speaking at the announcement on what was his first official visit to Russia on business relating to the World Cup, FIFA President Sepp Blatter took the opportunity to praise the country's preparations so far.

"We're pleased with the speed of preparations for the tournament which the Russia 2018 organising committee has delivered," he said. "These sorts of achievements exemplify their enthusiasm and their responsible approach to the matter in hand."

It is hard not to see Blatter's comments through the prism of headaches caused by Brazil 2014, which has delayed and prevaricated, despite effectively knowing it would be hosting that tournament eight years' ago. Only this year, surely not coincidentally following the departure of the tarnished Ricardo Teixeira as the head of both the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) and Brazil 2014 (after being increasingly shunned by Blatter and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff), have Brazil seemed to be making solid progress at last.

So for Russia, it has not exactly been the most taxing task following in Brazil's footsteps. FIFA may be pleased with the speed at which things are going, but surely they would be pleased with any speed after their dealings with Brazil 2014.

The 40,000 capacity Fisht Stadium should open by the end of this year ahead of the Sochi 2014 Winter Games and the Russia 2018 World Cup

That said, there is plenty of real progress of which FIFA must be pleased with in Russia already. The announcement of the host cities was brought forward a year by Russia 2018 to help focus and speed up their work. The World Cup law is set to be passed within the next three months. By contrast, Brazil's World Cup law was only passed a few months ago. Work on many stadiums is well underway. In Sochi, host of the Winter Olympics and Paralympics, the Fisht Stadium, which will stage the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of that tournament, is close to completion. It will play host to games in 2018, as will Rubin's new stadium in Kazan, the centrepiece for next year's Summer Universiade. Work may be heavily delayed on the new stadium in St Petersburg for reigning back to back Russian champions Zenit, but it is still scheduled for completion well ahead of 2018.

Nevertheless, there is still huge work to be done in a country which remains very Moscow centric. Airports in most cities have to either be upgraded or have temporary structures installed to cope with the traffic that will be received during the World Cup. As well as every single stadium either being built from scratch or renovated, most cities require extensive infrastructural work. But Russia certainly does not lack the money, political will or organisation required to meet these challenging goals. And places like Sochi and Kazan are well on the way to completing those upgrades years ahead of the World Cup.

But the one big question which, two years after the award of the tournament to Russia, has still to be answered, is over transport. How exactly will Russia move the hundreds of thousands of expected tourists, officials and media around their country during the tournament in six years' time? This is the largest country on earth, and in spite of the fact that the World Cup is being played in the European side of Russia, it is still a vast area. Kaliningrad, situated in the far west and geographically separate from the rest of Russia between Lithuania and Poland, is so far away from Yekaterinburg, the furthest city east at the foot of the Ural mountains, that it would take two days to travel there by car. In the south, Sochi is even further from Kaliningrad. Except there are no direct flights between the two cities, making the minimum journey time approximately six hours by plane.

The New Rubin Kazan Stadium is due for completion in 2013

The way things are developing, Russia is going to be reliant on air travel. Only a handful of journeys between host cities will take less than a few hours by train at best. Although Russia is using four clusters of cities so that teams will play in three relatively closely situated host venues, there will be many needing to make journeys across the country throughout the tournament. And anyone going to Yekaterinburg will have a length journey to any other host city unless travelling by air – that is if where they are travelling from has a direct connection.

And located deep in FIFA's evaluation of Russia's World Cup bid back in 2010, which is the one area that stands out alone, the sole "high risk" among the predominantly low risk categories for assessment? Airports and international connections. It is the one similarity with Brazil that FIFA will be fearing, the Achilles heel of air transport for two tournaments in a row.

The issue would not be quite such a concern were Russia expanding the high speed rail network it proposed for 2018, but that is currently up in the air. The Russian Federal Government was recently revealed to have not included spending plans for the rail network in their budget projections for the next three years. Russian Railways has confirmed it has received no official response to its calculations for the network, and has questioned how else Russia plans to ferry around large numbers of people.

It is a pertinent question that, two years on, still lacks a convincing answer. For all of the good about Russia's bid and the work done so far, this is a weak area that still requires a solution. Travel by train will take a day alone between Moscow and Yekaterinburg, so fans could be left commuting for whole days or more at worst if they opt not to travel by plane. This is not the image Russia wants to portray, it is meant to be presenting itself as a new, modern and vibrant country, far removed from the days of the Cold War.

No plans for a high speed rail network have been confirmed as yet

But if everyone then decides to fly, then how will Russia cope? Many host cities lack international connections. There are also few airports with the current capacity to deal with the huge numbers of people expected in 2018, and many will still struggle after upgrades according to FIFA's 2010 evaluation, while many airlines will have to modernise substantially in the years to come. To put it into perspective, last year you would have been more likely to die in a plane crash if you took a flight in Russia than in any other country worldwide. That may not tell the whole story – statistics never give a full picture – and the Russian Government, far from ignoring the problem, has taken action to improve the situation, but it still reflects a weakness in an area Russia will be reliant on in 2018.

The world is now watching, with so many major sports events coming to the country in the years ahead. The World Cup is the last of those, and the biggest. In its preparations, Russia has made a good start, but there is plenty left to do, and for all its organisation and diligence, there is still a crucial conundrum yet to be solved.

David Gold is a reporter for insidethegames

There are exceptions, but top sport tends by and large not to produce top art.

I can think of at least two reasons for this:

● Top sport is about success, or at least, that is where our main focus lies; to an artist, failure is usually more interesting.

● The most breathtaking sports achievements are memorable precisely because they are almost unbelievable; it follows that if you invent something similar, credulity is strained.

Noted art critic (and sometime cricketer) Graham Gooch put his finger on this second issue in the summer of 1986 when he reacted to Ian Botham's feat of taking a wicket with his first ball back in Test cricket after a three month absence.

"Who writes your bloody script then?" he inquired as the England team gathered in a happy huddle.

In this context, I think the gigantic new bronze statue of Zinedine Zidane in front of Paris's Pompidou Centre is particularly interesting.

Not yet having seen the piece, - which shows the French playmaker in the act of head-butting Italian defender Marco Materazzi in the 2006 FIFA World Cup final at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin - I am not qualified to assess its artistic quality.

But how fascinating that the artist, Adel Abdessemed, should have alighted on this moment rather than one of many sublime footballing episodes from Zizou's career.

Ian Botham (centre) had the help of a script writer, according to England's Graham Gooch

This is a man, after all, whose two goals for France in the 1998 World Cup final had led to his image being beamed onto the Arc de Triomphe, the pre-eminent monument to French nationhood.

He also helped his team, Real Madrid, to capture the 2002 European Cup in Glasgow by notching the decisive goal in a 2-1 win over Germany's Bayer Leverkusen with one of the sweetest volleys ever struck.

As one fortunate enough to have witnessed every single minute of that 2006 French World Cup campaign, I think the artist is right though. Let me try to explain why.

Things could hardly have started more sluggishly for the French, who had fluffed their lines as reigning champions at the previous World Cup in 2002, managing one draw and not a single goal in three matches.

The impression four years later, rightly or wrongly, was that the "barons", the veteran survivors of the 1998 World Cup-winning squad, including Zidane, were doing pretty much as they pleased and at first, it seemed, they were no longer up to it.

"[Manager] Raymond Domenech is a likeable enough man, steeped in football culture," I wrote after Les Bleus had started with disappointing draws againstSwitzerland and South Korea.

"But on the touchline here he has exuded the impotency of a country schoolmaster trying to stop his class running riot."

The statue depicting Zinedine Zidane's infamous head-butt on Marco Materazzi

Zizou had contrived somehow to get himself sent off in that second match.

More importantly, he was playing as if bored out of his shaven skull.

"He has been playing as if from memory, wearing the beatific expression of a martyred saint," I wrote.

"He mainly strides past the media as if alone in a room.

"When he picked up bookings, seemingly through absentmindedness, in France's first two matches, it was as if he had devised a painless way of ending a phase of his life that had ceased to stimulate him."

Then suddenly, following a still unconvincing 2-0 win over Emmanuel Adebayor's Togo that Zidane played no part in because he was suspended, everything changed.

He was a key man, along with fellow baron Patrick Vieira, in a rather surprising 3-1 win over Spain.

The actual head-butt incident during the 2006 World Cup final between France and Italy

Moreover, as he walked off the pitch arm in arm with goalkeeper Fabien Barthez, grinning from ear to ear, Zizou seemed to have recovered his joie de vivre.

He confirmed this in the quarter-final win over Brazil, giving a performance of sustained virtuosity that remains the best individual display I have seen in an international football match.

Victory over Portugal in the semi-final, secured with a Zidane penalty off two paces, was never in doubt.

By the time he had put his team ahead, again from the penalty spot, after just seven minutes of the final against an Italian team entitled to be feeling drained after an epic win over host-nation Germany, it was starting to appear as if the planets had fallen into line and the best player France has ever produced would duly stride off to his seat among the sport's immortals after lifting the World Cup for the second time in three attempts.

Two hours later and this gathering sense of cosmic inevitability had been obliterated by the most famous head-butt in recorded history.

Even as a moment of madness that exposed a candidate for god-hood as a flesh and blood figure just like the rest of us, it might justify a 15-foot-plus bronze statue.

But I think there is more to it than that.

We didn't know at the time why he had done it.

Once it was revealed that Materazzi had said something about his sister, then it became possible to vest the incident with a similar sense of tragedy to that which drove the plot-lines of the Spanish Golden Age dramas I used to study.

Under this sort of reading, Zidane's violent reaction could be construed not as a rush of blood, but an act of retribution tragic because of the severity of the repercussions but also because the perpetrator's finely developed sense of honour made it inevitable, even obligatory.

It is, in short, just the type of moment that cries out to be immortalised in art.

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. 

The Sochi Winter Olympics are 498 days away. Which seems a long time – but as we recall from the countdown to the London 2012 Games, time seems to accelerate as big sporting events move nearer, until suddenly they are on us, and we are in them.

This week British athletes have mobilised in two of the events where a nation with lingering memories of Olympic and Paralympic success in London will be expecting further podium performances once the 2014 Sochi Games get underway on February 7. That is, short track speed skating, whose British team members earned seven World Cup medals last season, and skeleton.

With encouragingly broad vision, the British Olympic Association invited almost 40 of the home nations winter sport athletes and coaches to the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics to experience its unique atmosphere and – it was hoped – to draw inspiration from it.

Among those who took the opportunity of visiting the Olympic Village, Team GB House and to various practice sessions was Shelley Rudman, who took Olympic silver in the skeleton at the 2006 Turin Games and finished sixth at the 2010 Vancouver Games before winning the overall World Cup title last season.

Rudman took to the skies over Bath in a balloon earlier this week as the British skeleton squad got their season off to a PR launch – but her comment about seeking a medal at a third Olympics was certainly not hot air.

Shelley Rudman will be hoping that is third time lucky for her at Sochi 2014

The 31-year-old athlete from Pewsey in Wiltshire described Sochi 2014 as her "ultimate goal". Before she can get to within challenging distance of it, however, she needs to negotiate a critical season which will start for her and her team-mates with a series of selection races in Winterberg on October 26-27.

Britain's short track speed skaters are in action even more precipitately as they take part in this weekend's opening Invitation Cup meeting at Heerenveen in the Netherlands, where Elise Christie will seek a repeat of her achievements at last year's meeting, where she was declared first in overall classification after winning the 1000 and 1500m events.

Christie says she is feeling confident, and her recent performance in the squad trials gave her every reason to be. If she gets the luck her obvious talent deserves, we could even be talking about her third Olympic appearance in 2022 – when she will still only be the same age that Rudman is now.

If Rudman can steer her way to a third Olympic competition in what is – no matter how often you look at it – a stupendously nerve-jangling and perilous event – let us hope she has more luck than did another cherished British multiple winter Olympian, Wilf O'Reilly.

In one sense, O'Reilly had nowhere to go after winning gold at the 1988 Calgary Winter Games in both the 500 and 1000m events. But the fact that short track was only a demonstration event at those Games sent him searching for further Olympic medals when it became a fully signed up part of the Games – medals he was destined never to gain.

At the Albertville Games of 1992 O'Reilly – who had won overall silver at the 1990 world championships and overall gold at the 1991 Championships – arrived with his confidence high. But the rough-and-tumble of short track meant he missed out on the podium in France as he fell in the 1000m – where he was blatantly shoved in the back - and 5,000m relay events.

Two years later – following the International Olympic Committee's switching of the timetable to ensure Winter and Summer Games were separated by two years – he came to Lillehammer with ambitions still burning brightly, although his young team-mate Nicky Gooch also had well-merited aspirations.

Before the Games started, I asked him how long it had taken him to recover from his misfortune in Albertville. His large brown eyes searched the ceiling for an answer before he responded: "Two days. And a lot of beer."

O'Reilly's chances of making good in the 1000m event ended almost as soon as he had begun, as he clashed with a fellow skater in the opening heat and ended up with a damaged right skate which meant he could not compete properly.

Wilf O'Reilly had his skate broken in a clash with Australia's Steven Bradbury at Lillehammer in 1994 and was made to take part in the rerun with a broken blade

Rotten luck. But worse was to follow at the start of his 500 metres event heat when a collision involving Australia's Steven Bradbury left him with half an inch missing from one of his blades.

Because the skaters had not cleared the first bend, a re-start was allowed. But the Briton was not allowed to leave the ice to replace his ruined skate blade, despite furious protests from the British coach, Archie Marshall.

Unable to gain proper purchase on the ice, he glid round to an inevitable exit. It was a nightmarish re-run of the Birmingham athlete's fortunes two nights earlier in the Hamar Olympic Hall.

Afterwards, holding his gouged and broken blade in front of him, O'Reilly reflected: "There it is, in all its glory. The blade just wasn't gliding. I can't believe it. When shit happens, it happens..."

O'Reilly regretted the fact that he had not worked harder before Albertville to educate a British public which had been told to expect him to win gold – when he knew that it was in the nature of the event for things to go wrong.

Australia's Steven Bradbury won a gold medal at Salt Lake City in 2002 when all his rivals crashed

He used the analogy of the Grand National. "If you have 50 starters, the statistical probability is that some horses will not finish. People in Britain understand that."

So O'Reilly – who is now a very successful commentator upon the sport – never did win his official Olympic medals. And eight years after Lillehammer, Steven Bradbury glid, in glorious isolation, to Olympic gold in the 1000m event after every other member of the field had crashed in front of him on the final bend.

As one observer commented with just the shadow of a smile: "That's short track..."

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. 

If London 2012 proved one thing to the people of Britain, it is that there is life beyond football.

Obviously, football was at the Olympics, with Mexico winning the men's competition and America the women's if you remember?

And of course, it is back with a vengeance now as we focus all our attention on John Terry's England retirement and whether the world will ever be the same again because of it.

But for 17 glorious days, football was forced to pretty much take a backseat as the likes of athletics, swimming and cycling stormed to the fore and sports like archery, fencing, hockey and taekwondo proved that disciplines that don't involve kicking a ball are truly worthy of our adulation.

I myself became a handball convert, wondering from my seat in the press stand why London 2012 was the first time I had ever seen this fast paced, physical and, ultimately, enthralling game.

But as the 26 Olympic sports used London 2012 to shine, two sports were noticeably absent; patiently waiting their turn on the sidelines of the Games.

I refer to rugby sevens and golf, which you will see at the Olympics in four years' time.

It was at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session in Copenhagen in 2009 that both sports were voted onto the programme for Rio 2016.

Perhaps they were unlucky to just miss out on London 2012 given that rugby sevens had a ready-made home in Twickenham and golf could easily have settled in at numerous courses across the UK that are truly world class. Given that it is the "home of golf" and that London 2012 events were held in Scotland, I imagine St Andrews would have been a worthy Olympic course contender alongside the likes of Royal St George's in Kent and Royal Liverpool in Merseyside.

American architect Gil Hanse won the contest to design the Rio 2016 Olympic golf course

Incidentally, Rio lacks a single golf course of such a standard, leading the organisers to hold a competition earlier this year to choose a designer to create it. If you want to know, the winner was American architect Gil Hanse, who was picked off an eight-person shortlist that included golfing legends Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman and Gary Player.

Regardless of that, the Rio 2016 announcement means a return for rugby to the Olympics for the first time since Paris 1924 and golf for the first time since St Louis 1904.

Rugby sevens booked its Olympic spot largely off the back of successful appearances at the Commonwealth Games and Pan American Games. Golf, it is often whispered, came after the IOC could no longer take holding the greatest sporting event on the planet without the world's biggest sportsperson – a certain Tiger Woods.

Admittedly, the decision came just before the great American's dramatic fall from grace, that followed the infamous fire hydrant incident and from which his image has only just about recovered, but that is another story altogether.

At the London 2012 Olympics, it was rugby that made the bigger impact of the two as the International Rugby Board (IRB) held a glitzy event at the lavish Prestige Pavilion opposite the Olympic Stadium.

With a stellar list of guests made up largely of IOC members, IRB chairman Bernard Lapasset – a likeable Frenchman – spoke eloquently about how rugby sevens would give a major boost to the Olympics. The 64-year-old, who always gives me an affectionate yet painfully hard slap on the back whenever we meet, was seemingly brimming with excitement at the prospect of featuring at the next Summer Games.

Bernard Lapasset (left) joins French Olympic gold medallist Guy Drut to watch the London 2012 men's basketball game

In the meantime, the HSBC Sevens Series will provide an ample taste of what is to come.

By contrast, the International Golf Federation (IGF) was rather inconspicuous at London 2012 despite its executive director Antony Scanlon attending for the duration for the Games.

However, it has the perfect opportunity to showcase the sport later this week with the 2012 Ryder Cup in Medinah, Illinois set to get underway.

The event promises to be an absolute blockbuster with a United States, spearheaded by a rejuvenated Woods, set to meet a Europe with Northern Irish star Rory McIlroy in their ranks.

Everyone is already hoping that the best two players in the world clash on the final day of the competition, in what Rio 2016 will be praying is a preview of the clash for the first men's Olympic gold medal in the sport in over 100 years.

But already, McIlroy has stoked the fire for Rio 2016 by saying he has not decided whether to compete for Britain or Ireland at the Olympics.

Northern Irish golfer Rory McIlroy has already said he is unsure whether to represent Britain or Ireland at the Rio 2016 Olympics

"I am in an extremely sensitive and difficult position," McIlroy said in an open letter, with the issue set to come under increasing focus in the coming years.

Whatever happens, there is little doubt that the Olympics will benefit from having these two new, globally popular sports on the programme and the likes of stars such as McIlroy and Woods will only help increase the already formidable marketing power of the IOC.

However, it must be said that rugby sevens and golf marks the start of a new way of thinking for the IOC, where sports will be added and removed from the programme on a far more regular basis.

A maximum of 28 sports are allowed at any one Olympic Games and this threshold will be reached at Rio 2016 with the inclusion of rugby sevens and golf.

But now there are currently eight sports bidding to make the 2020 Olympic Games programme, which will be staged in either Istanbul, Madrid or Tokyo.

These are climbing, karate, roller sport, squash, wakeboard, wushu, baseball and softball, with the latter two likely to make a joint bid.

One will almost certainly get the nod, meaning one current sport will go.

Which sport it will be is mere speculation for now, although you can safely assume athletics, swimming and cycling will be okay.

But whatever it is, it will be a bitter pill to swallow because as London 2012 showed us, and as rugby sevens and golf will soon find out, there is no shop window quite as bright as the one in the middle of the Olympic Rings.

Tom Degun is a reporter for insidethegames. You can follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

Lord Moynihan is no longer tilting at windmills, having decided to concentrate on spending more time with them to promote his wind power energy business after quitting a year early as chairman of the British Olympic Association (BOA).

However, his unexpected departure has left behind a chill wind of change blowing through the organisation, an unwelcome legacy for those working in the BOA's headquarters in London's Charlotte Street, where chief executive Andy Hunt has embarked on a cost-cutting exercise that could see some losing their jobs.

But in moving so hastily to push through his restructuring plans before the anticipated accession of Lord Coe to the chair, Hunt may well have has put his own role jeopardy.

Coe will be annoyed to learn that as part of the slimming down Hunt apparently intends to axe director of performance Sir Clive Woodward, a figure he much admires and would wish to retain in some capacity, and implement other changes before he stands for election on November 7. The 2012 supremo, who is expected to succeed Lord Moynihan despite a possible challenge from British Hockey chief Richard Leman, is keen to be involved in any shake-up at the BOA but has not been consulted on Hunt's blueprint for rationalisation, which includes merging some top jobs and shedding others up and down the line.

Significantly Hunt, hired by Moynihan from the commercial world to succeed Simon Clegg before the Beijing 2008 Games, strongly resisted attempts to bring forward the election date, thus getting Coe in situ sooner, and is believed to be among those who have urged Leman, a close friend of Moynihan, to stand against him.

If Coe wins, it seems doubtful that Hunt will stay, with Coe looking to earmark Woodward as Chef de Mission for the Sochi Winter Games in 2014 and Rio's 2016 Summer Games, a part-time appointment that would reduce the BOA's hefty wage bill and leave the former England rugby coach free to pursue other lucrative media and sporting interests.

There was great regard for Woodward's liaison role with the athletes as deputy leader to Hunt during 2012, less so for Hunt's, his daily deluge of social media cheerleading parodied by the Twitterati as the work of "Randy Shunt".

Andy Hunt's over zealous social networking saw him become the inspiration for a spoof Twitter account

In retrospect, Hunt's insistence on being an up-front Chef de Mission – a function he also performed in Beijing and Vancouver – might be viewed as a misjudgement.

You can't be both anchorman and midfielder, as Moynihan himself had intimated when suggesting that even Bill Gates would have found it virtually impossible to fulfil dual roles of Chef de Mission and chief executive at a London Games.

I believe Moynihan was also surprised by Coe's acceptance of the nomination to follow him. "I wouldn't think he'd be interested," he said shaking his head when I asked him about this possibility at the Cinnamon Club lunch he gave the day after the Olympics to announce he was stepping down.

Interestingly Leman, a British hockey gold medallist and BOA board member, was one of his guests, as was canoeing's Albert Woods, a BOA vice-chairman.

Both were also nominated, but Woods has now withdrawn. As far as we know, Leman continues to stand.

The initial candidate selection, organised by head-hunters Odgers Berndtson, who widely advertised the unpaid post, closed yesterday, but the BOA have until October 7 to receive other nominations from within the organisation.

Sebastian Coe (left) is known to have IAAF Presidency ambitions

While obviously Coe would prefer to have a clear run, it is thought that there are constituent members of the BOA who are concerned he would be using the position as a promotional platform for his bid for the bigger prize of the Presidency of the IAAF in 2015.

Their preference could be for someone who currently leads a national sporting body – like, Leman, or rowing's Di Ellis.

There is also another possible scenario: that Coe may be unwilling to contest an election, and backs out.

One hopes this will not be the case because domestically and internationally he is the ideal figurehead to carry Olympism forward after London covered itself in such glory.

Moreover, he is the one person who might facilitate a vital handout for the BOA from his close friends in Government.

Because assuming he does take control, he will inherit a financial situation that is far from healthy, with the BOA heading for an anticipated post-Games deficit of some £2 million ($3.2 million/€2.5 million).

Further bad news is that London 2012 is expected to break even when the  accounts for the operation of the Olympics and Paralympics are finalised which means there is unlikely to be an money left over, a blow for BOA, which would be entitled to 20 per cent of any profit from the running of the Games.

The share of any surplus was the cause of an acrimonious legal dispute between the BOA and London 2012 last year – the BOA unsuccessfully claimed the running costs of the Paralympics should not be taken into account.

Instead, London 2012 gave the BOA the rights to sell an "iconic" item of merchandise – the BOA chose branded scarves and collectable medallions available from petrol stations, but sales of these fell far short of expectations.

The spat marked a low point in relations between Moynihan and Hunt and the London 2012 leadership. If there is to be no surplus, it will go down as a costly and ultimately pointless episode.

Clive Woodward is reported to be on a salary of £300,000 at the BOA

The departure of Woodward, on a reputed salary of £300,000 ($500,000/€400,000), would represent a considerable saving for the BOA, as does that of communications director Darryl Seibel, who is returning to the United States next month at the end of his contract after heading up a Games media operation as professional and efficient as any I have experienced in international sport.

Commercial director Hugh Chambers is also said to be under threat as Hunt attempts to shore up his own position while clearly on a potential collision course with Coe, who understandably would want to be involved in any reorganisation.

If Hunt, currently in Rio seeking an early GB preparation camp does go, the UK Athletics chief executive Niels de Vos would be high among those on Coe's list as a replacement.

By curious coincidence, Clegg, Hunt's predecessor, who was never known as an axe man during his own BOA tenure, finds it a role he has had to adopt in his new guise as chief executive of Ipswich Town FC.

Having already fired two managers, Jim Magilton, and somewhat bravely, Roy Keane, it seems Clegg may be on the brink of his hat-trick, with luckless incumbent Paul Jewell admitting he may be for the chop with the club languishing in the foothills of The Championship.

Rumour has is that Harry Redknapp is being lined up to take over at a salary, one imagines, considerably more than Woodward's.

Meantime as he awaits the outcome of the political in-fighting, Woodward himself is on the mat – the judo variety. He is chairing an independent review into the future of a sport, which was saved by the belles in the London Games, the first Olympic medals in 12 years being won by Gemma Gibbons and Karina Bryant.

Karina Bryant (left) claimed bronze and Gemma Gibbons took silver in judo at London 2012

As at the BOA, an election for a new British Judo Association (BJA) chair is pending with Densign White, husband of Tessa Sanderson, standing down.

He had been accused of "rotten leadership" by veteran Olympian Winston Gordon after criticising the commitment of some of the athletes.

Woodward has been asked to conduct "a root and branch review" of how to find future Olympic medallists, heading a panel, which includes former Football Association chief executive Mark Palios and top judo coach Roy Inman, who is also standing for the BJA chairmanship.

A more controversial candidate is Kerrith Brown, who was stripped of the bronze medal he won at the Seoul 1988 Olympics after testing positive for the use of a banned substance.

Funding body UK Sport is known to be keeping a watching brief on the election and if not satisfied with the outcome could refer it back to the BJA and suggest they seek an independent chair, as they did with fencing. Is this something Woodward himself might get to grips with?

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.

You can tell when you are getting old – it's when people start telling you how young you are looking.

Just as the picture with this piece will soon be replaced with a more realistic image – assuming all the light bouncing up from the zimmer-frame doesn't ruin the picture – so it is prudent to assume a more aged version of the subject will also be emerging, as this seems to be the way of things.

Given that universal truth, the latest news from our freewheeling Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, on uptake for the first RideLondon event next year has proved hugely cheering.

The Mayor reports that, just five weeks since he presided at the official RideLondon launch in Westminster, more than 25,000 cyclists have applied to take part in the RideLondon 100 bike ride – the challenge race which will cover a similar route to the Olympic road race course as it winds its way out from the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and out into the hills of Surrey before returning for a capital finish.

Johnson, of course, is already an experienced urban cyclist. As it happened, I saw him wheeling in to the Westminster launch venue on the appointed day, just seconds after the passing of the Horse Guards, in all their vivid pageantry and pomp, who were presumably trotting off towards their eventual ceremonial destination of Buckingham Palace.

In the circumstances, the Mayor's arrival had a distinct feeling of After The Lord Mayor's Show about it – especially as he had turned up at a side entrance.

"Hi de hi", he announced to the one official in a attendance as he dismounted, his suit straining only slightly as he did so. And then the blond barnet had disappeared within.

Walking round to the main entrance, where several camera crews and photographers were waiting for something or someone, I was passed by a harassed man who might possibly have been another official who had been expecting the Mayor's arrival at the front entrance but had just heard the Mayor in question had slid in by a side door.

Or he might just have been a man in a bad mood.

Anyway, Boris was his usual charming-whether-you-want-to-be-charmed-or-not self at the launch. On reflection, his humour works in the way a skilfully applied rubber hammer works upon the knee, triggering a series of involuntary reactions.

Boris Johnson launched RideLondon with the help of double Olympic gold medallist Laura Trott

He's got a range of verbal tricks – and it has to be said, a sensational turn of phrase. But then he's bringing a second runway at Stansted Airport back into the reckoning...wrong, wrong...must be resisted...must try...must...

One of his favourite hammer applications works something like this: "Good morning...if that's the phrase I'm looking for..."

I know, I know. On paper – sorry, on screen – it doesn't look like anything. But when Johnson delivers this particular verbal riff he does something with his chin and his eyebrows and, I don't know how or why, one finds oneself chuckling. It's in the timing, I think. It's almost sinister.

Do I digress? I fear I do.

So Johnson has announced that 25,000 cyclists – a third of the eventual maximum total – have taken the plunge and committed themselves to the 100 miles race. He, indeed, confirmed his own intention to take part in the race when he answered questions at the launch.

Before we go any further, and just to prevent any misunderstanding, may I just say that I have no intention of doing the same thing.

I cycled at university – and, as I believe I have previously asked, if anyone knows the whereabouts of a bike marked F144 and last seen – locked – outside the Pike and Eel pub in Cambridge, in 1979, then I will be very happy to hear the news.

I have cycled intermittently since, most recently on holiday this summer, and there is no escaping the big drawback of this sport, which I believe can be summed up in just two words: sore arse.

Running is better than cycling. It's just a fact. And I am currently preparing for a second bash at the Virgin London Marathon next year.

But certain facts have to be faced, and in physiological terms it has to be admitted that cycling is less wearing on joints and – well joints mainly – than proceeding on foot. Which means that, like a range of mountains viewed beyond the nearest range, the RideLondon 100 race, a kind of London marathon on wheels involving riders good, bad and indifferent, lies beyond the foot race so inspiredly and inspiringly established in the capital in 1981.

Not yet, but at some time in the near future, I hope to embrace it. I will probably start with the eight-mile RideLondon Freecycle first, however.

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. 

The British have pulled off an amazing feat, presenting what has been hailed as one of the best Olympic and Paralympic Games in its history and receiving outstanding reviews from administrators, fans, athletes and the world's media. No small feat by any standards.

As can be expected with any major event, the various organising bodies for London 2012 experienced their fair share of challenges, the most exasperating and most publicised one being the delivery of private security services for the Games.

The fact that this issue arose in a country that has hosted so many major events in the past is surprising, but is not totally uncommon to major events in general as there is no "one size fits all" to arranging security for major events. There are however basic principles that must be understood and executed effectively.

Major event organisers and the UK Government should learn from the G4S experience by performing a thorough and urgent assessment of the future major events landscape to determine the risks associated with involving private security companies in future major events.

The Home Affairs Committee has concluded its inquiry into security arrangements at London 2012. For the benefit of major events in the UK and abroad, it is important to highlight that the Committee have now arrived at what is a holistic and honest assessment of the root causes of the failure of G4S to deliver on their private security and how to avoid a situation like this arising in the future. The results of this inquiry will support major event organisers around the world as well as London and the rest of the UK as it looks to host a number of major international events over the coming decade.

Additionally, the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee must be most keen to learn from this experience in order to ensure that they can prevent any such problems. And with the 2015 Rugby World Cup and 2017 World IAAF Championships also being hosted in the UK, as well as Glasgow's bid to host the 2018 Youth Olympic Games, the next few years will be an important time for the reputation of the UK and its major event hosting capability.

London 2012 needed to draft in the army to help secure its venues after G4S failed to deliver enough security guards

Nevertheless, major event organisers and the UK Government should learn from the G4S experience by performing a thorough and urgent assessment of the future landscape to determine the risks, challenges and requirements associated with involving private security companies in future major events.

A key question is whether or not the UK private security industry is able to handle all of the above events over a compact period of five years, as no single private security company would be able to provide all of the security requirements for all of these events. In addition, the UK Government will need to consider what the bill could be for the tax payer if government decides to take the primary role in providing private security services by utilising Government forces.

This is a key challenge, especially if Government forces are required to perform more statutory functions over the same period due to unforeseen events that take place in the wider international security environment. The consequences could leave UK organisers and the government with little choice but to rely on the private security industry to plug the gap as the primary resource to safeguard these major sport events

In addition, there are currently many key factors that organising committees need to address to prevent these types of problems and successfully deliver a safe event, including:

· Addressing the standard phases of a major event and understanding what the requirements are for each one (bidding and technical inspection phases before being awarded the event, and then the planning, implementation, testing, execution, close-out and legacy phases after being awarded the event)

· Establishing a compact yet complete security committee free of politics and vested interests (including the Local Organising Committee and relevant Government law enforcement, intelligence and military stakeholders) to jointly manage all security aspects of the event

· Ensuring a quality tender and contracting (procurement) programme based upon sound security requirements (with quantities and quality of required resources per location, including shifts and contingency) followed by continuous contracts, project and operations management throughout the respective phases with a clear and agreed timeline. The contract should also insist on the service provider to appoint a dedicated project team to manage the event's requirements.

It is important that private security guards are well trained and looked after if they are going to work on major events

· The quality of the private security resources should be ensured at all costs. Even if this means that a slightly better remuneration is offered to the event security staff to ensure that they are content enough not to strike during the event (as opposed to being paid a minimal wage as also reported in the media of the £8.50 per hour wage paid to G4S security guards). The basic adherence to contract quality requirements of language, communications skills, training requirements (inclusive of participation in test events), equipment, clothing/uniform and especially the quality of the food and transport plan for the event security staff.

· Another crucial aspect is the planning and execution of a testing programme. It is imperative to plan well in advance to host one's own test events in order to ensure that policies, procedures, training and operations are optimal for the main event. If the private security service provider is managed effectively, then private security will form a key aspect planned way in advance to be tested during the Testing Programme.

Unfortunately common sense is not always common practice.

Although more light will most likely be shed in the coming months on the exact causes of the reported failure of G4S and their delivery of security for the Games, one of the contributing factors for this situation could be as a result of inadequate governance of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games delivering authorities as well as the procurement and general management of G4S.

A cumbersome governance structure and lengthy decision-making process blurs responsibility and accountability which will often result in poor reporting and tracking mechanisms. More often than not, another major constraint is the lack of a holistic and integrated security committee with an effective organisational structure for the pre-event and event execution phases. One should also ensure that an integrated risk management model is also applied from an early stage.

It would also seem that the initial quantity of 2,000 security guards was already far below actual requirements, which were increased to 10,000 and a few months before the Games again to 23,500. Many will remember that it was just a few weeks before the Games were to start when it surfaced within the media that G4S could not provide the required quantity and quality of security personnel at all.

This leaves one key question; why did it take this long to realise this sad state of affairs? Where was the oversight to monitor, track and report on progress? One thing that is clear though, is that it is vital that quality planning must be performed to establish realistic requirements.

However, it is just as vital to ensure that private security providers can respond in an effective and timely manner to an increase in manpower as a consequence of dynamic threat assessment. Ultimately though, if the Organising Committee's private security assessment is done effectively, a significant increase in private security resources should not be required.

Failure of private security providers can never be their failure alone.

The ICSS were involved in coordinating security for Euro 2012, where tensions sometimes ran high, particularly when hosts Poland met Russia

Interestingly enough, the question of private security versus Government forces performing general private security functions at sport events is quite topical, yet not a new issue. However, it is the issue of replacing Government forces with private security that is being addressed by host countries, and not the opposite.

In short, when organising a major event, if one simply sticks to the basics, then common sense should become common practice.

The International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) was recently involved in the security operations of the UEFA Euro 2012, where it witnessed the handover of the private security and stewarding functions from the police to newly established private security companies. Currently Brazil is busy planning their security arrangements for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Traditionally the Brazilian Federal Police provide the private security functions at sport events, which will gradually be transferred to private security companies.

Whatever the challenges facing the delivery of private security services for major sport events around the globe, security service providers need to be aware of the realistic requirements, be duly vetted to minimise the risk of failure, properly briefed and integrated into the organising committee's structures, planning, testing and operations.

Failure of private security providers can never be their failure alone. As the primary guarantor of public safety for major sport events, Governments and local authorities have ultimate responsibility to protect the wider public and, in the current economic climate and with many new nations looking to host major sport events, I believe that the safety and security of all those who enjoy the drama and theatre of sport should be guaranteed, whatever the cost.

Malcolm Tarbitt is the Director of Security and Risk Advisory at the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS)

On November 22 last year, I stood on a London 2012 Olympic Park that was still very much a building site.

The reason for my presence there was that London 2012 had chosen it as time and place to unveil the official uniforms for the Games Makers and Technical Officials.

My colleagues in the media and I stood patiently waiting outside the Aquatics Centre, looking towards the Olympic Stadium, when several figures began to walk up the long ramp towards us.

As they came closer, the deep purple and poppy red colour scheme became very clear as we were told that the design of the Games Maker uniform had drawn inspiration from the heritage and culture of the UK.

For my part, I thought it looked pretty good.

But I had no idea at that time that the purple and red would truly become the colour of London 2012 or that the people wearing those uniforms at the Games would embody everything that was so good about these Olympics and Paralympics.

People have often asked me since the Games what my best memory of London 2012 was. They ask me if it was attending all four Ceremonies to open and close the Games, having a front row seat for the 100 metres final, watching Michael Phelps become the greatest Olympian ever, attending the Olympic "Super Saturday" or the Paralympic "Thriller Thursday".

Obviously, they were all very special moments.

A London 2012 Games Maker directs fans to the equestrian events at Greenwich Park

But the one that sticks with me most is leaving the Olympic Park late every evening and seeing those delightful volunteers in those red and purple uniforms singing, clapping, high-fiving and wishing every spectator a safe journey home.

Their enthusiasm was so great I often wondered if all 70,000 Games Makers were force-fed a mixture of Red Bull, sugar and Prozac every morning to keep that permanent smile on their face. All the time, I remembered that these people had all given up their time free-of-charge – in the midst of a recession – just to be part of the magic that is the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

I have since read many wonderful stories about individual Games Makers who shun the limelight. There was apparently one volunteer who kindly drove a man all the way to their front door after the public transport system had closed for the night and another who bought diver Tom Daley a box of "pick 'n' mix" sweets, which the 18-year-old says turned around his performance to help him win a bronze medal.

I have even heard of a volunteer who housed the two members of the Burkina Faso Paralympic team who had no pre-Games accommodation.

Then of course, there is the amazing volunteer London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe encountered.

Dr Andrew Hartle witnessed the horror of the 7/7 London bombings but found closure by volunteering at the 2012 Olympic Games

One his way to the Games one morning, Coe sat down on a train next to volunteer Andrew Hartle, a 47-year-old doctor who had treated the victims of the London bombings on July 7, 2005.

So touched was Coe by the story, he bought Hartle along to the Main Press Centre (MPC) to explain their meeting on the train.

"I saw Lord Coe on the train and I wanted to thank him for bringing the Olympics to London, but it was more than that," explained Hartle, who worked as a volunteer doctor for boxing during the Games.

"I treated the victims of the London bombings on 7/7, and I wanted to thank him, because the Olympics have brought closure. I saw the worst of mankind that morning, and now, at London 2012, I've seen the best of mankind."

Quite rightly, the London 2012 volunteers have been recognised for their momentous contribution.

Prime Minister David Cameron has sent a thank you letter all the volunteers that worked on London 2012 in which he writes: "You have not just helped make London 2012 happen, but through the welcome and spirit you have shown, you have put a smile on the nation's face."

David Cameron (centre) greets London 2012 Games Makers at Downing Street

It comes after the Royal Mail announced last week that it will be honouring the 70,000 Games Makers with a special limited edition stamp to be released later this month.

But all of this is nothing in comparison to the unforgettable memories London 2012 has provided the volunteers.

"It was the best thing I could have done with my summer," 21-year-old Games Maker Melissa Claridge from Essex told me.

"Getting to witness and be part of the biggest show on earth has given memories I will carry with me forever.

"I had such a great time."

But what exactly is next for this army of volunteers?

The obvious next stop is Glasgow for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

The recruitment process for that begins in January 2013 and Glasgow 2014 chief executive David Grevemberg told me on his recent visit to London that his Organising Committee has already been inundated with requests.

After that, volunteers craving another taste of Summer Olympic magic could take the ambitious step of applying to become a volunteer in Rio in 2016.

Volunteers are already keen to show their interest in working at the Rio 2016 Games

Already, there is a Facebook page called "Going to Rio 2016".

It says: "This [unofficial] page is dedicated to all those of us thinking about going to Rio 2016 as either a worker or a fellow volunteer. This was sparked by the great spirit generated when I volunteered as a Games Maker for London 2012."

It is not the only Facebook page with such ambitions and numerous websites are also suggesting an exodus of London 2012 Games Makers to Rio 2016.

I have no doubt they will be welcomed with open arms by Brazil, but unfortunately sending all 70,000 Games Maker from London is rather unrealistic.

The day after London 2012 concluded, I was asked on BBC News if Rio could match London.

"They will struggle to match it," I answered honestly.

This is no criticism of Rio. It is a stunning city with stunning people and they will colour the Olympics and Paralympics with their special blend of carnival and samba.

London 2012 Games Makers join in the celebrations with a tribute to Britain's double gold medal winner at the Olympics Mo Farah

But they will struggle to match the London 2012 organisation, spectator experience and, above all, the spirit of the volunteers.

Never say never I guess; but the London 2012 volunteers set such a high bar with their warmth, friendliness and can-do spirit that it may never be matched.

That is perhaps what makes the memories of London 2012 that bit more special.

Tom Degun is a reporter for insidethegames. You can follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

It is coming up for six weeks since Britain's weekend of glory in the Olympic boxing ring. Time enough you would have thought for the fistful of fighters who departed the ExCeL with medals draped around their necks to cash them in for the brighter lights and six-figure – or more – paydays supposedly awaiting them in the professional game.

That is the usual pattern, but none have done so, and maybe some never will.

Of course, it is highly unlikely that the first female Olympic boxing champion, Nicola Adams, would even contemplate the idea. Forget all that Million Dollar Baby talk; there is no real money in women's pro boxing, even on the American and European circuits.

She is far better off trading on her deservedly newfound celebrity here, which can bring a small fortune in endorsements and sponsorship.

But it is different for gold medallists Anthony Joshua and Luke Campbell, silver medallist Fred Evans and bronze winner Anthony Ogogo.

The prize ring is a now obvious magnet for their talents, and promoters are keen to sign them. However, so far none have been sufficiently tempted to put pen to contract.

Go back four years and all three boxing medallists from Beijing, golden boy James DeGale and bronze medallists David Price and Tony Jeffries, were not slow to discard headguards and vests.

However, we are now in a changed economic climate. Except in the case of Joshua, where such is the desperation for a new heavyweight hope.

Josh virtually can name his dosh here, with the Klitschkos in Germany or Golden Boy in the United States.

Anthony Joshua has the potential to attract big offers to good to refuse

But there isn't the big up-front money around from television companies as there was when the BBC foolishly coughed up £1 million ($1.6 million/€1.2 million) for exclusive rights to Audley Harrison over a decade ago and Frank Warren's reputed seven-figure investments in Athens 2004 silver medallist Amir Khan (£2 million ($3.2 million/€2.5 million)) and DeGale (£1.8 million ($2.9 million/€2.2 million)) were backed by guaranteed income from Sky.

There could be another reason for their reluctance. And that is because the British Olympic set-up is now just as professional as the pro game. Moreover, it offers steady, well-paid employment

Most of the elite squad are on maximum Lottery funding of £27,000 ($44,000/€34,000), plus a package including accommodation and food while in training, travel expenses and all necessary kit and equipment, which provides a comfortable living estimated to be worth up to £80,000 ($130,000/€100,000) a year tax free. Plus, the opportunity of a few quid from commercial deals, like the one lightweight Campbell has been offered by a modelling agency.

Hardly a Premiership footballer's wage, but under the direction of head coach Rob McCracken, Britain's amateur boxers are well looked after both physically and financially.

Rob McCracken ensures that Britain's amateur boxers are well looked after

As they are contracted with the British Amateur Boxing Association (BABA) until March of next year, they may consider this too good an arrangement to discard.

Except Joshua. His personality, punch and potential put him in a different league attracting the proverbial offers he surely cannot refuse.

The charismatic 6 foot 6 inch Londoner is the most attractive British boxing prospect in a generation.

A genuine heavyweight with all the attributes, speed, power, technique and a decent chin, as he showed when dethroning the reigning Olympic champion, Italian copper Roberto Cammarelle.

A little fortunate maybe – but if he has luck in his corner, that's no bad thing, either.

Joshua, 23 next month, is a certainty to turn pro, probably with Warren, his most ardent promotional suitor, although it may not be until next year.

He says he is fed up with repeatedly being asked the "will-you-won't-you?" question.

"Look, I'm not blind to see what's in the papers. I know what people are saying I'm worth. But I'm not the finished article. I've only been boxing for four years and had just 43 bouts. I've so much more to learn.

"I'm contracted to GB until 2013. I'll be an amateur going into next year anyway, whatever happens."

McCracken's tutelage, he believes, is the best place in which to further nurture his talent. For the moment. The others may well feel the same.

Yet there is one factor which may determine how soon – even whether – London's larrupers turn pro.

Four years ago, it was the anticipated departure of popular coach Terry Edwards that accelerated the Beijing three's decision to defect.

The departure of Derek Mapp from BABA may see Team GB's boxers leave the amateur world for pro careers

Now there are rumours about hierarchical changes in the BABA set-up that could see the departure of chairman Derek Mapp. It would be disquieting if these were true, as he is a principal architect of the state-of-the-art set-up in Sheffield, which has helped make Britain the envy of the amateur boxing world.

It may be too, that there is another nagging thought at the back of the minds of the Olympians. It is that standing on the Games rostrum is no guarantee of similar glory in the professional ring.

There were 226 boxing gold medallists in the 16 post-war Olympics that preceded 2012. Many of them elected to punch for pay but only 29 eventually became world champions, over a third of them in the heavyweight division.

These have famously included Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Lennox Lewis and Wladimir Klitschko.

While lightweight runner-up Khan went on to win world titles, none of Britain's five gold medallists of the last 56 years have done so.

Flyweight Terry Spinks never fought for one, lightweight Dick McTaggart never turned pro, middleweight Chris Finnegan lost gallantly to Bob Foster, "Fraudley" Harrison's lamentable heavyweight challenge to David Haye remains eminently forgettable and the jury is still out on middleweight "Chunky" DeGale, the current European champion whose 14-fight pro career seems to have reached an impasse.

So there's a puncher's chance we may still see all Team GB's heroes battling it out in Rio in 2016. Although I'd be reluctant to bet on it.

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.