But every now and again something happens which restores one's faith in the international sports community’s power to do good.

This story begins in August last year with the Taliban’s retaking of Kabul.

This put a lot of people in immediate danger - including those who in previous years had been advancing the cause of women’s sport in the country.

On September 4, I received an email from a man called Ahmad Roman Abasy.

As you can imagine, we get a lot of unexpected emails in our line of work; most, I am afraid, end up in trash.

But, quite apart from the desperate message, there was something so ringingly authentic about the missive that I realised it needed to be taken with the utmost seriousness.

I mean, Abasy included 12 links and no fewer than 19 pdfs to support what he was saying; I don’t think you would do that if you weren’t genuine and in real trouble.

The gist of what he said was this:

He was an international-level taekwondo athlete who had also been battling to improve the rights of the country’s athletes, male and female.

The email went on:

"It has been two weeks since Afghanistan fell to the Taliban.

"My family and I are under serious threat because of my sports medals and for defending the rights of Afghan athletes.

"With the advent of the Taliban, not only have all my sports honors and aspirations come to an end, but I have also lost hope of continuing to play sports and live in Afghanistan…

"I’m hopeless and terrified from the situation that will lead me to death.

"Please consider my request of protection as a humanitarian act toward the sports community."

One of the pdfs was his identity card for the Incheon 2014 Asian Games in South Korea.

It was a simple enough matter to check that "Ahmad Roman Abasi" had won a bronze medal in taekwondo in the men’s 63 kilograms category, beating opponents from Kyrgyzstan, Yemen and India to attain the semi-finals.

I did the only thing I really could do, which was to forward Abasy’s email to those senior sports leaders who I felt were best-placed to help.

These things take time, something Abasy understandably felt he and his family could not afford.

Two days later, another email arrived, thanking me, while adding ominously: "I am changing my location with my family continuously because Taliban came to my house and asked about me since I raised my voice in a National and International level for the Afghan girl athletes rights which is completely against the interest of Talibans."

Another two days, and we exchange several further emails, including one where Abasy warns, "the situation here in Afghanistan is getting worse day by day".

By this time, however, the necessary wheels are starting to turn, notably in Australia.

On September 9, Abasy tells me he has "just lodged for the Humanitarian visa and also forwarded to the Australian Olympic", and by September 15 he has "received the case number for the Australian Government and am waiting for further process".

This was within eleven days of that distressing initial email.

Things then quietened down as, I assumed, the necessary arrangements were being made to get Abasy and his family away to safety.

This was until reports alleging the killing of a member of the Afghanistan women’s youth volleyball team - started to circulate.

On October 21 Abasy again emailed me to say that "more than ever" he and his family were under "serious threat", with his life "in real danger".

He went on: "It has been almost two months that me and my family are away from our house and hidden in one of our family houses.

"Stress and anxiety have worried me day by day."

I knew by this time that Australian authorities were working hard on this and other cases, so I said what I could by way of reassurance, while being under little illusion as to how inadequate my words probably sounded.

We exchanged Christmas greetings, and then in February - Hallelujah - I received word that visas for Abasy and his family would most probably be granted.

There were still tense months ahead, and what must have been an extraordinarily nerve-racking and in some ways melancholy journey out of the country, but in late June the long-awaited message came through: Abasy and six other family members had been evacuated to Sydney.

This is not of course the end of the family’s efforts to rebuild their lives in what must seem a profoundly alien, if friendly, environment.

They are currently residing in temporary houses in Sydney, and Abasy tells me he has not yet been able to start exercising or training and does not know how he will be able to work to support his family.

But, thanks to the considerable efforts of the Australian Olympic Committee and others, they are safe.

The fellowship and sense of shared responsibility that international sport is capable of forging has, on this occasion, come up trumps, to the great credit of all involved.

As with most of the millions of displaced people who preceded them in human history, nobody can restore to the Abasy family what they had built for themselves before the dreaded, and terrifyingly abrupt, return to power of religious fundamentalism in their country.

When I ask Abasy if he hopes to return to Afghanistan one day, he replies bleakly: "I have no hope of returning to Kabul anytime soon.

"Going to Kabul and if you are detected, it is suicide.

"In the future, it is difficult and impossible for me to imagine that I will go to Kabul one day."

I also ask him for his message to the West about what has happened in Afghanistan.

It is worth repeating word for word.

He said: "Values like democracy, human rights, elections, freedom of speech and press, gender equality, the right to education and sports for men and women, etc., for which you invested billions of dollars in Afghanistan for 20 years, ended in one night with your departure.

"Now there are millions of girls who don't have the right to go to school and are crying in the corner of the house; millions of people are at risk of poverty and hunger; a free woman does not have a veil and a man does not have the right to shave his beard; lots of people are fleeing and forced to migrate, and millions of people are not living in the world’s biggest prison called 'Afghanistan Prison', but they are alive.

"The West did not have such a historical experience that the people of Afghanistan have today, even in the Middle Ages."

A fate worse than returning to the Middle Ages; just think about that.

Afghanistan has not gone away, even if the Western news cycle has moved on to problems closer to home.

It is a sobering end to an uplifting story that illuminates just a fragment of the good which international sport is capable of.