Sport and fair play go together like peanut butter and jelly. We speak of playing on a level playing field, we worry about doping, match fixing, diving and flopping, of cheating, all in the name of "fairness".

For women athletes, the unobtainable quest for absolute fairness has profound consequences, leading to shaming, invasive medical examinations, lurid speculation, mutilating surgery, and more. In the following paragraphs, I'll share some thoughts on how an obsession for "fairness" has lead to this deplorable state of affairs, and why it's time to admit failure.

The latest victim of the current International Olympic Committee (IOC)/International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) gender policy is Dutee Chand, an Indian sprinter banned from the 2014 Commonwealth Games because her natural testosterone levels are too high.

For Buckingham Palace in October read Celtic Park in July as Chris Hoy again delivered the Commonwealth Games Baton to the Queen at the opening of Glasgow 2014. When the Baton began its journey, Commonwealth Games Federation President Prince Imran struggled to insert the message. Some nine months later the text proved equally difficult to extract. To loud cheers from spectators it finally came loose.

Prince Imran described his attempts to open the Queen's baton as "As a great comedy act."

"There was a button to press, but it was a bit higher than it had been when we practised...It was my fault, I knew exactly what to do," he added. "I just saw it on TV for the first time and it raised a laugh and that is what it is all about."

In her address, the Queen said: "The Baton represents a calling together of people from every part of the Commonwealth and serves as a reminder of our shared ideals and ambitions. You remind us that young people make up half our Commonwealth citizens and it is to you we entrust our values and our future."

The Baton proved to be unwilling to release the Queen's message as Prince Imran attempted to get to it ©Getty Images




There were echoes of the 2012 Olympic Torch relay in the final journey of the Baton, but whereas London 2012 used a speedboat driven by David Beckham, the Loch Lomond sea plane flew above the Clyde. When it landed, Scottish long distance cyclist Mark Beaumont carried the Baton. The finale of the Baton relay drew from the Olympic Torch relay of 2012. This time grass roots volunteers were asked to participate. Hoy's own great uncle and inspiration, Andy Coogan, was the penultimate carrier before Sir Chris himself set off up the stars to meet the Queen.

At the third time of asking, a Commonwealth Games in Scotland had finally begun in weather befitting the occasion. Glasgow's big opening night had a magnificent  Celtic medley performed by entertainers Karen Dunbar and John Barrowman. Their musical journey across Scotland included a representation of golf at the Royal and Ancient, Scotch Whisky and the highlands and islands. Within moments they had banished forever any lingering memories of the unhappy Edinburgh Games of 1986, the last time they were held on Scottish soil. Amy Macdonald and Rod Stewart kept up the pace.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh arrived  in traditional style by limousine to the pipes and drums of the Scottish Regiments and were greeted by Prince Imran, Glasgow 2014 President Lord Smith of Kelvin and Michael Cavanagh, chairman of Commonwealth Games Scotland.

The national anthem was sung by Robert Lovie who led the Braemar ensemble.

As in Melbourne at the 2006 Games the nations entered by region, with 2010 hosts India leading the parade. In the Commonwealth Games, the most recent host nation leads the parade of nations. They were followed by the other Asian nations, then Oceania, Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas and Europe.

Each team was accompanied by a dog walker leading a Scottish terrier. Animals have formed part of the Commonwealth Games ceremony since 1990 when New Zealand rider Mark Todd came in on his famous mount Charisma and an elephant called Mahkota began the final journey of the baton in 1998.

A Scottish terrier led each team into Celtic Park during the Opening Ceremony
©AFP/Getty Images



At the 1986 Games in Edinburgh, Bermuda had been undecided whether to join a boycott. At the 11th hour they had raced to the stadium and marched in the Opening Ceremony out of sequence just before host nation Scotland, but they later withdrew from the Games. Here they took their place amongst the teams from the Americas and wore the traditional shorts which have become their trademark. Some members of the Barbados team also delighted the crowds by wearing kilts.

As each region made its entry, a film reflecting the work of UNICEF in each continent flashed onto the big screen. Sir Chris Hoy introduced a report on a project in Malawi. When their team arrived in the stadium, they received a thunderous reception, reflecting the close ties between Malawi and Scotland since the missionary and humanitarian David Livingstone first visited the country in the mid 19th century.

Sir Chris was later joined by actor James McAvoy to explain how spectators and television viewers could donate to UNICEF. This was the initiative of Lord Puttnam, who believes that it could catch on with other big sporting events. Appropriately, Puttnam had produced Chariots of Fire, which tells the story of the great Scottish runner Eric Liddell. Puttnam had originally suggested the idea for use at the Olympic Games. Film star Ewan McGregor and India's great cricketer Sachin Tendulkar gave their backing .

"I can't imagine that this idea won't be picked up and used at every major event," said Puttnam.

The faces of young people from all over the world flashed on to the screen. Their voices combined to form a virtual choir.This idea had first been seen at the 1998 Winter Olympics, choirs from different continents were conducted by Seiji Ozawa from the stadium in Nagano.

People around the Commonwealth were asked to donate to UNICEF'S Children of the Commonwealth Fund ©Getty Images



Nicola Benedetti had followed in the footsteps of Sir Yehudi Menuhin by leading a  violin ensemble at the opening of a Commonwealth Games in Scotland. They played Loch Lomond, a wonderfully appropriate way to welcome the Games flag. The colour party was drawn from all parts of the Commonwealth and included Kip Keino, 1500 champion at the 1970 Edinburgh Games.

The wording of the traditional oath had been unchanged for  60 years before Glasgow but now organisers have introduced wording which is taken by the athlete, judge and coach.

"We will show the world the values of our Commonwealth are ideals in which we all believe."

At the Olympics, there are three separate oaths.

Philip Barker has worked as a television journalist for 25 years. He began his career with Trans World Sport, then as a reporter for Skysports News and the ITV breakfast programme. A regular Olympic pundit on BBC Radio, Sky News and Talksport, he is associate editor of the Journal of Olympic History, has lectured at the National Olympic Academy and contributed extensively to Team GB publications. His latest book, Lord's First: 200 Years of Making History at Lord's Cricket Ground, has recently been published. To follow him on Twitter click here.

Twenty-eight years, almost to the day, after the last Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony to be held in Scotland, the Glasgow 2014 celebrations could hardly have offered a more propitious contrast.

Whereas Edinburgh 1986 had marching bands in tartan, Glasgow 2014 had marching bands in tartan. Whereas Edinburgh 1986 had the Loch Ness Monster, Glasgow 2014 had the Loch Ness Monster. OK. It's Scotland, what do you want?

But whereas Edinburgh 1986 had a lone piper on the ramparts of its Castle, Glasgow 2014 had John Barrowman disporting himself with habitual verve and showmanship from the top of a notional bus and leading a quirky Scots intro along with singer Karen Dunbar which managed to celebrate a host - to use an appropriate term - of national icons, including those very tasty Tunnock's Tea Cakes wrapped in silver and red foil.

John Borrowman and Karen Dunbar get the Glasgow 2014 welcome party off to a swing at Celtic Park ©Getty Images


Which as any reader of Wikipedia will now be able to tell you, were originally produced by Thomas Tunnock at his family bakery in Uddingston, South Lanarkshire.

And whereas Edinburgh 1986 didn't have little Scottish Terriers trotting in front of each of the national teams, Glasgow 2014 DID. Please let this become a trend. What dog might teams expect to lead them into the stadium ahead of the Rio 2016 Olympics, I wonder? Perhaps a Brazilian Terrier would be a good choice - distant relation of Jack Russell Terriers which were brought to Brazil from Europe in the 1880s?

Pakistan's team is preceded at the Glasgow 2014 Opening Ceremony by - a Scottie dog! Genius. ©AFP/Getty Images

Brazilian Terriers are said to be very alert, perky and intelligent. Probably a better bet than the Brazilian Mastiff, which has been banned in many countries because of its size, temperament and potential for aggression. Apparently when slavery was legal in Brazil, Mastiffs were used to return escapees to their owners. Definitely Terriers then.

Most gloriously for the thousands of spectators watching on large screens around the city, whereas Edinburgh 1986 had clouds and rain, Glasgow 2014 had bright sunlight shading into a warm and welcoming evening. A warm welcome to the world in every sense.

When the Duke of Edinburgh opened the 13th Commonwealth Games on July 24, 1986 the weather was as gloomy and overcast as the prevailing mood, given that 31 of the 59 nations able to compete had chosen to boycott in protest at Britain's refusal to agree to major economic sanctions against the then apartheid nation of South Africa. Only half the world turned up to this rather mournful party.

Among those who never got the chance to show what they could do in the Scottish capital were Kenya's outstanding middle distance runners Joseph Chesire - who represented his country over 1500 metres at three Olympics - and Sammy Koskei, whose African 800m record in 1984 of 1 min 42.28sec stood for 25 years until a certain fellow countryman named David Rudisha (and yes, glory be, he will be competing at these Games) broke it in 2009.

Would Koskei have given England's Steve Cram a run for his money over two laps in the Meadowbank Stadium. Cram, who won the 800m in 1:43.22 and the 1500m in 3:50.87, was in superb form following his world record-breaking efforts of the previous year. But it would certainly have made for absorbing viewing.

Steve Cram waves during the 1986 Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony, with Steve Redgrave, who would pick up three rowing golds, in front of him ©Getty Images

Such are the questions, doomed never to be answered, which sporting boycotts pose.

So they won't now be knocking down tower blocks in the "Red Road" for the Opening Ceremony for Glasgow 2014, but whatever happens at Celtic Park tonight will surely set the tone for the entire Games.

The show is in the hands of the events company Jack Morton World Wide. They were responsible for launching Athens 2004 and also produced Manchester and Melbourne's Opening Ceremonies.

It's all a far cry from the "suitable programme of display items" which used to be laid down in the Commonwealth Games constitution.

It will certainly be light years away from Scotland's  last in  Edinburgh 28 years ago.  The 13th Commonwealth Games were ill fated, beset with crippling financial difficulties and a major political boycott which saw half the member countries stay away.

It was less than two years after David Wolper's spectacular Olympic tour de force in Los Angeles and although produced by the BBC, the Ceremony suffered by comparison, though in fairness it had a fraction of the budget.

The Opening Ceremony of the Edinburgh 1986 Commonwealth Games paled into comparison with the Los Angeles 1984 Olympics, but it did have a fraction of the budget ©Getty Images



The parade of nations was even hit by a late snag. At the dress rehearsal, television cameras found their shots obscured by sun light so the whole march-in was hastily switched to the other end of the stadium. It was somehow typical of these Games that the problem had been discovered so late. In fact precautions to combat sunlight proved unnecessary on a grey evening.

When the teams did arrive, the choice of Canadian flagbearer was particularly unfortunate in the light of later events. Carrying the Maple Leaf flag was none other than Ben Johnson.

The Ceremony had begun with a welcome from a lone piper on the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle, before hundreds of schoolchildren raced down the Royal Mile into the Meadowbank Stadium. Prince Philip, then President of the Commonwealth Games Federation, was invited to inspect the soldiers of the Black Watch in a Ceremony which retained a military feel.

A "Commonwealth Pageant" saw the arrival of floats representing in turn Oceania, complete with speedboat, five very cold water skiers and mechanical dolphins, Africa, decorated with six giant masks and a volcano to depict the origin of the Great Rift Valley.  A giant Polar Bear symbolised the Americas and a Giant Palm tree swung into view to offer a flavour of the Caribbean. A huge peacock for the exotic colours of Asia and a European float was in black and white.

Then stadium announcer, veteran Scottish rugby commentator Bill McLaren announced: "One lady wasn't going to miss out on the fun.... Nessie!" As a giant green "Loch Ness Monster" entered the arena.

Nessie apart, the 1986 Ceremony bore striking similarities to that of the 1970 Games with displays by the massed pipe bands and Scottish country dancing. Even the tartan was similar. The great violinist Sir Yehudi Menuhin, a freeman of Edinburgh, clearly relished the chance to play some Scottish reels.

Edinburgh 1986 bore striking similarities to the Opening Ceremony in the Scottish capital 16 years earlier ©Getty Images



Sprinter Allan Wells, a young volunteer in 1970, brought the baton into the stadium in 1986. He was escorted by athletes Lackie Stewart, Rosemary Stirling, Rosemary Payne, and Ian Stewart, boxer Tom Imrie and fencer Sandy Leckie.  All had been gold medallists at Edinburgh's other Games in 1970.

High winds had threatened a parachute jump by the Royal Marines. They jumped right on the limit. The Scottish Saltire, carried by champion jumper Jackie Smith, arrived right on schedule.

Four years before, a jump to the stadium in Brisbane had been cancelled because of the wind. The display was masterminded by Ric Birch, later to produce Sydney's stunning Olympic opening in 2000.

A giant Kangaroo called Matilda provided one of the great visual images of the ceremony, but the musical accompaniment was a performance that Brisbane would now prefer to forget. A specially adapted version of "Tie me Kangaroo down Sport" was performed by Rolf Harris.

By then, every Commonwealth Games opening had become a huge production number.

As part of the television presentation for Auckland 1990, the audience saw pre-recorded segments which showed the arrival by canoe of the Queen's baton in Auckland harbour that morning and traditional Maori rituals.

New Zealand equestrian champion Mark Todd rode his famous horse Charisma as he carried the baton into the Mount Smart stadium. Though he passed it to runner Peter Snell before it reached the dais, Todd's very appearance had set a precedent. His sport of eventing was not part of the Games and hitherto the rules had called for a former Commonwealth medallist to end the relay.

In 1994 the Games were in Victoria, British Columbia, and the Queen arrived to open in a McLauchlin Buick, made for her father King George VI when he visited Canada in 1939. Representatives of the Coast Salish first nation presented her with a welcome figure "a talisman of peace and harmony."

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh arrived in style for the Opening Ceremony of Victoria 1994 ©Getty Images



The show included a demonstration of the traditional Iroquois game of Lacrosse before Her Majesty entered a First Nation "Big House" to read her address and open the Games.

Since 1998, every major Opening night has been just that. The darkness enables theatrical lighting to be used to its greatest effect. As with the Olympic ceremonies, the "protocol elements" must be woven seamlessly into the Ceremony.

The flags of past, present and future hosts are raised and as at the Olympics a ceremonial Games flag is hoisted. It was originally trooped with military precision by soldiers but often athletes now form the colour party. The flag has changed too. Gone is the elegant Royal blue standard with a gold crown and chain to demonstrate the links binding the Commonwealth. In 2002, this was replaced by a new white banner .The new crest "The Bar" was designed to embody "Humanity, Equality and Destiny" representing "the trinity of ideals the Games embraces".

In the early years, the athlete's oath reflected ties to the mother country Great Britain.

"We declare that we are all loyal subjects of His Majesty the King "was how the oath began in the early days. This was taken whilst grasping the British flag.

By the time shooter Abhinav Bindra did so in 2010 he took hold of the flag of India.

"We shall take part in the Commonwealth Games in the true spirit of sportsmanship, recognising the rules which govern them and desirous of participating in them for the honour of our Commonwealth and the glory of sport."

The competitor chosen this week will be the third Scot to take the oath. In 1970, it was high jumper Crawford Fairbrother and in 1986, runner Anne Purvis.

This ritual used to follow the official opening but in recent years organisers have changed the order. It now takes place much earlier in the ceremony.

The parade of the teams is always keenly awaited. Organisers try to balance the wish for every team to get its moment in the limelight with time constraints. In Melbourne 2006, teams entered by continent rather than in strict alphabetical order. In Glasgow they have tried to encourage as many athletes as possible to attend. The village is within walking distance of Celtic Park.

Countries walked out in continent order during the parade of nations at Melbourne 2006 ©Getty Images



2010 hosts India will be the first nation in this time and Scotland bring up the rear of the procession. Their uniforms have caused controversy but this should come as no surprise. It has gone with the territory of Opening Ceremony wear ever since Harold Abrahams fumed about his 1924 Olympic threads as "Ghastly ill fitting team gear made of shoddy material".

At the 1970 Opening Ceremony in Edinburgh it was the England women who were at the centre of a row. They were issued with Green outfits that they considered unflattering. This was after all the era of the mini skirt. Some threatened to trim them to mini length. In turn team officials threatened them with expulsion from the Ceremony if they did so. The veteran sports writer Donald Saunders told his readers in the Daily Telegraph that the dresses "had a touch of the maiden art about them".

Those Games were the first to be attended by the Queen but the Games have had a royal opening since 1958. Prince Philip piloted himself into Cardiff to read a message from the Queen which for the first time had been carried by relay runners. He then performed the formal opening.

Cardiff's organisers announced that "Although it is recognised that the Opening Ceremony needs no supplement being most moving and spectacular, it was considered reasonable that some additional programme might be appended, typical of the life of Wales as the Land of Song."

So a choir of mass voices accompanied by the Band of the Welsh Guards were chosen "to render a programme of choral singing".

This included "Cydganeb Pawb", the composition of the conductor Morgan Nicholas and originally written for wartime evacuees from Gordonstoun school (The Duke's own alma mater).

Since 1958 the only Games not opened by a member of the British Royal family were those in Kuala Lumpur when the ritual was performed by Tuanku Ja'afar, the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong (King of Malaysia). This was the only time the declaration was not made in English. After his speech he beat a ceremonial gong, another first.

In the last 20 years, the Queen has opened all but two Commonwealth Games. 2002 marked 50 years since her accession . The organisers in Manchester wanted something special.

Kirsty Howard and David Beckham presented the baton to the Queen at the Manchester 2002 Opening Ceremony ©Getty Images



"She had only ever attended the opening or the closing of the Games however it was felt appropriate that in her Jubilee year, the Queen should attend both."

Sir Steve Redgrave launched the Games by beating a huge drum, the gift of previous hosts Kuala Lumpur.

Dignitaries arrived in black cabs and performers dressed in the colours of Manchester United and Manchester City demonstrated their skills on the ball.

As the Ceremony came to its climax, a balloon appeared above the stadium. Suspended below was acrobat Lindsay Butcher with the Queen's baton which she handed to heptathlon champion Denise Lewis waiting on stage. Great Commonwealth champions joined the relay on this climatic leg before David Beckham appeared in a brilliant white tracksuit adorned with the British flag. He was joined by Kirsty Howard, a youngster with a serious heart condition. He had befriended her when she had been the mascot to the England football team. Together they presented the baton.

At Melbourne 2006, Youth Ambassador Harry White also greeted the Queen.

"You are the glue that has held us all together in the great Commonwealth of nations," he said.

Then Dame Kiri Te Kanawa sang Happy Birthday in anticipation of the Her Majesty's 80th later in the year.

In Delhi four years ago, it fell to Prince Charles to read the Queen's message and open the Games. After this, an adjustment to the protocol allowed Indian President Pratibha Patil to speak. "Let the Games begin," she said.

In Glasgow, the Ceremony will be slightly different but the sentiment will be the same. "Bring it on!"

Philip Barker has worked as a television journalist for 25 years. He began his career with Trans World Sport, then as a reporter for Skysports News and the ITV breakfast programme. A regular Olympic pundit on BBC Radio, Sky News and Talksport, he is associate editor of the Journal of Olympic History, has lectured at the National Olympic Academy and contributed extensively to Team GB publications. His latest book, Lord's First: 200 Years of Making History at Lord's Cricket Ground, has recently been published. To follow him on Twitter click here.

Women and politics. A recurring theme in Britain today, first at Westminster last week where prime minister David Cameron's "Petticoat Revolution" infused a distinct feminine flavour into to his Cabinet and now in Glasgow, where the Commonwealth Games are set to be dominated by girl power and political posturing.

First the ladies. Or rather, ladies first. As in London's Olympics, women will be very much to the fore when the medals are handed out. Sporting equality, or as near as dammit, has arrived in force and is here to stay. Hooray for that.

Despite the late withdrawal of England's injured prize athletic asset Katarina Johnson-Thompson, currently the world's leading heptathlete, and the absence of mum-to-be Jessica Ennis-Hill, the 2012 poster girl, there is sufficient female talent now assembling in Glasgow to make the men the also-rans in the race for the podium.

Never more so than in the so-called "power" sports like boxing, wrestling, taekwondo, judo and weightlifting, once the preserve of male might.

Yes, there's Mo Farah, Sir Bradley Wiggins, and a fleeting glimpse of Usain Bolt, but much focus will be on names such as weightlifters Zoe Smith, 15-year-old Rebekah Tyler, the returning Welsh powerhouse Michaela Breeze, a two-times Games gold medallist, wrestlers Yana Rattigan and Chloe Spitteri, taekwondo's Jade Jones, a golden star of 2012, and judo's Gemma Gibbons, whom so poignantly won our hearts and a silver medal in London.

Judoka Gemma Gibbons is among the female names in the so-called power sports set to capture the attention in Glasgow ©Getty Images



And in the boxing ring the main attractions will not be the men, now shorn of headguards and fighting under a pro-style 10 points scoring system, but the women, making their Games debut.

Certainly as far as England are concerned.  Save for Welshman Fred Evans, all of Team GB's male Olympic medal winners - Anthony Joshua,Luke Campbell and Anthony Ogogo - have turned pro, along with team captain Tom Stalker, leaving the women as the dominant force in the sport

The three English women are all gold medal prospects. Olympic champion Nicola Adams, of course (though she has done a bit of a Tom Daley and been distracted by the celeb circuit, recently losing her European title fight); Savannah Marshall, current world middleweight champion from Hartlepool, called the Silent Assassin because of her shyness and phenomenal punching power; and glamorous Liverpudlian Natasha Jonas who looks more suited to the catwalk rather than the ringwalk.

This trio of tigresses, allied to the many female stars from overseas and those of the host nation such as European 800 metres champion Lynsey Sharp, will captivate the crowds and, hopefully, divert attention from the political fun and games that will provide a worrying backdrop to the sporting dramas.

Some say the Commonwealth Games are an anachronism. If that's so, then so is the Commonwealth itself.

The United States, continental Europe, the Middle East, large chunks of Africa and the Orient, including the sporting powerhouses of China and Japan, couldn't give a caber's toss about Glasgow's showpiece.

To them it is just a cosy garden party - one of sport's village fetes. An insignificant little brother to the Olympics.

Yet here's an irony. America may not give a damn about Glasgow 2014 but one of their number is actually in charge of it - and when it finishes he'll be running the whole Commonwealth Games shooting match. Ex-wrestler David Grevemberg, a native of New Orleans, is Glasgow 2014 chief executive and in November he will take over from departing New Zealander Mike Hooper as head honcho of the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF). Apparently he beat three British rivals for the job.

Glasgow 2014 chief executive David Grevemberg will head the Commonwealth Games Federation from November ©Getty Images



It's certainly a funny old sporting world.

It will be even more so if, as many suspect, these Games are such a success that they become a principal factor for a "yes" vote when Scotland holds its let's-go-it-alone referendum for independence on September 18, cannily timed to be close to the Games.

No doubt Grevemberg, wearing both his Glasgow 2014 and pending Federation hats, will be keeping an anxious eye on the antics of the man sitting close by in the Royal Box at tomorrow night's Opening Ceremony.

Can Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond be trusted not to turn the evening - indeed the entire Games - into a political rally?

The CGF have tacitly warned that there must be no politicking but no-one is more aware than Salmond how much Scotland, and thus his own cause, might benefit from the London bounce.

A 2012-style feelgood factor will do the Independence campaign no harm at all.

So will he be able to keep unfurled the blue and white Saltire which he waved so enthusiastically when Andy Murray won Wimbledon last year?

Don't bet on it. This Salmond will be leaping.

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond knows a successful Games will do his hopes of Scotland gaining independence no harm ©Getty Images



Not that politics are unknown in the Commonwealth Games. In the past they have endured almost as much of it as the Olympics.

They are certainly no stranger to governmental interference, drugs scandals, even boycotts.

Ironically the last time Scotland hosted a Commonwealth Games, in Edinburgh in 1986, 35 of the 59 eligible nations boycotted in protest at the reluctance of the Thatcher government to tackle apartheid.

Compounded by mismanagement, financial chaos which cost the city millions and the ludicrous pantomime intervention of the Bouncing Czech, the fraudulent Robert Maxwell, as a so-called saviour, they were an unmitigated disaster.

This time things have been far better organised, are said to be within the £563 million ($959 million/€712 million) budget.

The Scots have cheerily patched up the wounds of several big-name athletes pulling out and are set to stage a show that, while it might not emulate London, will be a credit to a proud nation, with most of the 17 sports sold out.

And if Salmond gets his way Rio 2016 could see Team Scotland competing as an independent nation. Such an eventuality would need to be fast-tracked by the International Olympic Committee but precedence suggests they would be compliant as they were with Montenegro for Beijing 2008.

Team Scotland could be walking out into the Maracanã during the Opening Ceremony of the Rio 2016 Olympics, if a "yes" vote is the resounding response of the independence referendum ©Getty Images



Although banners containing political slogans will be banned, Scotland's 310 athletes, like all others, will be free to express their own views if asked, although they have been requested to be prudent.

How many will wish to do so is questionable. Certainly few outside the Scottish team seem bothered - Mo Farah said he did not even realise there was a referendum.

Some Scottish athletes are known to be in favour, others against -especially those who benefit from training bases in England and Team GB's liberally-funded facilities.

One who, like Scotland's (indeed Britain's) most decorated Olympian, Sir Chris Hoy, challenges the nationalist declaration that an independent Scotland would be better off with its own Olympics team is the 2012 badminton doubles silver medallist Imogen Bankier. "I just don't think people should be in favour of independence because they've seen Braveheart," she remarked sagely.

It is not a sentiment that will be encouraged by Mr Salmond. Let's hope he is constantly reminded that political posturing is for the hustings, not the podium, and that Glasgow's "village fete" will turn out to be a truly memorable party unspoiled by politics.

Big Brother is watching.

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

A conversation which came up last night, and for a curious reason seems to rather dominate dinnertime discussions at insidethegames, concerned the question of whether we, if put in the shoes of some of the world's top athletes, would consider resorting to doping?

While the automatic answer I am tempted to make is always a resolute no, what if we had put 100 per cent effort into training through whatever legal means possible only to be thwarted by someone you are virtually certain has dabbled in the dark arts, time and time again? Even if we were in the position of most Tour de France cyclists over the last few decades, for example, or of British sprinter Dwain Chambers before he eventually resorted to doping?

The journalistic comparison I have used before concerns phone hacking, and if whether you were continually beaten to a scoop by a rival using these means, leaving your career and reputation at stake, whether you would be tempted to join them.

But rather than begin another great diatribe about doping, it got me thinking more generally about what it takes to achieve what must be the hardest and most fundamental task in sport: winning.

The fact that sport invariably ends in either victory or defeat makes the margins much finer than in other walks of life, and that is why athletes have to find every means to succeed, be they technical, tactical or pharmaceutical.

Sometimes winning can be relatively easy. Although no other match would be as straightforward and effortless as their semi-final romp over Brazil, the Germans in the FIFA World Cup had the strongest team and always appeared destined to triumph. The same could be said regarding the Italian rider Vincenzo Nibali in the ongoing edition of the Tour de France, following the injuries that put paid to his foremost rivals Chris Froome and Alberto Contador.

Vincenzo Nibali's path to winning the Tour de France has been made easier by the misfortune suffered by his rivals ©AFP/Getty Images



But this is not often the case.

Take the England cricket team for instance. Once upon a time not so long ago the team were dominant, and in Alastair Cook had an opening batsman heralded as one of the greatest crafter of runs in the sport. Even in 2013 they still won, even if a subtle eye would have realised they were no longer playing much better than their rivals.

This was because they knew how to win a game of cricket.

But following the inevitable deluge of players and confidence that followed a 5-0 Test Series defeat to their staunchest foes Australia, the team have well and truly lost this habit. Although they have been on an even keel with both Sri Lanka and India this summer, and had chances to win every match so far, they have yet to win a single one. And today's collapse from a potentially winnable position that precipitated their defeat today at Lord's smacked of a team short on confidence.

Yes, there are problems with form and ability, as well as with the captaincy skills of the once insurmountable Cook. But more than anything else it is this loss of confidence and know-how to win that is the problem.

England's cricket team have seemingly lost the ability to win after suffering another defeat today ©Getty Images



Sometimes it can be out of your hands, and even when preparation is seemingly perfect, such as with Froome before his multiple crashes on the cobbles of Mons-en-Pévèle, it can go horribly wrong.

Football's World Cup is always held in the same year but the sport has never been included in the Commonwealth Games. Yet, three of the most revered football arenas in Glasgow - Celtic Park, Ibrox and Hampden Park - will all play an important part in this year's event. 

A century ago, events staged at other famous football grounds paved the way for the foundation of what became known as "the Friendly Games".

As early as 1891 an Englishman called Astley Cooper had suggested a "Pan Britannic festival" only for his suggestions to fall on deaf ears.

In the new century, London staged the Olympic Games for the first time. The 1908 Games, opened by King Edward VII, were the longest in history. Within two years England had a new monarch, George V and in 1911, a grand "Festival of Empire" was planned in  London to mark his coronation. As part of the great celebrations there was to be an Inter-Empire sports competition. This was to be staged at Crystal Palace, the stadium which was the home of the FA Cup Final, showpiece of the English football season.

Competition at the Festival took place in athletics, swimming, boxing and wrestling and was contested by teams from the United Kingdom, Canada and Australasia, a combined Australian and New Zealand squad. The Organising Committee included Lord Desborough, mastermind of those 1908 Olympics.

A tennis competition was also planned but organisational problems meant that it never got off the ground.

The Wimbledon champion and future Olympic medallist, a New Zealander called Tony Wilding, was ready to take on all comers. They never did come and he returned sadly to his college without raising his racquet in anger, though he did win Olympic bronze in Stockholm the following year. It would be a century before tennis finally made its Commonwealth Games debut at Delhi 2010, only to be dropped for Glasgow 2014 when the competitors might have included Scotland's Andy Wimbledon. 

At Crystal Palace, the Canadians set the pace.Sprinter Frank Halbhaus, who won both the 100 and 220 yards, setting them on their way to overall victory. To mark their success they received a trophy, standing two foot six inches high and weighing 340 ounces, presented by Lord Lonsdale.

"Lasting good will be the outcome of our participation," wrote Richard Coombes  the Australasian team manager.

The "Festival of Empire", an early forerunner to the Commonwealth Games, was held at Crystal Palace in 1911 to celebrate the accession of George V to the throne ©Wikipedia

There was certainly an appetite for sport within the Empire and in 1912 the cricketers of England, Australia and South Africa met in England to contest a "Triangular Series". The three nations had been founder members of the ICCl which, in those days, stood for "Imperial Cricket Conference". Rain ruined that particular experiment. Although the weather was much better at the Stockholm Olympics, the British did not perform which caused consternation. Some even suggested that Britain should withdraw from the Olympics altogether.

A terrible World War followed in which many Olympians lost their lives. When the Games resumed in Antwerp in 1920 Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa all competed in their own right. After the Games, they joined forces for a special challenge match against the United States at Queen's Club in West London.

The organisation owed much to two distinguished Olympians, Philip Noel Baker and Arnold Strode Jackson. It was exactly 300 years since the Mayflower had taken the Pilgrim Fathers to America. "There is an appropriateness of date which makes this contest between  the champions of the two branches of the English-speaking peoples more than an athletic duel," said an editorial in The Times.

The crowds were huge and many were locked outside. It was even claimed  that many who did make it inside failed to see much of the competition. Some only heard the sound of the starting pistol, it was reported. This had been borrowed from a theatrical prop store and arrived just in time for the first race. 

It helped that the teams were well matched and the contest itself finished in a tie. The Times described as a "great afternoon worth ten Olympics." Then the athletes and officials made their way to the ImperialHotel in Russell Square for the inevitable celebratory banquet.

The whole enterprise had been such a success that it was repeated after the 1924 Olympics in Paris. Queen's Club had proved far too small so this time, the match was staged at Chelsea's football ground, Stamford Bridge.

Many had read about the exploits of the great stars at the "Chariots of Fire" Games in Paris and now wanted to see them perform in person. Eric Liddell , the flying Scotsman who had won the Olympic 400 metres, electrified the huge gathering with a superb effort in the 4x440y relay. 

This time, the Americans won the fixture but when the Canadians returned home, Norton Hervey Crow, the outgoing secretary of their Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) made a plea. "I would again bring before the Union, the advisability of taking the initiative in all British Empire Games, to be held between Olympic Games," he wrote.

The idea was taken up by John H Crocker, who became President of the Canadian AAU. He encouraged the manager of the Canadian track and field team, MM Robinson, known to his friends as "Bobby" to sound out his counterparts on the idea when they came together at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam.

Bobby Robinson, the man considered to be the founder of the Commonwealth Games
©Philip Barker

The press talked of "favourable preliminary discussions"to set up an Olympiad for the Empire. There was certainly a will to see more of athletes from the Commonwealth in competition.

No sooner had Lord Burghley won the 400m hurdles and Douglas Lowe retained his 800m gold in Amsterdam, the New Zealand authorities had invited them to tour that winter. If this proved impossible, Canada's 100m and 200m champion Percy Williams and 400m silver medallist Jimmy Ball were to be invited.

In the meantime, the Americans arrived in London .Although facilities in Battersea Park had been laid on for them to train,their chief coach Lawson Robertson decided that they would spend the day resting.

Another huge crowd of 41,000 packed into Stamford Bridge to see the competition,where despite the presence of Olympic champions Burghley, Lowe and the New Zealand javelin star Stan Lay, the Americans again won the match.

There was already a head of steam for the Games to take place in Hamilton Ontario, an idea supported by the Australians and South Africans.

According to the organisers, They would come "trailing clouds of glory from their Olympic origins".

The following January Amateur Athletics Association President Lord Desborough presided over a meeting of the major sporting bodies to consider arrangements for the Games. The competition "would be designed on the Olympic model, both in general construction and its stern definition of the amateur."

When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) met in Lausanne in 1929 President Henry Baillet Latour was moved to reassure his colleagues. "Fears expressed in certain quarters that the proposed organisation by Canada in 1930 might seriously prejudice the Olympic Games were groundless," he said. In fact Baillet Latour went further. "They are clearly pro-Olympic," he said.

The IOC were no doubt reassured that the Empire Games committee set down general rules which called for each governing body to "certify on the entry forms that each contestant is an amateur withining the meaning of the definitions laid down."

It added: "Anyone having been classed as a professional at any time in any sport cannot compete."

The first British Empire Games, held in Hamilton in 1930, were acclaimed as a great success ©Philip Barker

At precisely 2.30 pm on Saturday August 16 the teams marched into the stadium in Hamilton and heard a message of greeting from King George V before Lord Willingdon, Governor General of Canada, opened the Games. Within half-an-hour or so, the first competitions were underway.

Shortly afterwards, Lord Burghley won the first heat of the 440y and later that day became the first Olympic champion to also win gold at the new Empire Games. When he received his medal, he stood on a victory rostrum. IOC President Baillet Latour took note of this innovation and at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles medallists were acclaimed for the first time on a podium.

The following year in Barcelona he added the IOC seal of approval to the entire enterprise. "I cannot praise sufficiently the wonderful organisation and the admirable sporting spirit " he wrote. "I was happy to find myself once again amongst these young men. Many were old acquaintances from Antwerp, Paris and Amsterdam. I found out with pleasure their regard for Olympism."

The new Games were here to stay. In 1934 they took place in London with cycling staged in Manchester and have always been held at the mid-point between Olympic Games. That is appropriate for they have so often been a stepping stone to Olympic glory. Jamaican sprinter Don Quarrie, English decathlete Daley Thompson and middle-distance runner Kelly Holmes,all won Commonwealth gold before becoming Olympic Champions. Many from Glasgow 2014 will surely follow in their footsteps.

Philip Barker has worked as a television journalist for 25 years. He began his career with Trans World Sport, then as a reporter for Skysports News and the ITV breakfast programme. A regular Olympic pundit on BBC Radio, Sky News and Talksport, he is associate editor of the Journal of Olympic History, has lectured at the National Olympic Academy and contributed extensively to Team GB publications. His latest book, Lord's First: 200 Years of Making History at Lord's Cricket Ground, has recently been published. To follow him on Twitter click here.

In an ideal world, good sports would have good arrangements for getting play under way.

Sadly, this isn't always the case.

Few things could be duller or less imaginative than football's kick-off, where one player taps the ball forwards to a team mate who then typically passes it backwards, away from the opposition's goal.

Hockey's bully-off, whereby as I recall one tapped the ground and an opponent's stick three times before lunging at the ball, was positively bizarre.

But at least it was different; a history of the rules on the International Hockey Federation website indicates that it was largely replaced by a tame-sounding "pass back" in 1984.

Unsatisfactory too in my book are those rather effete-looking kicks with which rugby players sometimes restart play - kicks intended, as I understand it, to be lofted, but to travel as short a distance as possible beyond the minimum 10 yards.

The kicks in rugby to restart play are unsatisfactory in my book ©AFP/Getty Images



With the European Water Polo Championships currently taking place in Budapest, it seems as good a time as any to praise that far from glamorous sport for having just about the most exciting starting procedure in the business.

For those not in the know (and I was ignorant myself until recently), a water polo match is started by putting the ball in the middle of the pool and the two teams at either end.

On the signal, these two teams swim hell for leather towards the ball in an effort to claim possession by reaching it first.

No doubt tactical gambits come into play - I imagine it would make sense for teams to put their fastest swimmers at the centre of the line, giving them the shortest distance possible to cover.

The slower team members might concentrate on getting into position for the subsequent play rather than taking direct part in the race for the ball.

The sprint start to water polo matches ensures they get going with a bang ©AFP/Getty Images



The overall effect though, not least for inexperienced spectators, is to ensure that the match gets under way with a bang.

What it brought to mind for me was the old-style running starts by drivers in the famous Le Mans 24 hour race; these were discontinued, I think for safety reasons, in 1969.

I should add that these sprint starts are used only at the start of each quarter, and not when goals are scored.

How wonderful it would be if other ball sports were to consider taking a leaf out of water polo's book.

Imagine Theo Walcott from one end and Raheem Sterling from the other engaging in a water polo-style sprint for the ball; or Alex Cuthbert and Billy Twelvetrees; or respective speed merchants from opposing ice hockey or American football teams.

Perhaps this would be too dangerous, with speeds attained by those involved much greater than in a water-polo pool.

Perhaps American football heavyweights, or their ice hockey or football counterparts, trying to out-sprint each other for the ball would be deemed dangerous, but a safe variation would be a good thing ©Getty Images



If safe variations on the theme could be devised, however, it would set spectators' pulses racing from minute one.

At any rate, I think water polo is to be congratulated on leading the world in the matter of getting play under way.

And, as William Shakespeare nearly said, all's well that starts well.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.

YouTube. It's a treasure trove, isn't it?  My top three items from the last couple of weeks: Complete recording of Red Hot Chili Peppers' Stadium Arcadium. As my son would say, "all killer, no filler" - and I feel relatively OK about listening to it all for free as I did buy the CD, which then got "borrowed" by person unknown.

West Ham 3, Stoke City 4, season 1967-68 - an archetypal performance from the team boasting three World Cup winners and a perverse habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. West Ham were 3-0 up at half-time, with Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters scoring sumptuous goals, before allowing George Eastham and Peter Dobing the freedom of Upton Park, which they exploited ruthlessly to ensure full points went back to the Potteries.

There used to be an Arsenal fanzine entitled "1-0 Down, 2-1 Up". West Ham should have had one called "3-0 Up, 4-3 Down."

Third item - Ian Stewart winning the 1969 European 5,000 metres title in Athens with one of the most brilliant, pig-headed, irresistible track victories I have ever seen. As he shirked irritably out of leading, then ruthlessly tracked the new front runners before forcing his way past them when it mattered, this Brummified Scot offered the ultimate demonstration of a Man on a Mission.

A year later, wearing the blue of Scotland, Stewart won another sensational victory in the 5,000m at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games, seeing off the challenge of Kenya's Olympic 1500m champion and 5,000m silver medallist Kip Keino and, finally, fellow Scot Ian McCafferty to take a second major title in a European record of 13min 22.85sec.

Ian Stewart en route to a famous victory in the Scottish vest at the 1970 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games, where he defeated a field which included Kenya's then Olympic 1500m champion Kip Keino (right) ©Getty Images

Stewart's victory, and that of fellow Scot Lachie Stewart (no relation) in a 10,000m that saw the world record holder, Ron Clarke of Australia, having to settle for silver, were two of the keynotes of those first Edinburgh Games.

They had their echo in the 10,000m victory earned on the same Meadowbank track by Dundee's Liz Lynch, later McColgan, in the 1986 Commonwealth Games.

Twenty eight years on, Glasgow awaits similar landmark performances from home competitors at the Commonwealth Games which are due to open on July 23.

Among the track and field athletes with realistic ambitions of mounting the podium on home soil is Lynsey Sharp, the European 800m champion, whose prospects of getting into the mix in a field which is due to include Kenya's World champion Eunice Sum have been heightened by a personal best performance of 1min 59.67sec at the International Association of Athletics Federation's Diamond League meeting in Lausanne earlier this month.

Lynsey Sharp has her sights on success at the impending Glasgow 2014 Games ©Tom Miles



Injury robbed Sharp of the chance to represent Scotland in the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games. But four years later she stands ready to extend a family tradition set by her father, Cameron Sharp, who won five Commonwealth sprint medals, including gold in the 4x100m at the 1978 Edmonton Games at the age of 20.

So far, however, the daughter's attempts to find any clips of her father - who suffered serious brain injuries in a 1991 road accident - in action have proved unsuccessful. "I tried checking on You Tube but unfortunately I couldn't find anything," she told me this week. "I occasionally see him when they play stuff on BBC."

Apart from his Commonwealth record, Sharp represented Britain at the 1980 Moscow Olympics and also won European 200m silver in 1982. But his daughter reckons his Commonwealth memories are the best as far as he is concerned.

"I think his Commonwealth medals they are more important to him than the European medal," she said. "He's very Scottish, so he really enjoyed representing his country."

Lynsey's father, Cameron Sharp (left) pictured after winning bronze in the 1982 Commonwealth Games 200m alongside joint gold medallists, England's Mike McFarlane (centre) and and fellow Scot Allan Wells  ©Getty Images

While Sharp has clearly passed down some of his athletic ability to his daughter, she has also gained valuable genes from a Scottish international 800m runner - her mother, Carol, competed for her country at the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane.

Although Sharp's hopes of competing in the Commonwealth arena were frustrated in 2010 - "I thought at the time, 'I'd rather miss Delhi than Glasgow four years' later'" -  she had already made her mark in that arena two years earlier by taking 800m bronze at the Commonwealth Youth Games in the Indian city of Pune, where gold went to South Africa's future world champion Caster Semenya.

"The Commonwealth Youth Games were really important to me," she said. "That was my first major medal. I ran the heat at 8.00am, and the final at 5pm the same day. The temperature was 42 degrees!"

Winning her most recent major medal was a far more comfortable experience in terms of the weather conditions - Helsinki, venue for the last European Championships in 2012, was about 20 degrees cooler - but more vexed.

I was among the spectators at the Olympic Stadium who saw her recover from a barge and stumble to move swiftly through the field in the final 20 metres and take the silver medal behind Russia's Yelena Arzhakova.

Russia's Yelena Arzhakova, pictured winning the 2012 European 800m title in Helsinki, was subsequently stripped of her title following a doping ban. The gold went belatedly to Lynsey Sharp, pictured back left, whose final charge took her into silver medal position on the day ©Getty Images

That performance was enough to earn her a controversial appearance at the London 2012 Olympics after Britain's head coach Charles van Commenee had persuaded the other selectors to give her a place in the 800m even though she had not run the A standard selection time.

The decision meant that three rival 800m runners who had run the time - Marilyn Okoro, Jemma Simpson and world bronze medallist Jenny Meadows - did not make the trip. The first two athletes appealed, unsuccessfully, and much hoo-hah ensued on social media and elsewhere.

Sharp, a 24-year-old law graduate from Edinburgh Napier University, made the semi-finals in London. In June last year she was in the sporting headlines again as she was upgraded to European champion when Arzhakova was stripped of her medal following a two-year doping ban imposed for an "abnormal haemoglobin profile" in her biological athlete passport.

At the time Sharp said she had considered retiring from athletics, explaining: "I have thought 'What's the point in doing this if this is what I'm up against?' It's a bit depressing that it's still going on. You hope there are way more clean people than there are doping."

Reflecting on her position now, she admits she was in something of an emotional turmoil.

"I felt proud when I heard about getting the gold medal, but I also felt a lot of anger and frustration," she said. "But it was never a serious thought to give the sport up. It means too much to me to do that."

Lynsey Sharp is belatedly presented with her European gold medal in an emotional ceremony at the Sainsbury's Glasgow International Games this January ©Getty Images

Turmoil over the subject of doping is also something which may have afflicted her father. At the 1982 European Championships he was narrowly beaten in the 200m by Olaf Prenzler who, as a member of the East German team, would most likely have been obliged to partake of the state doping regime for sportsmen and women which was later revealed to have been systematically developed in that country from the 1970s onwards.

Like swimmer Sharron Davies, who was beaten to Olympic gold by East Germany's Petra Schneider, who later admitted doping, or like British sprinter Kathy Cook, who also lost out to athletes subsequently implicated in doping, Sharp has reasons for ruefulness.

His reflections may also have been affected by the belated admissions of two of his fellow sprint relay gold medallists from Edmonton, David Jenkins and Drew McMaster, that they had doped during their careers.

Asked how her father viewed his, and her, experiences in this unsatisfactory area, Sharp said: "He has never discussed that with me, but I am guessing he would just say 'Yeah, well, it's gone.'  But I think he understood about the mix of emotions I felt when I heard about the Russian girl."

Now, however, the 24-year-old British 800m champion is focusing her full attention on achieving success on the recently laid track in Hampden Park where she finished sixth in last Saturday's Diamond League meeting. One more race, in Madrid this Saturday (July 19), will complete her preparations.

"The English girls are going to be very strong in Glasgow, and of course the Kenyans, who will have the world champion running," she said.

"I don't think any of the other girls had an issue with me over the Olympic selection. It wasn't really my problem, but I think I've proved it wasn't a very stupid decision.

"London was a really valuable experience for me it terms of looking ahead to the Rio [2016] Games. And I hope that running a personal best this year also shows I am a serious contender."

Her father was not well enough to watch her compete in London two years ago. But he is planning to be at Hampden Park. It is likely to be emotional.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play – the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £8.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.

It occurred to me when I was in Brazil for the World Cup that when the 2010 tournament kicked off in South Africa, the iPad was just a couple of months old. Apple have shifted more than 200 million tablets since then and the second-screen experience is now the norm. By the time Mario Götze fired Germany to World Cup glory over Argentina in Rio de Janeiro, Twitter use has increased by a staggering 13,500 per cent in just four years.

Not so long ago mankind was of the opinion that watching television was an activity that required total concentration. Of course, several people could benefit from a single screen, but it was a silent, solitary activity, with interaction only enjoyed in reflection. Screen time was precious and, in a three-channel world, the "television event" could bring a nation to a standstill. Royal weddings had that power, so did the Olympic and Paralympic Games and, of course, football.

Anyone over the age of 30 can recall a time when, beyond international tournaments, the only live football match shown on television was the FA Cup final. Now, despite drowning in football, our appetite for "the beautiful game" knows no limits. Football fans are now football consumers and our consumption habits have evolved accordingly. The most obvious sign of that evolution is that one screen is no longer enough.

These days, one screen is just not enough ©AFP/Getty Images



Digital technology is the football consumer's most loyal ally...we can all eat football, sleep football and tweet football. In fact tweeting football was taken to new limits at this World Cup: the Brazil-Germany semi-final received 35.6 million tweets in the duration of the match, which is a record, easily surpassing the almost 30 million tweets recorded during January's Super Bowl.

No doubt there was some embarrassing feet-shuffling when Thomas Bach, the German President of the International Olympic Committee, attempted conciliatory small talk with Brazil's downcast President Dilma Rousseff when they met in Brasilia late last week.

Some 24 hours earlier his nation's magnificent football juggernaut had driven roughshod over the shattered remnants of Brazil's once-Beautiful Game, plunging the hosts into unprecedented despair with a 7-1 semi-final annihilation later to be compounded by a 3-0 drubbing by Holland in the playoff for third place.

The conversation may have been somewhat stilted. "Sorry about that, Madame President," Bach might well have mumbled.

During the semi-final Bach had sat alongside Carlos Nuzman, Brazil's Olympic chief, and as the goals piled in the thought surely crossed his mind as to the effect such a numbing shock would have on the Brazilian psyche as the country prepared for the second half of its sporting extravaganza: the Olympics in Rio two years hence.

Like every other Brazilian in the Maracanã, Nuzman, who heads the 2016 Organising Committee, wore a look of stunned disbelief.

Was he too wondering whether the football debacle will turn even more Brazilians against the Olympics than there are already?

Brazil's humiliating 7-1 thrashing at the hands of Germany begs the question of what effect it might have on the Rio 2016 Olympics ©Getty Images



This is a nation that has had its morale booted into touch. Restoring Brazil's pride will be an even harder task than resurrecting the football ethos that once enthralled the world.

Has Brazil still got the heart to stage a successful Olympics after this?

Or will apathy turn to anger as the public opposition towards the Games escalates over what they will cost amid the appalling poverty of so much of Brazil's underclass?

Also, we know their Games won't bring them great personal glory. They won't be anywhere near as golden for their own athletes as was London's for Team GB. Brazil's prospective top podium places probably can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

They know too that London 2012 is an impossibly hard act to follow. But they have to try and Bach is on record as saying he is confident Brazil will pick themselves up and get on with the job of building towards a great Games.

Well he may well be right. My insidethegames colleague Nick Butler recently observed that he sensed Brazil was slowly getting their Olympic act together.

Brazil have certainly demonstrated they can pull off a major sporting event, but in a little less than 750 days they are going to have to do it all over again when Rio stages the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics.

It remains a race against time. With so many projects behind schedule the debates will rage as to whether it can be done - just as they did in the build-up to the World Cup.

With so many projects behind schedule, Brazil's power-brokers have their work cut out, and they'll need to have the stomach for what is a race against time ©Rio 2016/Patricia da Matt



What we need to know now is whether after having the stuffing knocked out of them on the park, Brazil have the stomach for the fight - certainly more so than their footballers displayed against Germany and Holland.

Prominent among those who seem to doubt this is one of Britain's top international sports analysts. Professor Ellis Cashmore, senior lecturer in culture, media and sport at Staffordshire University, says the knock-on effect of the current national despair spells more trouble for a Games already beset with construction delays and financial problems.

"For Brazil, hosting the World Cup has been a disaster," he says. "I think they will rue the day they ever bid for it. The World Cup was designed as a showcase for Brazil to be joining the world's elite as a new economic power. Instead it has opened them up to ridicule. They have been humiliated. For years they have been the custodians of that Beautiful Game but that reputation has ended. They were humbled by Germany and Holland.

"Now they have two years before the Olympics. There were protests going into this World Cup because people thought it was too expensive and I think they will now lose much more public support for the Games. We will see an escalation in protests and demonstrations."

Protests dogged the build-up to the World Cup and there's a risk they could escalate ahead of the Rio 2016 Olympics ©Rio 2016/Patricia da Matt




Professor Cashmore is not alone in viewing Brazil's World Cup woe as a bad omen for the Olympics. Several figures in the Olympic Movement are privately expressing serious concern, though Brazilian President Rousseff did her best to reassure the IOC's Bach that this will not be the case.  After their meeting Bach, who rightly praised the organisation of the World Cup, declared: "I was pleased to hear the confidence President Rousseff has in the Games and what they will deliver, and it was good to know that the Games and their legacy will be a top priority."

So while our own apparently uncaring football flops continue to "celebrate" their first round KO in the tournament on beaches some distance from the Copacabana, we are left to ponder whether it will be carnival or catastrophe in Rio.

For Brazil this is a massive sporting double header. A game of two halves.

There were many in Brazil who thought they couldn't stage the World Cup but every Brazilian believed they would win it.

In fact the reverse situation proved to be the case.

After such a devastating own goal, receiving universal praise for the organisation of one of the finest - if not the best - of all World Cups at the moment may seem scant consolation for the desolation now sweeping a country mourning a lost ideal.

Yet getting behind the Olympics could be a wonderfully beneficial restorative. Imagine the international kudos and national joy should Rio 2016 be declared by Bach as "the best Games ever".

Meantime it appears Bach's more immediate priority is to ensure that the ticketing for Rio 2016 is not hit by a similar scandal as that in the World Cup now under police investigation. He has launched a top-level review of the process.

But whether the Olympics can be tickety-boo after Brazil's football debacle must be uppermost in his mind.

Brazil have already shown there's a way. But is there now the will?

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

It may have already been slightly forgotten amid a wave of German footballing euphoria, but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board meeting in Lausanne last week offered a good opportunity to see a transitional Movement address many of the concepts defining the fledgling Presidency of Thomas Bach.

Most of the sizeable media contingent who braved the torrential Swiss rain to visit the headquarters in Lausanne did so because of the announcement of the Candidate Cities in the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic race: ultimately Almaty, Beijing and Oslo.

This "headline announcement", if you want to call it that, was envisaged as a defining moment in the 18-month contest in which a six-strong field was whittled down into two or three serious contenders. But given the withdrawal of half of the initial contenders earlier this year - Stockholm, Kraków and Lviv - the announcement resembled something close to a damp squib, with everyone certain that the three remaining cities would all be put forward.

On the other hand, this did make the challenge of a quick deadline slightly simpler given the fact we could publish the beginnings of our article virtually before the three cities were named.

Thomas Bach announced the three 2022 Winter Olympic Candidate Cities on the first day of the Executive Board meeting in Lausanne last week ©ITG



Although a very different race to the one I initially envisaged on my first visit to Lausanne for the IOC Orientation Seminar last December, the first stage of the 2022 contest, the race is still deliciously poised.

If you are going to plant your country as squarely and deliberately under the international spotlight as Brazil's leaders did by offering to host the world's two greatest sporting festivals in rapid succession, you had better be sure your country is ready.

The most perplexing thing about Tuesday's debacle in Belo Horizonte when, in case you are just back from Saturn, Germany eviscerated Luiz Felipe Scolari's team 7-1, is that it showed that not even the one thing you would have expected Brazil to have sorted was remotely of the necessary standard.

The race against time to get infrastructure ready: that was only to be expected.

The street protests by people of the opinion that the Government's money would be better invested elsewhere: you could explain that away to some extent as the manifestation of a vigorous democracy.

But for the team that for more than 50 years has been the reference-point for swagger in the great global game to be caned 7-1 in front of their own fans by a Germany that scarcely broke sweat, that really does take the breath away.

Under normal circumstances, the black comedy of the third-place play-off could be enacted and the country then left to crown the new world champions and crawl off to heal in its own time.

Brazil's 7-1 humiliation in their semi-final against Germany was a stunningly unexpected result ©FIFA via Getty Images

But, of course, no sooner will the World Cup have finished than the focus will revert to the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games, when the same old questions about infrastructure readiness have already been raised repeatedly and with increasing urgency.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach will be able to make his own assessment of the likely fall-out from Brazil's footballing humiliation during a visit to the country this week, when he will hope to see his German countrymen lift their fourth World Cup in the iconic Maracanã.

If he detects resignation, despondency, a mounting sense that Brazil has gone from international poster boy to whipping boy without anyone really understanding why or being able to do much about it, that will be the moment to set alarm bells ringing.

But if, on the contrary, he sees determination, a reinforcement of the innate self-confidence exuded by so many Brazilians with a new realism and a willingness to follow Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's Tweeted advice to "get up, shake the dust off and get over it", that would provide grounds for hoping that the shock may yet have a positive legacy in terms of preparations for the Olympics.

Some of the early signs are quite good: many international commentators seemed surprised and impressed by the way Brazilians turned to applauding the Germans, once their initial horror had subsided and all hope of a comeback evaporated.

Everyone without exception I have interacted with who has attended the tournament has been complimentary about the organisation and the atmosphere.

IOC President Thomas Bach arrived in Brazil today and immediately met with FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who no doubt gave him a view on how successful this World Cup has been
©FIFA via Getty Images

There may also be a better chance of October's Presidential election giving rise to a relatively enlightening debate about the country's situation and prospects now that the candidates will be unable to make much political capital out of the nationalism that a winning World Cup campaign would have stirred up.

And, of course, just before Brazil's nervy quarter-final victory over Colombia, it was announced that construction work had finally started at the Deodoro Olympic Park, the second-largest cluster of venues for Rio 2016.

If the humiliation heaped this week on the sports team that has been quite possibly the most successful institution of any kind ever created in Brazil leads not to supine despair, but a greater willingness to listen to advice and consider new approaches when time-honoured ways start to appear defective, then it might yet be turned to the IOC's advantage and Brazil's ultimate benefit.

Get up and shake the dust off is good advice, but also take the opportunity to consider if there is something to be gained by doing things a new way.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.

Brazil's cataclysmic 7-1 defeat by Germany in the World Cup semi-final has created within the world of sport what Star Wars' Obi-Wan Kenobi would describe as a "disturbance in the Force."

Images of shocked and tearful home fans, many of whom walked away from the grisly spectacle of Brazil's first home defeat in 12 years and their equal biggest margin of defeat ever, are all over the media.

A nation which had ridden waves of protest over the spiralling expense of hosting these World Cup finals is now attempting to come to terms with what one of its biggest newspapers, Correio Braziliense, has called "Um vexame para a eternidade (An embarrassment for eternity)."

Brazil's stunned players and manager Felipe Scolari bid farewell to their supporters after their 7-1 World Cup semi-final defeat by Germany ©Getty Images

Lance, another large circulation Brazilian newspaper, described the brutal end of the host nation's ambition of winning the Cup for a sixth time as "Maior vergonha da historia (The biggest shame in history)", adding that the only benefit was that this defeat would override the trauma of the last time Brazil hosted the World Cup finals in 1950, when they were beaten 2-1 by bitter rivals Uruguay in the decisive match.

But that result, though bitter for all Brazilians, was not a humiliation

In terms of world football Force-disturbance, this semi-final result is on a par with the seismic shock which occurred in the same Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte during those 1950 finals - England's 1-0 defeat by the United States.

England, who had not deemed it necessary to enter the first three editions of the World Cup finals in 1930, 1934 and 1938, arrived for their first experience of the competition with towering ambitions, having beaten the defending champions, Italy, 4-0.

By their own admission, the part-time US players were hoping to keep the score down against Stanley Matthews, Tom Finney et al to around five or six goals. As history records, England's selectors deemed it unnecessary for Matthews to besmirch his boots with the dust from Belo Horizonte's newly-built Estadio Indepencia in what was clearly going to be an easy opener against a team of part-timers.

England's captain Billy Wright (left) shakes hands with his US counterpart Ed McIlvenny before his side's shock 1-0 defeat at Belo Horizonte in the 1950 World Cup finals
©Hulton Archive/Getty Images

History records that a freakish (English take) or characteristically athletic (US version) header from that unheralded part-time washer up of dishes in a restaurant, Joe Gaetjens, proved enough to defeat the team which regarded itself as World Cup winner-in-waiting.

The shame of that result lived with those England players. Goalkeeper Bert Williams recalled in 2010: "Sixty years on and I'm still trying to forget it. People introduce you as the gentleman who played for Wolves and England. And they ask: 'Did you play against America?'"

The players in yellow who made their stunned exit from the pitch on Tuesday night will be asked a similar question for the rest of not just their careers, but their lives. They are locked in history, doomed to the painful recollection of how Germany managed to score four goals in the space of 400 first half seconds...

As far as footballing shocks are concerned, it is hard to recall a more powerful example in the history of the game - certainly in recent history.

"In nigh on half a century of watching football that's the most extraordinary,  staggering, bewildering game I've ever witnessed," said BBC's former England forward Gary Lineker, he leading scorer at the 1986 World Cup finals in Mexico.

When sporting shocks are discussed or debated in future, Brazil's collapse will be numbered amongst them, even though the competitive pedigree of their victors meant the match did not correspond to the classic sporting shock template of David toppling Goliath.

No one expected a US ice hockey team composed of amateur and collegiate players, to earn victory in the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics over the Soviet Union side which had won six of the previous seven Olympic titles - a turn of events now immortalised in the phrase "Miracle On Ice". But they did.

No one expected Mike Tyson, the fearsome, undefeated and undisputed world heavyweight boxing champion, to lose his title to 42-1 outsider James "Buster" Douglas in 1990. But he did.

Mike Tyson is shepherded away after losing his heavyweight titles to 42-1 outsider Buster Douglas in 1990 after a 10th round ko in their fight in Tokyo ©Getty Images

No one expected Second Division Sunderland to defeat the holders, Leeds United, in the 1973 FA Cup final. But a goal from Ian Porterfield and a miraculous save from keeper Jim Montgomery ensured they did.

What will resonate down the years from Brazil's defeat in Belo Horizonte is a combination of shock over the scale of their unexpected collapse, and an accompanying sense of sorrow on behalf of the home nation.

In that, it is more akin to the shocking - and literal - collapse of the man widely regarded as the finest 10,000 metres runner of his generation, Australia's multiple world record holder Ron Clarke, in the thin air of Mexico during the 1968 Olympics.

Ron Clarke is given oxygen by Australia's weeping team doctor Brian Corrigan after collapsing after the 10,000m final at the 1968 Olympics in the thin air of Mexico City
©Popperfoto/Getty Images

Or to that other great sporting shock which took place at The Oval in 1948 when Australia's batsman Don Bradman, needing just four runs from what was his final Test appearance to be able to retire with an average of more than 100, was bowled for a duck by England's Eric Hollies. Ironically, an outstanding Australian bowling performance obviated the need for Bradman to take to his crease for a second innings. And thus his average remained, for ever, on 99.94.

When Bradman returned to the pavilion after his uncharacteristically brief outing on the pitch, he was reported to have announced: "Gee whizz. Funny doing that."

As the full effect of their humiliation is felt by Brazil's players in the coming days and weeks, the reaction is likely to be a good deal less terse than that of "The Don".

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play – the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £8.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.