Back in 1968, just before the start of the Olympic Games in searingly hot, uncomfortably high altitude Mexico City, the late Chris Brasher sounded an ominous warning. "There will be those who die," he thundered in The Observer.

He was right. Some 300 civilians, mainly students protesting about the repressive regime and escalating cost of the Games in a relatively impoverished nation, were infamously massacred by Mexican Government troops in the Plaza of The Three Cultures.

It remains one of the most shameful episodes in Olympic history.

But no-one died during the Games from either the hot air or the thin air, to which Brasher was actually referring.

Brasher's false prediction has come to mind now we have this brouhaha over whether the 2022 football World Cup scheduled for Qatar should be moved either to an inconvenient winter month or even elsewhere because the summer climate in the Gulf state is too hot to handle.

Yet is that really so? Would the conditions be that unbearable for the world's top footballers? Shouldn't these highly-paid professional athletes - many extravagantly so - be sufficiently prepared to cope with any extremes of climate with all the state-of- the age medical and scientific back-up at their disposal?

Surely the rewards and ample enough and their bodies well-honed enough to take the rough with the smooth, the hot with the cold?

Yes, the weather in a Qatar summer is stifling. But so it is in Pakistan, India and parts of Australia and South Africa where Test cricket is played without any beefing about the temperature being in the nineties - or more.

While that daytime summer in Qatar - as in most Middle East nations  can be pretty fierce it is certainly cooler in the evenings when the majority - if not all - the matches would be played in air-cooled stadiums.

Stadiums for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar will all feature state-of-the-art air conditioning systems

Indeed, spectatators may find it distinctly chilly in the nether regions when the air-con kicks in under their seats.

So far we haven't heard any complaints from Latin American, Asian or African nations about the Qatar climate. Only certain Europeans.

Why shouldn't we adapt as do those teams from the tropics when they come to an often less-than-balmy Europe when a World Cup summer can wet, wild and windy?

My question is, if we can play sport at 40 degrees below, as in the Winter Olympics (eg Lake Placid 1980), why not 40 above?

At the moment sport's ruling bodies seem to be blowing hot and cold over whether nations which have extreme heat should be excluded from staging significant major events.

FIFA and Sepp Blatter may believe they have taken the heat out of the situation by delaying any decision on any seasonal switch for the 2022 World Cup until next year but the controversy over hotspots like Qatar extends beyond football.

The country's capital, Doha, is mounting a strong bid to stage the Olympic Games two years later and their right to do so is firmly backed by London 2012 chief Sebastian Coe.

"We can't sit any longer saying that countries prepared to invest in sport, both spiritually and in terms of infrastructure, are in some way banned or we make it impossible for them to deliver high quality sporting events," he said. "We should be encouraging it."

Former London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe is among those who back Qatar's sporting ambitions

The British Olympic Association chairman, speaking on a recent visit to Doha, added: "If you are going to build a global capacity in sport you are going to confront challenges. Some will be climatic, political or social. The great thing about sport is that it always manages to bridgehead change.

"My view is that we'll probably need to have a global conversion at some stage, across sport, about the calendar and the ability of some countries to stage sports events when it is climatically beneficial for the competitors. That's one of the challenges of building a global capacity for sport.

"If we said 20 years ago that Rio would host the Olympics or South Africa the World Cup, few would have believed it.

"But that's how the world works."

Doha has already bid unsuccessfully for both the 2016 and 2020 Olympics and Qatar's Olympic Committee has said they will " keep on bidding until we win".

Traditionally the Olympics, like the World Cup, take place in summer months but can be more flexible. Tokyo 1964 and Mexico City 1968 were both held in October because of the climate; similarly Sydney 2000 and Seoul 1988 started in mid-September.

Yet the hottest Games of the dozen I have attended was in a sweltering Moscow in July 1980, when temperatures soared into high nineties - and one Sebastian Coe won the first of his 1500 metres gold medals. Obviously some like it hot.

Temperatures reached over a 100 degrees when Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazier in "The Thrilla in Manila" in the Phillipines

That was certainly so in the Philippines in September 1975 when Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier fought with such unremitting ferocity in "The Thrilla in Manila" - the greatest fight I have ever seen - when the ring temperature hit 110 degrees!

As it happens Qatar is not the only nation due to host a major international sports event sweating over the weather.

While the controversy surrounding the the 2022 football World Cup, approaches boiling point there is now growing concern over the climate for next February's Winter Olympics in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Ironically, it may not be cold enough.

Forget any prospect of a bitter Russian winter sending a chill through competitors; apparently the long range forecast predicts it will be well above freezing point at what is not a natural winter resort.

Indeed Sochi, which has a sub-tropical climate for most of the year - it reminded me of Cannes with caviar when I was there a couple of years ago - seemed an eccentric choice by an International Olympic Committee swayed by the persuasive presence of President Putin when the vote was taken in Guatemala.

The average February temperature of Sochi is usually 10 degrees above freezing. Last February it was 18.5 (66 Fahrenheit) and several test events were cancelled. The current forecast suggests it may be even higher, with the possibility of heavy rain a huge threat to the skiing and and sledding events.

After similar conditions hampered the last Winter Olympics in Vancouver the IOC have been well aware of the potential weather risks to Sochi - which seem far greater to a successful Games than security, overspending or protests against Russia's rigid anti-gay laws.

Huge piles of last year's snow have been stockpiled under insulated covers in what is the world's biggest snowstoring operation.

Additionally snow cannons will be on standby in the nearby Caucasus Mountains which form a scenic backdrop to the resort but experts acknowledge it will be difficult to produce sufficient artificial snow at that temperature when it is also raining.

Not-so-cold comfort for Putin's grandiose Games plan.

The fear for the 2014 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Sochi is not that it will be too cold, but that it will be hot, leading organisers to come up with innovative ways to ensure that there will be enough snow

Mo Farah's comments this week have all but ruined two nice and simple media lines.

Firstly, Britain's world and Olympic 5000 and 10,000 metres champion has refrained from committing himself to running in next year's Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, saying it would be "a bonus" if he did it but adding "it is not on my list." Any headlines along the lines of "Glasgow a goer for Mo" will have to wait.

No decision will be taken on involvement at Glasgow 2014, Farah maintains, until he has concluded his main business of the year, namely running his first full marathon in the Virgin London event on April 13. But the multiple gold medallist has gone and spoiled everything by insisting that he will not expect to break the two-hours barrier on his debut over 26.2 miles. What a spoilsport!

Mo Farah has contradicted what he claims are 'crazy' suggestions about him running a sub-two hour marathon on his debut

As Farah explained, the suggestion that he was targeting such an extraordinary landmark - just a month after Kenya's Wilson Kipsang took 19 seconds off the world record in reducing it to 2 hours 03min 23sec at the Berlin Marathon – was "ridiculous", adding: "It's pretty crazy to say that in my first ever marathon I'm going to shave three minutes off.

"If you look at the world record it's slowly been broken before, from 2:04, 2:03. To say I'm going to shave that off is completely crazy.

"I don't think [two hours] is going to be broken in the next 10 years or even beyond that, maybe even 100 years, because if you think about it, it's really difficult."

A totally sensible statement. Farah has every reason to be confident given his achievements in the past couple of years, but he has never been a sportsman given to making dramatic statements of intent. Before setting a startling European 1500m record of 3min 28.81sec in Monaco earlier this year, the man now training in Oregon under the eye of former world marathon record holder Alberto Salazar hazarded only the following:

"I'm really looking forward to it. I have some happy memories of this track so if I can get near 3.33 or under it will be great. But the 1500 is a very different race from the 10k so I will just be hoping to stay in with the guys and see what I can do."

Such was the strength of the story that Farah wanted to produce the 26.2miles equivalent of the Four Minute Mile that Sebastian Coe, and even the man who broke the Four Minute Mile, Sir Roger Bannister, were drawn in to provide comment on it. Coe, with characteristic adroitness, responded that it was "very ambitious", which could have been taken as a measure of polite disbelief. Lord Coe's comments were supplemented by sage words from Sir Roger, who commented: "I don't think Mo will be ready to do it next year but it is of course possible."

Sir Roger Bannister, pictured with a picture of his Four Minute mile achievement in 1954, sagely downplayed the suggestion that Mo Farah was on the brink of another athletics landmark in his first marathon

Farah has now said that the idea that he had it in mind to produce claimed that the theory was coined by his sponsors Nike, who used the term "Sub Two-Hour" for a television show they are making.

Farah, however, has now clarified the genesis of this "highly ambitious" target of his. "The rumours actually started because my sponsors, Nike, are working on a show called 'Sub Two-Hour'," he has said. "They keep working on that, and that's how the rumours started. I never actually said it."

Steve Backley, the former British javelin thrower who won Olympic and world silver as well as European and Commonwealth titles, is one of the most thoughtful characters you will ever find on the subject of sporting ambition and achievement.

Steve Backley, that most thoughtful of sportsmen, believes that many competitors have fallen under the weight of their own predictions

"You do see athletes who talk themselves out of success," he once told me. "They end up putting too much pressure on themselves with predictions, and then find they can't live up to it."

Making a cautious estimation and then surpassing it is surely the course of action for any sportsman or woman. Isn't it? Well, thinking back, I suppose there have been odd examples when the bold approach has paid off. Two words exemplify it supremely: Muhammad Ali.

"I am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was." Here is the quintessential quote from the all-time heavyweight boxing genius. But there are others which rival it in their glorious rashness – or rash gloriousness:

"If you even dream of beating me you'd better wake up and apologise."

"There's not a man alive who can whup me. I'm too fast. I'm too smart. I'm too pretty. I should be a postage stamp. That's the only way I'll ever get licked."

Muhammad Ali makes one of his predictions in 1963 - Henry Cooper will fall in round five

Perhaps Ali's take on golf stands as his boldest of statements: "I'm the best. I just haven't played yet."

In a more serious vein, Ali attempted to explain the philosophy of his approach: "It's a repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes deep conviction, things begin to happen. "

In more recent times, predictions of success from Usain Bolt have matched those of Ali in their airy certainty, if not their colourful garb. Here is another protagonist from the School of Bold Predictions.

But for every sporting figure who lives up to his or her own hype, there is another who falls under it. I will never forget, for instance, Dave Bedford's invitation to the Great British Public before the 1972 Munich Olympics - issued exclusively in The Sun - to "stand by your beds and watch me win a gold medal for Britain" presaged a sadly predictable turn of events as he finished sixth in the 10,000m final.

A bitterly disappointing turn of events - and one which, I am ashamed to say, provoked me to land a blow on my younger brother after he made what I deemed to be a dismissive comment after we had both watched the race on TV. Verily, the bold sporting prediction is a double-edged sword. And Mo does well to avoid it.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play – the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £12.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.

There is a reason that the Olympic Games is often described as the "Greatest Show on Earth" and I think that anyone who saw London 2012 last year knows exactly why that is.

I was one of the lucky ones who actually got to compete at the Olympics.

Less than a month before the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, it was announced that Shauna Mullin and I would represent Team GB in the sport of beach volleyball.

It was a huge honour for us because it marked the first time ever that a British pair have featured in an Olympic beach volleyball tournament since the event made its debut at the 1996 Games in Atlanta.

The London 2012 beach volleyball setting at the iconic Horse Guards Parade was absolutely stunning and after thinking about the Olympic Games for so long, it was unbelievable to step out onto the sand in front of our home fans.

Being part of the London 2012 Olympic Games was a reward in itself


We simply couldn't believe the support from the crowds and competing there was truly a moment I will remember for the rest of my life.

Unfortunately, we missed out on a medal but the whole experience of being part of the Olympic Games was a reward in itself for years of dedication, hard work and training.

Having been part of an Olympic Games that promised to "Inspire a Generation", I am now looking to do exactly that in my role as one of Sport England's Sporting Champions.

One of my key roles as a Sporting Champion involves supporting Sportivate projects across the country.

Sportivate is the £56 million ($85 million/€65 million) National Lottery funded Olympic and Paralympic legacy initiative run by Sport England that gives 11 to 25 year olds who aren't particularly sporty six to eight weeks' free coaching in a new sport and then helps them find low cost ways to continue to play.

Next up for me later this month is a return to a great Sportivate volleyball project at Richard Huish College in the county of Somerset.

I hope to use the magic of London 2012 to inspire young people to make sport a
big part of their life


The project is looking to get young people into the sport of volleyball and more importantly, keep them there once they are hooked.

As a Sporting Champion, I hope to use the magic of London 2012 to inspire all the young people in attendance to make sport a big part of their life.

My goal has always been to compete at the Olympics and I am now training hard with Lucy Boulton, also a Sporting Champion, to make it to the next Games in Rio in 2016. But for many children out there, the goal is simply to take part and have fun. That's the brilliant thing about sport - it can be played and enjoyed by all different people at all different levels from the elite right down to the grassroots.

And if athletes like me who competed at the "Greatest Show on Earth" can inspire young people to keep going out there to have fun and stay healthy and active, then that is yet another fantastic legacy from London 2012.

Zara Dampney is a beach volleyball player who represented Team GB at the London 2012 Olympic Games. She is now aiming to compete at her second Olympic Games at Rio 2016. Zara is also one of Sport England's Sporting Champions, which you can find out more about here.

My sporting memory is so short that names as recent as Chris Boardman and Linford Christie had hung up their spikes long before my time.

It is long enough however to appreciate the revolution undergone over the last two decades as any lingering vestiges of amateurism have been ruthlessly swept aside.

This was a thought which struck me when attending the unveiling of GB Canoeing's new kit deal with sportswear manufacturers Crewroom, which reinforced these vast changes in technology, attitude and attention to detail.

The new kit aims to make "the stars of the sport look cutting-edge but also add an advantage in competition." It is based around improving performance in training and in races, but is also about the image or, in the words of Crewroom founder Kate Giles - for want of a better term no doubt - the "sexing-up" of the sport.

Although some of the more technical details passed me by, "racing cuffs coated with grip silicone", "seamless shorts to rule out rubbing and abrasion", and a "super-fly gillet taking advantage of a water-resistant and breathable fabric" were three of the more outlandish elements.

A "carnival" theme also seeks to maximise marketing potential both on and off the water with Rio 2016 in mind.

A member of the GB Canoeing team are measured up for their new kit in Crewroom's part office part workshop in Putney

Any of the more macho elements in sport who think the new British Minister for Sport and Tourism is a soft touch because she is a woman are in for a shock.

Helen Grant is more than capable of fighting her corner, as she demonstrated during her upbringing as the only black kid on a council estate in Carlisle by taking up judo to help defend herself against racist abuse.

"It was in the sixties," she recalls. "For a while I was the only person there with a darker skin. There was prejudice, and bullying. But I dealt with it.

"I went into judo to defend myself thinking, 'well, if they see I'm good at it they won't pick a fight with this one'."

The message was duly absorbed and she did become good enough to be an under-16 champion for the north of England and southern Scotland. At school, she was captain of the school tennis and hockey teams, and represented Cumbria in hockey, tennis, athletics, and cross-country.

After studying law at the University of Hull, she went on to become a solicitor, an MP and now, at 52, a surprise appointment as Sports Minster following Hugh Robertson's elevation to the Foreign Ministry.

Helen Grant took up judo as a child to help defend herself against racial abuse



"A dream come true," is how she describes the summons to 10 Downing Street to insidethegames.

So why did the Prime Minister give her then job?

"You'll probably have to ask him but I know he was aware of my passion for sport because we have discussed it many times," Grant said. "And he obviously thought I would be a good advocate for it.

"My aspiration was always to be an Olympic judo champion but in the end I became a lawyer and got into politics. However, sport has never left me. It is very much in my DNA.

"It gave me time to think and insulated myself from the idiots I had to deal with when I was growing up at school. It was the thing that gave me self-confidence and self-esteem."

And this slim and vivacious married mother of two strapping sons - Ben, a Royal Marine commando and rugby-playing Joel, about to go to university - clearly has that in abundance.

Born in London to an English mother and Nigerian father, when her parents separated she grew up in a single-parent family as the only black resident on Carlisle's Raffles estate for much of that troubled early childhood where sport, she says, made her a winner.

Now she must win over sport itself. "Already I can see there is lots to do in sustaining the legacy of 2012 both for sport and the economy."

Helen Grant says it was sport that made her a winner




Naturally, the continuing advancement of women's sport is high on her agenda. "There's lots more to do. We need to shape sport to make it attractive to women, particularly young women."

She wants to see more women on governing bodies and in administrative positions, "though things do seem to be progressing there", she says.

"I still think there are chauvinistic attitudes, not just in football but a number of areas. We want people to compete fairly, to strive for equality. Sexism has got to be dealt with."

While she still plays tennis with husband Simon, swimming is not listed among her many athletic accomplishments. But she was thrown in at the deep end with footballer Jack Wilshire's "England for the English" controversy. It is one in which she declines to be immediately immersed, pointing out that she has barely got her feet under the Ministerial table in here airy office on the fourth floor of the Treasury building in Westminster, where the Department for Culture, Media and Sport now lodges.

"I'm not going to wade into that," Grant explains. "It's seems a matter for the FA and the England manager and I have yet to meet the governing bodies to discuss it. But what I will say is that I have a zero tolerance attitude towards any form of discrimination - racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia - whatever. Also all unsportsmanlike behaviour, like spitting, gouging, abuse of referees. Absolutely zero tolerance."

Unlike Robertson, who was a Minister of State, Grant will be a junior Minister, sharing her sports role with that of her existing equalities and portfolio, and tourism.

But she strongly refutes the suggestion that sport has been demoted. "What nonsense," she scoffs. "Sport is now more important than ever. It is critical to the welfare of this country. I believe he [David Cameron] has appointed me because he feels I'll be an advocate for it as a force for good."

Alan Hubbard is a 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.

This week's comment by Arsenal and England footballer Jack Wilshere that "the only people who should play for England are English people" has provoked a widespread reaction throughout a number of sports.

England cricket's naturalised South African batsman Kevin Pietersen was among many to have responded to the suggestion, asking the talented midfielder on Twitter: "Interested to know how you define foreigner? Would that include me. [Andrew] Strauss, [Matt] Prior, Justin Rose, [Chris] Froome, Mo Farah? Same difference..It's about representing your country! IN ANY SPORT!"

Wilshere's comments came in the wake of a discussion over the future international status of Manchester United's 18-year-old Adnan Januzaj, who is eligible for selection by Belgium, Serbia, Albania and Turkey, but will, under FIFA rules, be eligible to play for England if he remains in this country for five years.

Jack Wilshere's comment this week that only English people should play for the England team has raised a familiar and inconclusive debate

Before we go any further, just to make it clear that this is not an article about Jack Wilshere, it should be pointed out that his comment has been 100 per cent backed by former England captain Alan Shearer, who told BBC Sport: "I am of the opinion that to be English you should be born in England... Januzaj looks a fantastic young talent. But just because you've lived in England for five years that doesn't mean you can play for the national team."

South Africa's cricket captain Graeme Smith would presumably agree with Shearer's take on this issue, as he has has clearly never forgiven his former teammate Pietersen - who was born and raised in South Africa but has an English mother - for electing to play for his adopted country of England. "I'm patriotic about my country. And that's why I don't like Kevin Pietersen," Smith has gone on record as saying.

All this latest hoo-hah has taken place on the very day when the Queen launched the Baton Relay for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, an event which will, once again, focus minds on what it means to be English, or Scottish, or Welsh, or Northern Irish, as opposed to being British.

Mo Farah, multiple Olympic and world champion for Britain, was born in Somalia. So does that make him not British?

Wilshere's comments, at one level, are perfect sense. Of course only English people should represent England. But how do we define English people? Ay, there's the rub, as a very English playwright once put it...

Shearer's yardstick of representing the country in which you were born has an elemental appeal.

But let's think for a moment of one of the lasting images of English football: Terry Butcher, captain and central defender, leaving the pitch after helping England earn the goalless draw against Sweden in Stockholm that ensured qualification for the 1990 World Cup, his face, shirt, shorts and socks all showing evidence of blood that has poured from a bandaged head wound. Having had stitches inserted, Butcher had returned to the fray and made a conspicuous number of defensive headers.

In times of despair - and there have been a few - England supporters have loved to recall this iconic devotion to the cause of the Three Lions. But Butcher was not born in England. He was born in Singapore. So by Shearer's criterion, he should never have been on that pitch in Stockholm.

Terry Butcher gave blood for England to help them qualify for the 1990 World Cup finals. But this Three Lions icon was not born in England

In 2011, UK Athletics introduced some competitors to its team who had lately competed for other nations - a circumstance which earned them criticism from some quarters of the media for being 'plastic Brits'.

The man responsible for this turn of events was Charles van Commenee, the Dutchman appointed as head coach of UK Athletics in 2008. His position was the same one espoused this week by the former Football Association chairman David Bernstein, who has said England must "play within the rules and get the best team we can".

One of the newcomers, high hurdler Tiffany Porter - born and raised in the United States, but entitled to a British passport through having an British mother - found herself at the centre of feverish debate when, at a press conference ahead of the 2012 World Indoor Championships, she was challenged to sing the National Anthem by a reporter.

Many newspaper columns were subsequently written on the question of whether Britain should expect its sporting performers to know the words and tune of "God Save the Queen". And if Porter had, would that have proved she was British?

There is an uncertain swirl of response to these circumstances within Britain - it is similar to the kind of debate which took place when Swede Sven Goran Eriksson became the first foreigner to take charge of the England football team. Eriksson's foreignness faded almost into the background when England enjoyed a superlative 5–1 win over their ancient rivals, Germany;
but as the Eriksson momentum failed, usually around the quarter-final stage of any tournament worth winning, he became a foreigner once again.

In rugby, as in football and athletics, there have been periodic outbursts of complaint over players switching to play for different national teams. Shortly before taking England on their ultimately ill-fated journey to the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand as manager, Martin Johnson, who had captained England to World Cup victory eight years earlier, spoke in liberal tones about the whole issue with the sport.

Acknowledging the criticisms that had been raised over England squad members such as Manu Tuilagi and Thomas Waldrom, whom some saw as operating under a flag of convenience, Johnson recalled his own time as a young player spent in New Zealand, whose under-21 side he played for.

Martin Johnson, who led England to the 2003 Rugby World Cup and subsequently managed the England team, commented: "It's what you do and who you are...not particularly where you are born."

He told the Independent: "People don't understand, talking about our guys born abroad. They've got to come in and prove themselves like anyone else. If we think they're the right people and the right characters then they can play... It's what you do and who you are, not particularly where you are born."

But then if you waive birthplace as a means of determining nationality, surely you need to retain a blood link? Of course, it's all relative, ultimately, as we reflect on the nomadic history of humankind over time. But the logical end point of Johnson's argument seems to be that you can play for England if you have what the US astronaut programme used to call the "right stuff"
about you - that is, if you have the right kind of "English" stuff .

So we return to the question. What is "English stuff"?

Wilshere had a bash at defining this. "We have to remember what we are. We are English. We tackle hard, are tough on the pitch and are hard to beat. We have great characters. You think of Spain and you think technical but you think of England and you think they are brave and they tackle hard. We have to remember that. "

But then Wilshere was once described by his manager at Arsenal, Arsene Wenger, as having "Spanish technique, but an English heart."

And we return to the question. What is an "English heart"?

George Orwell listed a liking for a "nice cup of tea" as among the quintessential national characteristics in his essay "England Your England"

At the end of his 1941 essay entitled "England Your England", George Orwell concludes that, though the Stock Exchange may be pulled down, and the horse plough may give way to the tractor, and the country houses may be turned into children's holiday camps, and the Eton and Harrow match forgotten, "England will still be England, an everlasting animal stretching into the future and the past, and like all living things, having the power to change out of recognition, and yet remain the same."

In his casting around for essentially English characteristics, Orwell came up with two straight away. They were, firstly, a tendency towards "'privateness", as evidenced by a predilection for hobbies and pastimes such as stamp collecting and comforting things like the fireside and the "nice cup of tea".

And secondly, a love of flowers.

Is this helping?

Personally, I feel most closely identified with that old red cross on white when I eat toast and marmalade. Maybe that's something to do with my grandpa. He was very English.

I feel English too when I indicate to a fellow customer that they are due to be served before me.

Or when I watch England's football team fail to win the World Cup. Or the European Championship.

The further abroad I go, the more likely I am to take with me a book written by a quintessentially English writer, such as Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin or Evelyn Waugh.

So I think, putting this all together, the answer to the Wilshere question is plain enough. Then again, what do I know? I was born in Edinburgh.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play – the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £12.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.

Allan Wells has become the first runner to receive the Glasgow 2014 Baton from The Queen and believes it will have an even greater impact in Scotland than the arrival of the Olympic Flame in 2012.

"The reaction to the Torch Relay in Scotland was phenomenal " said Wells, a bearer in Selkirk in June last year. "I got a call from Seb Coe afterwards and told him how well it had been received.

"I do feel that we might even be able to give more to the Baton Relay. We have that opportunity with a home Games that are actually in Scotland."

Wells, the 1980 Olympic 100 metres champion, was spearking after a ceremony at Buckingham Palace that was dignified colourful and very Scottish. There was even a violinist to bring back memories of Sir Yehudi Menuhin's tour de force at the 1986 Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh

Wells' own association with the Commonwealth Games goes back over 40 years. He was a volunteer steward in Edinburgh's Meadowbank Stadium in 1970, the first time the Games were held in his home country.

"My job was to rake the long jump pit," he recalled. "In fact most of the time I was watching. Lynn Davies. He was a hero of mine I also kept an eye on the reactions of the runners in the 100 metres. The atmosphere was so tense. It was something that really inspired me. "

By the time the Commonwealth Games returned to Edinburgh in 1986, he had made such an impact on them that he was chosen to present the Baton to Prince Philip, then President of the Commonwealth Games Federation. It proved the only time Wells would wear the blue Scottish vest that summer. He was controversially left out of their team for the Games.

"I'd done the qualifying times, I even had the suitcase with all the kit, but they wanted me to prove my fitness," said Wells. "I did everything they asked me to but didn't get picked"

In 1986, Wells had been escorted into the Meadowbank Stadium by athletes Ian Stewart, Lachie Stewart, Rosemary Payne, Rosemary Stirling, boxer Tom Imrie and fencer Sandy Leckie, all gold medallists from 1970.

"When I ran in, I could hear people shouting look he's fit, he is running," said Wells. "They couldn't understand why I wasn't in the team "

Wells had won four Commonwealth gold medals over the two preceding Games and believes, to this day, that he would have enjoyed success in front of his home crowd. To prove the point he won against his main rivals in a meeting shortly afterwards. He believes that a medal in Commonwealth Games athletics remains one of the hardest to win, particularly in his own events where most expect Usain Bolt to take centre stage next year.

"It 's no garden party," said Wells. "The focus is every bit as great as at the Olympics."

Allan Wells described receiving the Baton from the Queen at Buckingham Palace as "up there with winning a gold medal"

Now almost 28 years on, Wells finds himself at the heart of the latest Commonwealth Games to be held in Scotland.

"I was probably the proudest Scot on the podium today," he said after receiving the Baton containing the Queen's Address dressed in a kilt of Ramsay tartan from his mother's side of the family. "This was up there with winning a gold medal.

"The Baton is unique, completely different to the Olympic Torch Relay. There is only one Baton. My fingerprints will be on the Baton until the end and it will be the same for everyone else."

Commonwealth Games Federation President Prince Imran Tunku called it "the world's most engaging relay ". At 288 days this time it is longer than any journey of the Olympic Flame.

The ceremony will have brought back memories for Prince Philip. He was,characteristically, fascinated by the intricacies of the new baton, so very different from the silver gilt model he had set in motion for the first such relay to Cardiff. In 1958.

Although there had been international sections before 1998, it was the journey to Kuala Lumpur which first made the handover of the Baton a spectacle in its own right. Traditional Malaysian dancers and drummers beating Kompang drums gave colour to a bright spring morning, which also happened to be Commonwealth Day and set a precedent for a cultural display at Buckingham Palace.

So too did the large escort for badminton star Punch Gunalan. In earlier years there had been a maximum of two. In 2002 for Manchester there were fireworks from the top of the Palace and for Melbourne, in 2006, even a supermodel.

Australian supermodel Elle McPherson jokes with Prince Philiip at the start of the Queen's Baton Relay for Melbourne 2006

Elle Macpherson was chosen to receive the Baton as a representative of Australia before it began its journey to Melbourne. That was a decision which would not have passed muster with Federation officials in earlier years. They insisted the "first runner should be a medallist of the preceding Games."

In recent years too, the Queen has placed herself sealed the message inside the Baton in full view of the crowd. The 2014 baton is illuminated to show the message but not the text.

The Pipes and Drums of the Scots guards and band of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland provided the music. To the strains of "A Scottish Soldier" and "Hielan Laddie", a kilt wearing Sir Chris Hoy, had brought the baton to Buckingham Palace. This had pleasant echoes of 1982 when Decima Norman, a great Australian champion from Sydney 1938, had flown from Brisbane as custodian of their baton. Then, already aged 72, she was not asked to carry it along the Mall.

The first international stopping point of the 2014 journey will be in India to acknowledge the most recent hosts. It will also recall the two most recent relays. The Baton visited the Taj Mahal in both 2006 and 2010.

Born in Hackney, a stone's throw from the 2012 Olympic Stadium, Philip Barker has worked as a television journalist for 25 years. He began his career with Trans World Sport, then as a reporter for Sky Sports 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.

So Britain has a new Sports Minister. Helen Grant's background suggests she is very much the sporty type, but the question does she know anything about it? Or more pertinently, about overseeing it?

While hers seems a predictably politically correct appointment - only the second female and first black custodian of the games we play - it is also a potentially exciting one. If she proves up to the job.

The shock appointment of the 52-year-old solicitor following Hugh Robertson's elevation to the Foreign Ministry means that with the Culture Secretary Maria Miller - with whom she already works as Equalities Minister - as her boss at Department of Culture, Media and Sport ,the governance of sport here is now very much a women's world.

Women are now filling more key posts in sport than ever, and that's a good thing, though there are some dinosaurs, notably in football, who will disagree. Get real, chaps. The glass ceiling is splintering and about time too.

Presumably Robertson knows her well as she represents a neighbouring constituency in Kent. So did he recommend her for the job?

Helen Grant leaves Number 10 Downing Street after being told by Prime Minister David Cameron that she will be replacing Hugh Robertson as Britain's Sports Minister

Someone must have because as far as sport is concerned she is unknown. But not for long, for hers is a formidable pedigree.

A former judo champion and the Conservative Party's first black female MP, she has replaced Robertson in a reshuffle which promotes the dapper former Army officer to work as adjutant to William Hague as a Minister of State.

Grant's subsequent appointment comes from left field. Literally, actually, as she was once a member of the Labour Party but switched to the Tories in 2006, saying:"It was almost looking in the biscuit barrel, not liking the look of the biscuits, and slamming the lid shut."

She was later parachuted into Ann Widdecombe's safe seat in Maidstone ahead of the 2010 General Election. Last year she was made Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, Women and Equality.

Born in London to an English mother and Nigerian father, when her parents separated she grew up in a single-parent family as the only black resident on the Raffles council estate in Carlisle for much of her early childhood, where she admitted to suffering racist abuse.

At school she was captain of the school tennis and hockey teams, and represented Cumbria in hockey, tennis, athletics and cross-country. She was also an under-16 judo champion for the North of England and Southern Scotland.

After studying law at the University of Hull, she went on to become a solicitor. She is married with two sons, one of whom is serving in the Royal Marines.

Grant's personal website still lists tennis among her hobbies, as well as attending sporting events - and she immediately used her Twitter account to highlight England's crucial World Cup qualifier against Montenegro on Friday. "I cannot wait to get started and certainly am hoping for a great result for #England against Montenegro on Friday!" she posted.

As yet we don't know which team she supports - if any. But she will have to get the political kit on soon if she is to pick up where Robertson left off in knocking heads together at the Football Association and Premier League.

But it is the fulfilment of London 2012 legacy that must remain paramount in her in-basket, together with the continued provision of adequate funding at elite and grassroots level via the Exchequer, UK Sport and Sport England.

Schools sport is also a high priority following the restoration of £150 million ($240 million/€179 million) of Government funding and we look forward to her showing the Education Secretary Michael Gove a touch of the harai-goshi should he try to renege on any Government pledges in this area

No doubt Robertson will be passing on some sage advice too. In my view, he has been outstanding in a long line of Sports Ministers, certainly in his three year tenure the best the Tories have ever sent into bat in their cricket team of incumbents. He has always played the bowling as straight as the answers he always gave the media.

Hugh Robertson has been among Britain's best ever Sports Ministers - but will not be missed by officials at the Football Association, who he has consistently criticised

Sport will miss him, all except those running English football who will be glad to see the back of him - because he has always been on theirs, labelling the football authorities as the worst-run of any in sport.

Sepp Blatter and his FIFA cronies who have been equally intransigent over the pressure he has applied for reform at the highest level will also clap their hands at his departure.

Robertson, 50, had turned down previous offers of a more senior role in Government and in his six years as Shadow Minister but this seems to be one he couldn't refuse in terms of career advancement.

It is rare for a Sports Minister to go onwards and upwards to higher office, apart from into the House of Lords (though Colin Moynihan did become Energy Minister). For most it has been a bit of a dead end job.

Now London 2012 is out of the way, has Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron decided to downgrade the importance of sport?

Now the worrying concern is that, in promoting Robertson, David Cameron appears to have demoted sport.

Grant will be a junior Minister, unlike Robertson, sharing her Under-Secretary's sports role with that of the equalities portfolio.

Does this indicate that with the Olympics done and dusted Cameron no longer sees sport as having the political and social clout of the past three years? Let's hope not.

Grant picks up the baton at a time when British sport is on a high. Her job will be to help it remain so, and get others playing it , as she has demonstrably done herself.

I suspect the personable ex-athlete will be a hit with sportsfolk once she settles in and should she emerge as capable-and feisty - as her only female predecessor, Kate Hoey, it will be a bonus.

But she will find sports politics as murky, devious and capricious as the real thing. Maybe more so.

I wish her well, and hope she proves as adept at throwing some weight around as she was on the judo mat.

Alan Hubbard is a 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.

I write to you from Cleveland, Ohio, which, with Akron, will host the 2014 Gay Games next August. I'm a member of the Board of the Federation of Gay Games (FGG), here with 20 other Board members and more than 50 delegates from our member organisations, for our Annual General Assembly.

The first half of our meeting will be devoted to the choice of the host for the 2018 Gay Games, which will be the tenth edition of the world's largest sport and culture festival open to all, with no requirements other than being age 18 and over and paying the registration fee.

The final decision is due to be announced tomorrow.

Joining us will be the delegations from Limerick, London, and Paris, the three cities shortlisted as finalist by our Assembly last June. The delegations will include Olympic fencing medalist Laura Flessel and French Minister for Sport Valerie Fourneyron. The presence of such high profile personalities is a sign of the perception of the impact hosting the Gay Games can have for a city.

French Sports Minister Valérie Fourneyron and fencer Laura Flessel, who carried her country's flag at the Opening Ceremony of London 2012, will be part of the Paris delegation bidding for the 2018 Gay Games

Financial impact, of course. Hosting over 10,000 athletes and artists and tens of thousands more friends, family, and fans brings in significant revenues for a host city. Unlike the Olympics and other mega-events, the Gay Games doesn't require infrastructure investments, and the tourists who attend do not displace normal visitors.

Beyond finance, there is a political impact. The Gay Games are not about rewarding good LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender)-friendly countries and punishing bad LGBT-phobic countries.

Of course the FGG is not going to ask participants to travel to a place that is unsafe. But part of our mission is to promote positive change in the cities and regions to which we bring the Games, a goal exemplified by our host for 2014 in Northeast Ohio, where among the many changes taking place are LGBT sensitivity training sessions for the police and diversity training for regional providers of goods and services for the Games.

There's a moral impact as well. The mission of the Gay Games is to promote equality in and through sport. In our site selection process for 2018, we have for the first time explicitly requested that bidders discuss their vision for human rights, including the fundamental impact of the Games itself.

The Federation of Gay Games is a volunteer organisation run on a shoe-string budget. Our host committees have paid staff and a budget that at several million dollars remains a tiny fraction of those of Olympic hosts. When we do have a bit of money, our reflex is to spend it on scholarships to support participants from developing countries.

Akron and Cleveland will host the 2014 Gay Games

For many of us, the choice of a host of the Gay Games is the most important task of the FGG.

To make this decision, we require hosts to produce a thorough bid book covering a range of issues including venues, finance, marketing, conference plans, etc. We created an online form so that anyone in the world could ask bidders for explanations and further details on their plans, and published those questions and the answers from bidders on our website.

For the first time we invited all qualified persons from around the world to apply for the position of site inspector, chose three, and sent them to spend four days in each of the three finalist cities. From these visits a 100-page report was prepared, reviewed by bidders, and sent to voters.

And now here in Cleveland, we'll spend three days on site selection, including committee reports, site inspection presentations, and the highlight of the event, the oral presentations before we make our final choice. 

Marc Naimark is vice-president for external affairs for the Federation of Gay Games, the governing body for the world's largest sporting event open to all, and a member of the Pride House International coalition of LGBT sport and human-rights organisations. Gay Games 9 is due to take place in August 2014 in Cleveland.

Wandering around the track before the Sochi 2014 Olympic Handover Ceremony - chuntering incoherently to myself no doubt about my inability to navigate the Greek metro - I experienced a rare moment of lucidity.

Last week at the Flame Lighting Ceremony I stood on the Olympian hillside at the home of the Ancient Olympic Games. Now this week I am at the home of the Modern ones - on the very Panathenaic Stadium track where Spyridon Louis won the first Olympic marathon 117 years ago.

Such is this life of privilege on Torch Relay patrol.

Far greater than its ability to satisfy ceremony attending journalists however, is the Relay's ability to provide memories and opportunities for all people from all backgrounds and from all countries.

The Relay, and in particular the two Ceremonies so far, have done this in such a traditional and almost effortless way.

While the Flame Lighting Ceremony at least had the difficulty of a long drive to Ancient Olympia the Handover Ceremony - metro incompetence aside - had not even that handicap.

Greek figure skating champion Panagiotis Markouizos lights the cauldron during the Sochi 2014 Olympic Torch Handover Ceremony

As a mixture of Olympic enthusiasts, locals, and curious tourists took their seats, there was no mad rush, no ticket touts on the gate and no intricate seating system.

The long, stone corridor which wound its way to the press room was anything but modern until you would suddenly pop out in the relatively hi-tech media room in an image that reminded me of  the James Bond film The Spy who Loved Me.

Out of the most historical of settings - the Pyramids of Egypt I believe - Bond stumbles upon the most state-of-the-art of hidden rooms containing an alliance of British and Soviet secret service. Modern features hidden away in an ancient setting in the same way.

Back in Greece and two hours later the same corridor had transformed into a bustling hub of back stage preparation as the stadium gradually adopted an atmosphere blending that of a village fete with an international sporting event.

The London 2012 Torch Relay ignited Olympic fever in the United Kingdom and for the first time the flame visited Scotland. Now an even longer relay, lasting 288 days, will next Wednesday (October 9) bring a greeting from the Queen from Buckingham Palace to Glasgow, host city for the 2014 Commonwealth Games via 71 countries across the world.

When the first "British Empire Games" were held in the Canadian city of Hamilton in 1930, Canadian Prime Minister Richard Bennett read words of King George V to the crowd. Ever since, the Royal message has been a part of the Opening Ceremony.

The first Games of the Queen's reign were held in Vancouver in 1954. She was represented by Prince Philip on that occasion, but the Queen intended to be there in person for the 1958 Games in Cardiff.

The Welsh were determined to put on a show. In 1956, they had celebrated the centenary of the composition of their national anthem "Land of My Fathers". Welsh Athletics official and schoolteacher Bernard Baldwin organised a ten mile "Lawr y Cwm" (Mountain to Valley) race. One runner, 1948 Olympic marathon silver medallist Tom Richards, carried a Baton containing a goodwill message from the people of Mountain Ash to Pontypridd.

Sam Ferris, another British Olympic marathon medallist was there to greet the runners in Pontypridd.

"I believe it is Baldwin's ambition to persuade Cardiff Corporation to further the cause of road running by organising another Lawr y Cwm as a finale to the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games," he said.

That didn't happen but Baldwin's efforts may well have been part of the inspiration for the first Queen's Message Relay in 1958. It was a very modest affair by modern standards, all completed in less than a week.

The Baton was designed by soldier turned Cardiff jeweller Colonel Roy Crouch and featured the Welsh dragon in bold relief, the daffodil and leek. Silversmiths Messrs Turner and Simpson of Birmingham manufactured the batons.

The man put in charge of the logistics of the event was Commander Bill Collins, a retired Royal Navy officer, who had also organised the London 1948 Olympic Torch relay.

Sir Roger Bannister is flanked by Chris Chataway and Peter Driver at the start of the Queen's Baton Relay for the 1958 Commonwealth Games in Cardiff

Prince Philip met the first three runners at Buckingham Palace. The first bearer was Dr Roger Bannister, the first sub-four minute mile runner in history winner of the "Miracle Mile " at the 1954 Games in Vancouver. Two other champions from those Games, Chris Chataway, winner of the three miles in Vancouver, and Peter Driver, the six miles champion, provided an escort.

In the courtyard, an equerry handed the Baton to Collins before the trio departed through the Palace Gates.

Sir Roger ran to Kensington Gardens. Canadian High Commissioner George Drew and Welsh Minister Henry Brooke were waiting to greet him. The two men represented the host nations of the immediate past and present Games.

Athletic clubs and schools were asked to provide runners. Seniors ran for two miles and juniors half that distance, accompanied at all times by the support vehicle, a Rolls Royce.

The Relay headed to North Wales and crossed the border at Chirk shortly after dawn. Rowing was part of the Games programme in 1958 and held in North Wales. Competitors at Lake Padarn took a break from training to watch the Baton pass. Twins Irfon and Elfyn Roberts, pupils at Caernarvon Grammar School and 14-year-old schoolboy David Pell from Friars School in Bangor were among the youngest of the 664 runners.

Runners from the Mountain Rescue service helped carry the Baton at Llanberis.

Over the next three days it headed South and along the coast to Cardiff. The message was then switched to a special Ceremonial Baton and carried into Cardiff Arms Park by Welsh sprinter and Rugby Union international Ken Jones.The Queen's words spoke of "welcome proof of the increasing value which is being placed today of physical strength and skill as an essential factor in the development of the whole man.I hope that many lasting friendships will grow.

Welsh sprinter Ken Jones hands the Queen's Baton to Prince Philip at the Opening Ceremony of Cardiff 1958

The message signed off: "I am greatly looking forward with being with you at the end of next week."

In fact, the Queen was too unwell to attend the Closing Ceremony so a recorded message relayed by loudspeaker announced Charles would become Prince of Wales.

By the time Charles was invested in 1969, the Queen had still not attended a Commonwealth Games, but the following year they were to be held in Scotland for the first time. Edinburgh was host city and Royal College of art student Hector Miller designed a Baton which featured the Games symbol and the city coat of arms.

For the first and only time, the Baton began its journey outside the UK. The Queen was visiting Canada. She handed over her message at Petitot Park at Yellowknife in the North-Western Territories.

"What message could the Queen have in mind that requires such a circuitous route for its conveyance? " asked Auberon Waugh in The Times."One cannot help feeling that it had better be something pretty meaty to justify the effort."

Commander Collins, in Canada to supervise the handover, fired off a rebuke. "Those who give their services in Canada and Scotland in organising this small traditional contribution to the Games are only too glad to do something for others in the world of sport without thought of reward for themselves," he wrote. "The young people of Scotland who will be carrying the message feel it an honour to do so."

First Nation ethnic groups, including those from Inuvik took part in the Handover Ceremony. Abby Hoffman, Canada's 1966 gold medallist over 880 yards, received the Baton from the Queen. It was flown to Scotland where 21-year-old John Ferguson of Ayr Seaforth Harriers was the first of 1,000 runners on Scottish soil. "Thus many distant places from Edinburgh would feel they were playing some part in Scotland's Games," said organisers.

When it passed through Glasgow it fell to teenager Doreen Arthur to present the baton at Glasgow City Chambers.

Finally it arrived in Edinburgh and it was fitting that this long distance journey should be completed by a marathon runner, 1966 gold medallist Jim Alder who handed the Baton to Prince Philip to read the message. The Queen arrived later in the week to close the Games.

The Queen took part in the Closing Ceremony at Edinburgh in 1970, the first occasion that Scotland hosted the Commonwealth Games

In 1986 the Games returned to Edinburgh. The Relay began at Buckingham Palace. The Baton designed by Edinburgh jeweller Michael Laing, was handed to Steve Cram accompanied by champion hurdlers, Australia's Debbie Flintoff and England's David Hemery.

The Baton travelled through England, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man before reaching Coldstream, where Alder, the final runner in 1970, now carried it across the border. It was transported across Scotland by runners and cyclists and arrived in Edinburgh for the Opening Ceremony. In contrast to 1970, organisers chose a sprinter this time. Allan Wells ran in, escorted by six gold medallists from the 1970 Games.

Many countries boycotted in 1986 over Britain's stance on sporting contact with South Africa, so the Queen's words, read by the Duke of Edinburgh seem particularly poignant. "The Games have a well deserved reputation for their friendliness and good sportsmanship," he told the crowd at Meadowbank Stadium.

The Queen will open Glasgow 2014. When this happens, her speech is officially styled an "address" not a "message". The first time she opened the Games was at Edmonton in 1978. Kenyan runner Ben Jipcho received a baton made from a Narwhal tusk by Inuit artist Nick Sikkuark outside Buckingham Palace. It was flown to Canada where surviving medallists from 1930 offered a welcome in Hamilton Ontario.

It visited all the Provinces before Diane Jones-Konihowski, soon to win pentathlon gold, handed it back to the Queen. "In recent years, as your President, Prince Philip has performed the Opening Ceremony and read my message," she told the assembled crowd. "Today the roles are reversed and for the first time I am able to give you my message in person."

The Queen also opened the 1994 Games in Victoria, British Columbia. It was carried on traditional first nation canoes before 1994 Olympic biathlon champion Myriam Bedard entered the Centennial Stadium on dry-land skis in an unusual finale.

Unlike the Olympic Flame, there is no danger of the baton "going out", but in 1974 it did go missing from an office before the Relay to Christchurch New Zealand had even begun. It was found just in time.

Organisers of the 1990 Games in Auckland were inventive. The Baton was divided and visited New Zealand's North and South Islands. In 1998, after a symbolic journey to all the continents, It arrived in Kuala Lumpur,and the final journey to the Stadium began by elephant .

Seb Coe was the first runner to have his pulse rate tracked by the 2002 baton which passed through more Commonwealth countries than ever before. Crowds swarmed to Manchester to see football stars past and present from City and United take part, including brothers Phil and Gary Neville. Sister Tracey was part of England's netball team.

David Beckham hands the Queen's Baton to six-year-old Kirsty Howard at the Opening Ceremony of the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester

Through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, British athletics benefited from a rich seam of athletic talent located at Haringey Athletic Club. During that time a glut of competitors whose careers were shaped and nurtured on and around the track at the New River Stadium, just a few corner kicks along White Hart Lane from Tottenham Hotspur FC, earned national and international success, and that enduring achievement is to be officially celebrated.

This month, The London Coaching Foundation is presenting The Haringey Golden Years - an oral and visual exhibition involving 22 of the club's most distinguished athletes and coaches. Contributors include Sebastian Coe, who was both a member and President of the club, Mike McFarlane, a key figure as both athlete and then coach, and the late Jean Pickering MBE, Olympic athlete and wife of Ron Pickering, former Haringey President.

Ron Pickering, an inspirational figure at Haringey AC as both a coach and President of the club

The list of distinguished Haringey alumni speaks for itself. Tony Jarrett - world silver medallist and Commonwealth champion at 110m hurdles. Dalton Grant - European indoor champion, Commonwealth champion and European silver medallist at the high jump. Gary and Heather Oakes, the husband and wife who won bronze medals at the 1980 Olympics.

An fascinating slice of boxing history will be made this weekend when three Olympic super-heavyweight champions are in action simultaneously.

A fistful of dollars - 23 million in all - will be trousered in a world title fight on Saturday night when long-reigning heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitscho faces the unbeaten Russian Alexander Povetkin in Moscow.

Meanwhile at London's O2 Arena, Britain's 2012 gold medallist Anthony Joshua will be stepping into the ring to make his pro debut around the time Klitschko (Atlanta 1996) and Povetkin (Athens 2004) contest the WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO belts before a sell-out 35,000 crowd at the Olimpiyskiy Stadium.

They've read the Last Rites over boxing as frequently as they've rung the last bell but as Floyd Mayweather jnr has masterfully demonstrated the rough old trade is still very much alive and punching.

Big fights remain big box office. And so do big fighters. Cut-up David Haye and peed-off Tyson Fury may be on the back burner until February but the heavyweight scene, traditionally the barometer of the sport's health, is about to be sustained, and hopefully enriched, by the shedding of headguard and vest by young Josh, the nation's most prized fighter.

Barring mishap or mismatch he, should keep boxing out of the gravediggers' clutches for the next decade.

Fourteen months after completing Britain's record Games medal haul the 23-year-old Londoner launches his pro career where he left off as an amateur by meeting a 32-year-old Italian. Victory over Roman policeman Roberto Cammarelle brought a gold medallion. Similar conquest of Puglia's Emanuele Leo, unbeaten in eight contests, all fought on home territory, could be the initial drilling into the sort of heavyweight gold mine goldmine from which Klitschko and Povetkin will be unearthing their 24-carat nuggets.

While Joshua's well-paid paid baptism on the same card that his gold medal mate from London 2012 Luke Campbell, has his second pro fight at lightweight, should be a formality, there is an disturbing cloud of intrigue hovering the Eastern blockbuster in Moscow.

Normally this should be another comfortable excursion for the 37-year-old Ukrainian, an overwhelming 1-12 on favourite, but after recent scoring curiousities intense spotlight will be on the ringside judges, two Americans and a Belgian, and Puerto Rican ref Luis Pablon.

Wladimir Klitscho and Alexander Povetkin, the Olympic super-heavyweight champions from Atlanta 1996 and Athens 2004, prepare to face each other in a mega-dollars World Championship title fight in Moscow

The massive purse bid for the fight - to be screened live here on BoxNation was secured by Povetkin's billionaire promoter and whispers abound of heavy betting on the home fighter among the Russian mafia. The blond Povetin, 34, undeated in 26 contests, is a capable enough opponent but lacks "Dr Steelhammer's" class and clout.

Conspiracy theories are not uncommon in boxing - the latest being Fury's nonsensical allegation that Haye's cut-eyebrow was self-inflicted - but in his 64th contest -and 23rd title fight - Klitschko is canny enough to be aware of the old saying in the sport that sometimes in an opponent's backyard you have to knock 'em out to get a draw!

We shall be watching this one with interest and more than a little apprehension.

Back in London Joshua becomes the latest in an illustrious line of post-war Olympic heavyweight or super-heavyweight champions to set their horizons on what is still regarded as the ultimate prize in sport.

Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Lennox Lewis, Klitschko and Povetkin all succeeded. Pete Rademacher, Ray Mercer, Tyrell Biggs and of course dear old Audley Harrison fought for it and lost, some more ignominously than others.

The fabulous Cuban Teofilo Stevenson, three times Olympic champion at heavyweight, and compatriots Felix Savon and Robert Balado are among others, including Camarelle, who never turned pro.

Have I missed out Muhammad Ali, the greatest of them all? It is a common misconception that the then Cassius Clay won the Olympic heavyweight title but it was actually the light-heavyweight gold at Rome 1960. And former world champ Evander Holyfield also won his Olympic bronze at light-heavyweight.

Similarly Floyd Patterson was a middleweight when he won his Oympic title, as was Michael Spinks, subsequently blitzed in seconds by Mike Tyson (who never boxed in the Games) when challenging for the heavyweight crown.

Britain's Anthony Joshua, the London 2012 super-heavyweight gold medallist, is making his professional debut on Saturday but claims he is not motivated by money

Now we have the exciting new Olympian in the pro corner - at last. Joshua has kept promoters worldwide on hold until finally securing a deal with Matchroom's Eddie Hearn. Why did he prevaricate so long? He says: "I needed to take time to sort out the best package for me, and not just financially because I had better offers."

While over lunch he smilingly informs insidethegames that his current reading material includes Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich" Josh insists it really isn't all about the dosh. "Money helps, but doesn't motivate me. Never has. I'm rich in spirit and in my heart. As long as I feel a million dollars that's what matters."

He claims to be unfazed by the constant reminder of how the pro career of super-heavyweight predecessor Harrison, embarrassingly went belly-up. While he declines to diss Harrison's obvious lack of hunger he maintains will not follow the same intransigently self-obsessed route.

Unlike the 2000 Olympic champion, Joshua is not demanding to be the main attraction either on his Sky Sports 2-televised debut or for some time hence. "Maybe that was his mistake. I want to work my way up the ranks against decent opposition.

"I believe I could have won the gold again in Rio but to be honest the Olympics didn't really satisfy me. I needed a new beginning.

"I know can become a great boxer, and ultimately a world champion. I just have to make sure I don't get lost in the hype."

Harrison was nudging 30 when he turned pro. In boxing terms, Big Josh is still a baby, but at 6ft 6in and a trim 16½ stone, he has vital commodities for greatness; good hand speed, a stunning punch, charm to match his Ali-like looks, a highly marketable personality and importantly a genuine feel for the game.

He can certainly dish it out but the multi-million dollar question is whether he can take it on the chin. A good whack on the whiskers has put paid to many a heavyweight hopeful's dream.

Ask David Price, the Beijing 2008 bronze medallist whose unblemished career as British champion was twice brutally derailed by the ancient American ex-contender Tony Thompson.

A pugilist from Puglia, not a noted puncher, is unlikely to provide an instant answer but seems a reasonable enough choice for openers in a scheduled six-rounder. Hearn says he had trouble finding someone suitable for the first of Joshua's four planned fights this year. "There were a few squeaky bums whenever we mentioned Josh's name."

The British-born son of Nigerian parents, as a kid Joshua was a talented footballer, and can still run 11 seconds for the 100 metres, a natural fleet-footedness which should help keep him out of harm's way.

With youthful gremlins out of the way - he once did community service for a minor drugs offence - Joshua says helping out the homeless in home town Watford mentally prepares him for battles in life and the ring.

Seoul 1988 Olympic super-heavyweight gold medallist and former World Heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis is helping advise Anthony Joshua ahead of his professional debut

Lewis, with whom he is regularly in touch, has reminded him that he may be a champion, but now has to be a contender again. He has also taught him how chess relates the ring. "In particular how to counter attack and think two steps ahead of your opponent."

Lewis may be his mentor, but his idol is Muhammad Ali. When Hearn signed him on a three-year deal Joshua's first request was "Can you arrange for me to meet Ali."

"Yeah, hang on a minute," said Hearn."I'll give him a buzz..."

But Josh hopes one day it will happen.

Picture it if you will. A ceremony in the oldest of settings but with all of the action caught on a flickering sea of cameras and smart phones. Winter torchbearers clad in hats, thick trousers and fleeces despite the searing humidity and cloudless sky. The new Olympic boss Thomas Bach using the occasion to preach about "peaceful coexistence and mutual respect..."

Such is the incongruity of the Olympic circus as it returned to its oldest home of Ancient Olympia.

This is without even mentioning the Ceremony itself and features therein: ranging from a Flame lit by the rays of the sun to honour long extinct Gods, to the release of a white pigeon and to robe wearing dancers on the hillside.

Yet as the Olympic Torch embarked on its four month journey to Sochi on Sunday (September 29) we were reminded that this hotchpotch of different styles and traditions - as well as technologies and climates - is what the Olympics are all about.

The blending of the old and new, natural and human and physical and mental, and its permutations well beyond the world of sport.

This was the crux of a strong speech by Bach on his first official overseas trip since taking over the Presidency of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) earlier this month. He spoke about "being aware of our own Olympic limits" but also the ability to use the "strength of our values and symbols for the positive development of global human society."

New IOC President Thomas Bach, pictured alongside other dignitaries during the Flame Lighting Ceremony, made a strong speech laying a basis for his future aims



The example of Greece, and Ancient Olympia itself, is as good a way as any to illustrate Bach's point.

In recent years this once great nation has lurched through an unseemly cycle of recession, debt, bailout and woe with a succession of leaders arriving almost as often as predictions of further misery.

Even this week the news carries tales of anguish. The rise of the ultra right-wing Golden Dawn movement, the return to "drachma-era wages as strike waves gather pace," and disillusionment with evermore influential European Union powerbrokers. With Champions League defeats and EuroBasket exit even sport appears to bring only more failure.

The streets of Ancient Olympia revealed signs of these times. The empty shops for example, the mass of residents sitting in cafes all day apparently doing nothing, and the plying of restaurant customers with free courses in return for favourable online reviews (gladly accepted of course).

In this context the significance with which Hellenic Olympic Committee President Spyros Capralos' hailed Bach's promise to "stand by and assist Greece in every way possible in tough economic times" is unsurprising as the Olympics offers a beacon of hope.

Come Saturday the Flame Lighting Ceremony weekend indeed brought an all too visible transformation. Colour, crowds and vibrancy returned to the streets. The shops were full, bands played and tourists and locals gathered together to sample the festivities. All was well.

The main shopping street on Ancient Olympia was busy and vibrant at the weekend but was less so the rest of the time in a sign of Greece's economic malaise