Legendary Australian sprinter Cathy Freeman has been unveiled as the sixth official ambassador of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games during a public event in Queensland’s capital Brisbane today.

Harley Windsor is hoping to become the first Aboriginal Australian to reach the Winter Olympics by earning a qualifying place at this week's International Skating Union (ISU) World Figure Skating Championships - but his fate could ultimately rest on whether the mother of his Russian partner in the pairs, Yekaterina Alexandrovskaya, can learn English in time.

As you read this, two young figure skaters are training hard on an ice rink. They are in Moscow; they are on the brink of making history.

It is challenging enough to be a favourite for a race, or for an athlete to be so finely tuned to peaking at the right time to achieve a personal best. What must it be like for those favourite to win before their home crowd? 

Back in February 1976 when I edited the magazine Sportsworld, then the official publication of the British Olympic Association, I received a telephone call from a Melbourne radio station in the middle of the night following the British figure skater John Curry’s breathtakingly artistic gold medal-winning performance in the Innsbruck Winter Games.  

Cathy Freeman has led the Anzac Day commemorations to remember the Australian Olympians who enlisted in World War One.