Greatly enjoying the Olympics, and slightly resenting having to return to work and miss all the live coverage.  What a welcome change it is to be able to look at the results and not be embarrased about the GB performance.  The first Olympics I can even vaguely remember was Mexico in 1968 where we got 5 gold medals – a total we didn’t improve on until Sydney in 2000.

Having said that, I can’t derive any actual entertainment from events like yachting or eventing, but I can really enjoy watching gymnastics and diving, despite them not being ‘proper’ sports that you can measure objectively.

Looking at the Olympic games over the last 40 years, the number of events has grown from 172 to 302, with stuff like BMX racing and beach volleyball being more recent additions.  Go back to 1956 and there were only 145 events.  I know the IOC is now trying to limit the number of events, but wouldn’t it be fun if the trend was allowed to continue andin 2024 there were more like 350 events?  Imagine what they could add…

• Trapeze, high wire & juggling (to go alongside all the other circus skills in gymnastics)
• Darts (at least as energetic as pistol shooting)
• Parkour
• 10-pin bowling
• Air guitar
• Hurling
• Rounders
• Skateboarding
• Paintball
• Korfball
• Baton twirling and/or cheerleading
• Hang gliding

To give us a chance to keep in with the gold medals we would, of course, press for the inclusion of British Bulldog, Conkers, Parallel parking and another 18 variations on cycling even if we have to invent an event called ‘Ycling’.