Participate even if you have no hope of winning

The London Olympics will leave many memories but, for me, Eton Dorney on Friday morning sums it up. I had got up at 6am to get there because I wanted to see whether Katherine Grainger would finally win a gold in the women’s double sculls, so often having been the bridesmaid at previous Olympics and making do with silver.

The 20,000 odd crowd had come for this moment yet the day began with an F final in men’s single sculls between Mejri from Tunisia, Etia Ndoumbe from Cameroon and Djibo Issaka from Niger. Actually it was not a final in the sense that most of us would understand the word, it was a classification match to decide which of these rowers would finish in the last three positions of this competition. Now, in many other sports, football for instance, such a contest would not happen and, if it were to take place, it would provoke universal derision.