Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo - the four latest contenders to host an Olympic Games are preparing for the final, awful, joyful reckoning in Copenhagen next week. And when the members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) come to weigh up their respective strengths, personal impressions will inevitably play a part.

Try as they might, the 106 men and women at the heart of the world’s greatest sporting event will be unable to expunge any memories they may have of the prospective venues as they struggle to come to the Right Decision.

Were I an IOC member – a prospect as likely as a talking cat – I would struggle to subdue the recollection of something awkward which happened to me in one of those four fine cities. I would strive not to let it be a factor in my choice, either one way or the other. I would endeavour to put it so far to the back of my mind that it had a fair chance of becoming part of the memory lode of anyone standing immediately behind me.

But memory – it has its own will, doesn’t it? I try to resist. And memory persists…

I woke up and my trousers were around my ankles. Whatever it was, it wasn't good. I was in a place that was brightly lit and dimly familiar. My hotel room? Did I get a taxi, then?

No, not my hotel room. A toilet. A toilet in a restaurant. A toilet in a Basque restaurant. In...Madrid.

I looked at my watch - how could it be 10 to 5? Because that would mean... that surely would mean I had... where were the others?

Hitching up my crumpled trousers, I unlocked the door - good sign that, must have locked the door, you should lock the door - and stepped out. Unlike the restaurant I had visited the previous evening, this was a very quiet, dark place, not at all popular. So unpopular, indeed, that I was the only one in it, although I was not entirely alone.

All around the bar, lit only by the eerie green glow of drinks cabinets, hung huge hams. These Basques, I thought, they do love their meat.

I hadn't noticed the hams on my way in. Then again, I hadn't noticed anything for five hours.

Drink, I reflected, might have played its part in my situation. Some drink had undoubtedly been taken - a couple of beers, no more. Big ones, though. And just that one glass of red wine. Or so. But, in the evidence for the defence, the prime exhibit was surely Long Day in Hot Sun.

Madrid's Estadio de la Comunidad had turned out to be entirely open to the elements - the relevant one being fire. An hour into our early start to the day's European Cup athletics, the sun had heated us to about gas mark 6. The guys from L'Equipe had stripped down to the waist, but by noon the shirts were back on with the collars up.

Something was nagging at me... the French, always so stylish, you didn't catch them wearing ankle socks with their shorts... nagging... sports socks, maybe, but they looked OK somehow, meant, not like the typical Englishman-abroad sock, brown with a silly pattern, worn half-way up a weedy white calf... at me.

The bill?

There was no way I could have paid it. I couldn't even remember what I'd eaten. Oh yes I could.

By now I was standing at the restaurant door. On the other side was the courtyard where I had sat with a large tableful of my fellow toilers before that rising feeling - unmistakeable as grief - had drawn me discreetly and swiftly away from the jocund throng.

I wanted nothing more now than to slide between the cool sheets of my hotel bed. My hand was on the door handle. Maybe it was a door which simply locked itself as it was swung shut. Or something like that.

Cool sheets, fizzy mineral water. I turned the handle.

To no effect, as far as getting out was concerned. But to considerable effect as far as filling the restaurant with a noise that resembled an LA cop car at the scene of crime was concerned. After about five minutes, the noise was replaced by a deafening silence. Then the phone behind the bar rang. And as I had no other pressing business, I answered it.

I couldn't understand what the man was saying - and he couldn't understand what I was saying. The Spanish phrase for: "I'm sorry, I'm an English journalist and I have fallen asleep in your toilet" eluded me.

It was as I put the phone down that the nagging feeling suddenly turned itself into something more tangible.
 
It wasn't nagging any more, it was shouting in my face. Policemen in Spain carry guns! Guns!

I thought: How can I make it very clear - crystal clear, as my old headmaster would have said - that I am not a burglar?

Sit by the bar, casually, as if you have fallen asleep there. But they won't be able to see your hands. How will they know you don't have a gun or a knife? No. Simply stand in the middle of the room with your arms in the air.

I tried this. It was just too absurd.

And of course, I thought, it might make them think you've done something criminal and were owning up, whereas the image you need to foster at this point in your life is "poor, sleepy-headed Englishman."

Torch beams swung across the windows. I heard the sound of voices. Now the doors were opening, and two very large, uniformed policemen were moving towards me with guns.

My plans were as nothing. Instinctively, I embraced the international language of helplessness - palms together as if in prayer at the side of my tilted face. Then palms outstretched beseechingly.

By now, a rumpled man I took to be the restaurant owner - and perhaps also the owner of the voice on the phone - had joined the party, a jacket over his pyjama top. As they spoke to him, he stared at me with an expression I find hard to describe. But incomprehension was a part of it. And hatred.

So what was it to be? The policemen were taking me outside now. Oh, cool sheets and mineral water...

Assume the best, I thought. "Hotel Cuzco?" I asked.

For a moment the two big men looked at me with incomprehension. Then one glanced at the other and grinned before pointing his finger in a helpful direction. At which point the sleepy-headed Englishman took his leave…

As I say, I would strive to minimise the memory were I sitting in judgement in Copenhagen this week. But as I’m not – well, there it is.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames and will be reporting from the IOC Session in Copenhagen next week