March 19, 2022. The Stark Arena, Belgrade. And the winner of the women’s high jump at the World Athletics Indoor Championships is celebrating with intense, almost fierce joy as she brandishes her national flag - the flag of Ukraine.

I blame the hoopoe.

My athletics training group often echoed motivation to each other on Tuesday night sessions when in the doldrums, trying to get through the final 600 metres.

It is a relic from another era, the age of super-powered bidding battles, when political leaders in every major country under the sun were desperate to host marquee sports competitions.

There is a fair case for arguing that fate has not been kind to Leonz Eder since he became International University Sports Federation (FISU) Acting President in March 2021.

Paris 2024 is the next Summer Olympics on the calendar but the first competition for Los Angeles 2028 has already begun.

This week at the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) General Assembly in Seoul, there were heated exchanges as the debate on the readmission of Russia to international sport reached a crescendo.

By coincidence Neven Ilic, who as President of Panam Sports is deep in preparations for next year's first Pan American Games in his native Chile, arrived in his country along with the 1962 FIFA World Cup finals.

Starting next Saturday (October 15), some of England's traditional bastions of the 13-man rugby code will be playing host to the 2021 Rugby League World Cup (RLWC2021) - postponed due to COVID 19 restrictions but, as with Tokyo 2020, being marketed under its original title.

There is never a dull day covering the Olympic Movement, but every so often, one comes along that stands out like the damage done by a well-placed punch in a boxing ring.

The tidal wave of emotion released by Roger Federer's tearful farewell performance at London's O2 Arena on Friday night travelled around the sporting world - and will continue to do so for some time.

Individual time trial events took place at Wollongong today. They mark the start of the International Cycling Union (UCI) Road World Championships; but also something much bigger. Namely Australia's "Decade of Sport".

On a grassy bank outside the Olympic Stadium in Munich, a series of plaques record the name of every gold medallist at the 1972 Games.

Last month, during the European Athletics Championships in Munich, my Italian friend and colleague Franco Fava was recalling how he took part in the 1972 Games held in the city's Olympic stadium.

Two years into his Presidency of the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB), Ary Graça was literally bouncing up and down in a state of high excitement at the Stadion Narodowy in Warsaw.