First, let's clear up the question of the nude statues - or rather, the absence of them - within the Olympic display currently installed in the centre of Doha.

This display - entitled "Olympics - Past and Present" – has pride of place within the Alriwaq Exhibition Hall close to the Museum of Islamic Art, and will run until June 30 as a forerunner to a larger and more permanent exhibition to be housed within the Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum.

But cultural differences have caused some awkwardness around the showing of three ancient Greek statues of athletes competing in the ancient Games. That is, competing without any clothes on, a state of play likely to risk offending public taste here in Qatar.

Today I had the opportunity to clarify the sequence of events during a press tour of the display accompanying four of the athletes who will compete in Friday's meeting at the Khalifa International Stadium in the opening International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Diamond League event of the season.


After the quartet of Christian Taylor, Allyson Felix, Brittney Reese and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce - all Olympic champions, aptly enough - had been shown the exhibits, the party emerged from the recreated environs of Olympia to the cafeteria. And there was Dr Christian Wacker, the German director of the Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum.

He told insidethegames that there had been much speculation about the issue of the statues, adding: "We had a fabric which we wanted to put two metres in front of the statues. This was a very good compromise. But the Greek Culture Ministry didn't accept it and so we had no alternative. We do not want to cause offence - you have to acknowledge local cultural sensitivities.

"Many other objects have been lent and will be sent back to the Greeks, or to the International Olympic Committee (IOC)."

The exhibition, which opened in March, is designed to take viewers through 2,700 years of Olympic history with two sections highlighting ancient Olympia and the modern Games. It displays some 1,200 objects, including over 600 items from Greece and international museums.


All four athletes appeared to be genuinely engaged by what they were seeing, which was greatly to their credit given the constant attention of photographers and the dazzling light of accompanying television cameras, not to mention - let's be honest here - he constant genteel scuffling for position employed by the likes of me and fellow scribes, many of whom were also wielding mobile phone cameras.

It's not a giant display, but it is a genuinely fascinating one, encompassing many of the items and images one might expect, ranging from votive armour unearthed from Olympia to the increasingly garish range of Olympic mascots, a furry menagerie housed in a giant glass display.

As our guide laconically pointed out, the little furry animals appeared to have become bigger and more numerous as the years went by, with Beijing 2008 providing five little characters - that is, potentially five times more revenue.

Laconically, while we are on the subject, is a word deriving from the Greek region of Lakon, of which Sparta was the capital. The Spartans - known for the brilliance of their fighting as well as the brevity of their speech - provided ancient Greece with some of its finest Olympic champions, and there were artefacts and armour belonging to that special breed among the items on display.

This was an area of the exhibition that especially appealed to Taylor. "I feel the connection with all this," he said. "It is special to me. It's also motivating. I'm a big fan of the history of my sport."

Also included in the exhibits was a model of how Olympia was laid out, showing the route taken by competing athletes to the stadium which took them past displays paid for by way of punishment for those who had cheated or transgressed Olympic rules.

Apart from the immediate cost, the real punishment lay in the knowledge that such transgressions - usually cases of bribery in days before the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had begun laying down the law - would be recorded and commemorated down the generations as a warning to those who followed. It makes a four-year ban look puny in comparison.

This exhibition also embraces, if that is the word, the darker side of sport, offering what is almost a poignant display of doping during the modern era, but during a time when many practices were not outside any rules.

Thus one showcase contains a battered metal suitcase containing the racing gear of an Austrian Tour de France cyclist in the mid-1960s, Alfred Kain, which includes a baking powder tin (Dr Oetker, a particularly fine brand) containing his keep-you-going kit of strychnine (Stricnina Nitrato), Testoviron, mini Bunsen-burner and, of course, syringe.


The tour concludes with a section devoted to Qatar's Olympians, including a framed memento of pictures, tickets and pin badges assembled and donated by swimmer Nada Mohammed, one of their female competitors at London 2012.

This section will be expanded considerably when the main exhibition opens in two years' time - perfectly mirroring Qatar's lingering and expanding ambition to host the Games themselves.

Today, however, the focus was on those who have already achieved their Olympic ambitions. Felix has been really taken with the display of Olympic medals from 1896 onwards.

"I love seeing all the medals from the different Games," she told insidethegames. "I think it's really neat. I've been looking at the medals I have won since Athens, and they are getting bigger and bigger."

The London 2012 gold medal - she collected three for the 200 metres and both relays - does indeed look like the size of a small plate. Felix is starting now on the four-year journey to Rio 2016. She needs to prepare thoroughly. Those medals will take some strength to bear...

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. To follow him on Twitter click here.

From the safe distance of a tweet, the former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan asked on the recent departure from boxing of the one-time Olympic super-heavyweight champion Audley Harrison: "Is he the first boxer to retire without throwing a punch?"

It was a cheap shot, unworthy of a fellow sportsman, one who has never known the pain and inherent dangers of the professional boxing ring.

Strolling to the crease clad in a protective helmet and other well-padded body armour to face a couple of bouncers is one thing; absorbing punches to the head and having your ribs cracked by well-aimed body blows another.

Vaughan's nasty public school snigger demeaned himself, not Harrison, the reformed tearaway with whom all he has in common is a mutual appearance on Strictly Come Dancing.


Ok, we've all done our share of Audley bashing, me included. No British boxer has been more mocked or vilified. The self-styled A-Force has been relabelled The A-Farce and promoter Frank Warren even re-christened him Fraudley.

But he's taken the barbs on the chin as well as the punches and while his farewell obviously is not in the same league as Sir Alex Ferguson he is another British sporting institution who should be given at least a modicum of respect as he bows out.

In truth, few boxers have ever promised so much as a professional and delivered so little. He was never a warrior like Ricky Hatton or Amir Khan and he carries the responsibility of the BBC turning their backs on boxing after their ill-judged £1 million ($1.5 million/€1.2 million) investment in him turned sour.


His 12-year professional career was at best a chequered one. He won a European title and fought albeit briefly and ingloriously against David Haye for the world title.

They say he lacked bottle, but he was stupidly brave enough at 41 to take on the unbeaten KO King (all 27 inside four rounds) Deontay Wilder, arguably the most fearsome heavyweight America has produced since Mike Tyson in his last fight, being battered in just over a minute.

Physically, Harrison had all the attributes to be a great professional boxer but psychologically he was unsuited to it, always talking a better fight than he could deliver.

The trouble with Audley was that he knowingly oversold himself. While he loved the fight game, he just didn't like fighting.

At least, not as a pro.

He talked passionately of his dream and his "journey" towards the world title. But ironically, in the end he became the ultimate journeyman.


Yet balance this with his achievements as an amateur. He was twice national champion, won Commonwealth gold and his success at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 was Britain's first boxing gold since Chris Finnegan in Mexico in 1968.

Harrison had worked out the amateur game to perfection, how and when to score the points which caught the eyes of the judges. Some say he should never have turned pro, though of course he can give you a couple of million reasons why he did – the banknotes now nestling in his American savings account.

Moreover, there has been no scandal during his career. No drugs, no boozing, no womanising. He remains deeply religious and committed to family life in Los Angeles where he awaits fatherhood for the second time with his wife Raychel.

Fighting his way up from a corrective institution he acquired a university degree (BSc) and an MBE and leaves us with this poignant epitaph: "There are only so many times you can fall before it becomes foolhardy to continue."

We'll miss making fun of his prose and his predictions and actually, we'll miss dear old Audley himself bit, too.

From the sometimes ridiculous to the consistently sublime. Last weekend I had the pleasure of watching, via satellite television, a couple of master classes in what occasionally is still the noble art.


Then there was Wladimir Klitschko, Vitali's little brother (well he's only 6ft 6in) brilliantly despatching the hapless though hitherto undefeated Italian Francesco Pianeta in six rounds in Mannheim.

As with Mayweather, it was a boxing exhibition for the fistic aficionado rather than the bloodthirsty punter, an enthralling if clinical exercise in dismantling an opponent with classical efficiency.

Jab, jab, jab, right cross to the head, jab again. You rarely see Klitschko throw a body punch because he doesn't need to. He is methodical, almost robotic, but mesmerisingly so.

I have always been a great fan of the brothers Klitschko, though I doubt 41-year-old Vitali will fight again as he is now so immersed in Ukrainian politics).

They are highly intelligent (both holding PhDs), charming multi-linguists who have brought great credit to the sport.

Contrast the respective careers of Harrison and Klitschko. Wladimir had become the Olympic super-heavyweight champion in Atlanta (where Mayweather claimed the featherweight bronze) four years before the Londoner won in Sydney.

Like Harrison, Klitschko has had his ups and down but has proved his resilience to become an outstanding world champion, acquiring three versions of the title with his brother holding the other.


Then Olympics have been a profitable shop window for most modern heavyweight, and latterly super-heavyweight, gold medallists.

Muhammad Ali, arguably the supreme post-war world heavyweight champion (if not of all time) was only a precocious teenage light-heavyweight named Cassius Clay when he won his Olympic gold in Rome 1960.

But Smokin' Joe Frazier (Tokyo 1964), George Foreman (Mexico City 1968) and Lennox Lewis (Seoul 1988) all went on to resoundingly claim the richest prize in sport. Russia's Alexander Povetkin (Athens 2004) holds the WBA version and is next in line for a crack at Wladimir.

Those who did not include the American Tyrell Biggs (Los Angeles 1984) who became a serious contender but had the misfortune to come up against "Iron Mike" Tyson at his most spiteful.

The Italian policeman Roberto Cammarelle (Beijing 2008) has never turned pro while the young Briton who narrowly beat him at last year's London final, Anthony Joshua, has yet to make up his mind whether to do so.


But perhaps the biggest losers in the Olympic stakes were the Cuban heavies. Teófilo Stevenson and Félix Savón were both three times champions but several decades too soon to take advantage of their nation's recently enlightened view on professionalism.

The late Stevenson was a devastating puncher, as big and handsome as Ali and potentially one of the best heavyweight boxers I have ever seen. He was in Muhammad's era and what a fantastic fight it would have been between Castro's right-hand man and The Greatest.

Such an encounter is the stuff of dreams but alas, like Audley Harrison's mission impossible, a dream that will never be realised.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

Cricket was played at London 2012 but only as part of Danny Boyle's Opening Ceremony. The re-creation of a match on the village green was so accurate, it even included a shower of rain.

Not since 1900 has it been played in earnest at an Olympic Games and even then, most of the participants remained blissfully unaware they had become Olympians.

In 2012 test cricketers Marcus Trescothick and Paul Collingwood were both chosen as Torch bearers and two days before the Opening Ceremony, the flame was taken onto the wicket at a local cricket club in West London by charity volunteer Jo Hyams.

The earliest possible Olympic return for the sport would be in 2024. For that to happen, the International Cricket Council (ICC) would have to table a bid. Then they have to reply to a wide ranging International Olympic Committee (IOC) questionnaire. The host city and programme is due to both be decided at the IOC Session in 2017.

The longest serving England captain, Michael Atherton, who is now a highly-respected journalist, has told his readers in The Times that "the potential benefits are obvious" and that cricket "should not miss the opportunity".

The first steps on the road have been taken. The ICC already has Olympic recognition as an International Federation.

IOC President Jacques Rogge is a confirmed fan. His longest serving predecessor, also admired cricket's sense of fair play. In the early plans for the 1896 Games in Athens, cricket is listed "according to the laws of the Marylebone Cricket Club" (MCC).

There proved to be insufficient entries for a competition, but in for the 1900 Games in Paris, an ambitious four team tournament was on the cards. The Dutch had already played at Lord's - in 1894 - so they were invited with Belgium but neither team turned up. Nor did the most famous and successful sportsman of his day, the great cricketer WG Grace.

The French did raise a team. When the Eiffel Tower was built, a large community of expatriate Englishmen remained and so did cricket. The Standard Athletic Club and Albion CC combined to represent "All Paris".


In England, Castle Cary Cricket Club in Somerset and Blundell's School from Devon took up the challenge as the Devon and Somerset County Wanderers and beat their "French" counterparts by 158 runs in a 12 aside match played over two days.

Coubertin kept the MCC informed about his future plans and in 1904, an IOC party even visited Lord's to watch part of the Middlesex v South Africans match. They were welcomed by Grace, CB Fry and Lord Darnley, all test match cricketers in their day.

Later that week,the IOC selected Rome as host city for 1908. Coubertin set aside 2,000 francs for a cricket competition at the Villa Borghese.

Two years later, Vesuvius erupted. Rome withdrew as hosts. London took over. Chaired by Lord Desborough, who had once played for Harrow against Eton, the Organising Committee also included Andrew Stoddart, a former England captain. Yet, although the 1908 Games ran throughout the summer and included such curiosities as motor-boating, jeu de paume and polo, there was no place for cricket.

Even so, MCC themselves sent regular donations to help the Olympic appeal and their secretary Francis Lacey sat on the British Olympic Council. Bernard Bosanquet, inventor of the googly, later became a fund raiser for the British Olympic Association. IOC member Lord Rochdale had played first-class cricket for Lancashire and Clarence Bruce won the 1920 County Cricket Championship with Middlesex. A decade later,he dominated the MCC Racquets competitions on the indoor courts behind the pavilion at Lord's. In 1929, and by now known as Lord Aberdare, he joined the IOC and served the Olympic Movement until his death in 1957.

Yet even with these insiders, cricket remained outside, although Melbourne Cricket Ground did see Olympic action in 1956. Brisbane's "Gabba" was used for football in 2000 and Lord's itself was the setting for archery in 2012. The BBC went so far as to despatch cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew to cover the event. "It is Lord's, but not as we know it," he said.

Where cricket was once dominated by the old British Empire, and the ICC stood for "Imperial Cricket Conference", now it claims to be truly global. The International Cricket Council headquarters are no longer at Lord's, but in Dubai.


Amongst the current IOC membership, Prince Tunku Imran of Malaysia has called for cricket's return to the Commonwealth Games, an organisation of which he is President.

The IOC questionnaire covers 74 key points and cricket can tick most of the boxes including the section on "rules and procedures to fight against competition fixing". That response is forged from bitter experience.

The short Twenty20 format means no match need last much more than 90 minutes. This would enable a meaningful tournament to be completed in the Olympic time span.

India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the West Indies are giants in cricket, but none are considered superpowers in other Olympic sports. Their presence on the podium would therefore be welcomed by the IOC, although India are thought to be concerned that an Olympic tournament could threaten the existence of the highly lucrative Indian Premier League.

Bangladesh are one of the newer test playing nations but their men beat Afghanistan to win gold at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou. Such diversity of medallists would appeal. The IOC are keen on what they call " global spread of excellence".

Other nations are also developing. Japan is better known for baseball, but their men and women played MCC at Lord's for the first time in 2013. "Becoming an Olympic sport would make a huge difference, it is the biggest thing that could happen in terms of publicising it in our country," said Japan Cricket Association chief executive Naoki Alex Miyaji .


The IOC also looks for "Specific women in sport initiatives". Cricket's landscape has changed dramatically in the last 40 years. Hard to believe that the first Women's World Cup final in 1973 was at Edgbaston in Birmingham because they were not then allowed to play at Lord's.

The victory of the Pakistani women in the 2010 Asian Games was significant. No woman from that country has yet won an Olympic medal.

With the clock ticking on his remaining few months as International Olympic Committee (IOC) President, Jacques Rogge is understandably beginning to think about what his legacy will be.

It is seemingly not something that has been on his mind for all that long.

During a press conference at the inaugural Winter Youth Olympics in Innsbruck in January 2012, I asked him if he thought the Games would be his greatest legacy as IOC President given that he is considered the founder of the competition.

"A legacy is for when you are dead, and I'm not planning on that happening anytime soon," he joked.

But, when asked a similar question a few months during the London 2012 Olympics, his answer was different.

He explained just how hard he had worked, despite opposition, to set up the Youth Olympics, pointed out that the vital revenue sharing deal between the IOC and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) was reached during his watch and that he had been a safe pair of hands.

The 71-year-old Belgian, the eighth President of the IOC, was always considered a safe option when he took over from the charismatic Juan Antonio Samaranch back in 2001.

Samaranch's name is still whispered with awe in the IOC after he took the organisation from near bankruptcy in the 1980s to huge financial prosperity by the time he handed over to Rogge.

That much was clear when I attended the unveiling of the Samaranch Memorial in Tianjin in China at the end of last month. Many IOC members were in attendance, including Rogge himself, who praised his predecessor.

Walking through the Samaranch Memorial, it was clear exactly how much the last Spaniard had contributed to the Movement and it was another clear reminder that he was by far the most important figure in the history of the Modern Olympic Games behind only its founder, Baron Pierre de Coubertin.

It clearly has an impact on Rogge, who ask, in a half-joking, half-serious way to Samaranch Memorial founder C K Wu - an IOC Executive Board member - if he would build a similar momument to him one day.

The position has aged him, which is one of the factors why he will retire as an IOC member when he steps down in September, but in terms of how he is remembered, these last few months of his reign are perhaps the most crucial to his legacy.

On July 4, the host city of the 2018 Youth Olympic Games is due to be elected in Lausanne. Buenos Aires, Glasgow and Medellín are vying for the event, and where the event will be crucial in deciding just how Rogge's pet project continues in its development.

Then, at the vital IOC Session in Buenos Aires in September, a new sport will be added for the 2020 Olympics - or the membership may decide to ignore the controversial decision of the Executive Board to axe wrestling and decide to save it, which would be a slap in the face to Rogge. 

It's been a landmark week for sport as FIFA's Ethics Committee has finally got to the root of the bribery allegations involving its long defunct marketing arm, International Sport and Leisure, before declaring the case "is now closed".

And Eufemiano Fuentes, whose widespread doping practices in cycling, football, tennis and other sports have been under scrutiny for seven years since being brought to light through the Operation Puerto investigation, has finally been brought to justice in the Spanish courts.

At last the highest levels of football are clear of any suggestion of financial malpractice and the doping problem in Spain has been thoroughly examined and eradicated!

Oh no. As you were. The FIFA report has done little more than confirm what was already known about the involvement of Brazil's former FIFA President João Havelange and the former head of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) Ricardo Teixeira, both of whom have already relinquished their FIFA posts, and implicated the 84-year-old Nicolás Leoz, who has just stepped down from his position as President of the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) citing "health and personal grounds".

And the smiling Fuentes was given a one-year sentence by Judge Julia Patricia Santamaria – suspended. Judge Jules also ruled that the 211 bags of frozen blood and plasma seized from Fuentes' office by police in 2006, which might implicate athletes in sports other than cycling, should be analysed to see how widespread this doping abuse was. Oh no. Sorry again, as you were. Should be destroyed.

Eufemiano Fuentes arriving at a Madrid court before receiving a one-year suspended sentence for "endangering public health"

Santamaria cited Spanish privacy laws for the decision not to turn the evidence over to anti-doping authorities for analysis. More than 50 cyclists have been implicated in Operation Puerto. Fuentes has testified that he also had clients from other sports including football, tennis, boxing and athletics, but no names have been named.

In the circumstances, the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) description of this proposed action as "unsatisfactory" appears restrained in the extreme. What possible motive could there be for destroying these samples, other than to avoid the awkwardness of further revelation? They hardly endanger public health – the charge of which Fuentes has been found guilty. Wheels within wheels?

The latest twist in this case is a scandal in itself, and the reaction has been one of predictable outrage. Andy Parkinson, head of UK Anti-Doping, described it as "massively disappointing", adding: "Everything WADA has been about for the last few years is sharing information and making sure the global fight is fought at global level.

"What we've got here is a bunch of information that may or may not implicate people and we can't get our hands on it. That's really disappointing for clean athletes."

Britain's Andy Murray, winner of the Olympic tennis title last summer, tweeted: "Operation Puerto case is beyond a joke. Biggest cover up in sports history? Why would court order blood bags to be destroyed?"

Andy Murray has questioned whether the decision to destroy frozen blood samples raided during Operation Puerto in 2006 is the "biggest cover-up in sports history"

An online petition has been started under the banner "Operacion Puerto evidence must not be destroyed" and concluding "The Spanish court order to destroy blood bags collected in Operacion Puerto protects dopers and severely undermines the integrity of sport".

WADA, and Spain's anti-doping agency AEA are contesting the judgement and insisting that the samples be analysed.

Their position is endorsed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), whose medical commission chairman, Arne Ljungqvist, commented on the decision to destroy the samples: "It's fundamentally wrong from the point of view of conducting an efficient fight against doping," he told the Associated Press. "This goes against the principles of the anti-doping code. We've been waiting for the information for years now. Every possibility we have to gain more knowledge as to what happened and how people behaved is of great importance to us."

Arne Ljungqvist said the latest ruling on the samples was "fundamentally wrong"

There's an internationally syndicated television programme, made in the United States called "Judge Judy". For those who aren't aware, it covers real-life cases, presided over by the fully qualified lady in question. Judge Judy uses basic common sense to hand down sensible, reasoned decisions for the benefit of the TV cameras and the poor dribbling morons that watch it (my apologies and commiserations if you are one of those).

Well, ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to someone who makes Judge Judy look like the real deal. Another real-life lady who has courted her own publicity by effectively overseeing the biggest cover-up in sports history.

Welcome to the world of Judge Julia.

This week in Madrid, Dr Eufemiano Fuentes was found guilty of endangering public health by giving blood transfusions to elite cyclists. The evidence included additional samples, with more than 200 bags of unidentified blood and plasma seized from the doctor's clinic. These bags potentially hold the identity of athletes from across many sports who have used doping to improve their performance but whose guilty secret currently remains hidden in the DNA. They are gold dust to the anti-doping authorities in their fight against illegal – and dangerous – practices.


But Judge Julia Patricia Santamaria ordered them to be destroyed.

One of the biggest ever hauls of evidence – if not the biggest – and Judge Julia wants to chuck it down the drain.

During the trial, Dr Fuentes openly admitted that his list of clients included footballers, tennis players, athletes and boxers, but so far it's only cyclists who've been directly implicated. He offered to put names to the coded bags that were in evidence during the trial, but Judge Julia told him not to bother. No wonder organisations such as the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and Spain's Anti-Doping Agency (AEA) want to get their hands on them. After years of legwork, a judge in an internationally relevant trial has prevented them from receiving crucial information that could help make monumental advances in their work against the drug cheats.


During the trial, WADA made a request to analyse the bags, but Judge Julia denied them – and then came up with her outrageous destruction order. At the time of writing, WADA is considering its options while AEA has launched an appeal. Supposedly, the bags are being held safely in Barcelona until their fate is ultimately secured.

How on earth can WADA, which is funded by International Federations and world Governments, be expected to work efficiently and prudently when there are people such as Judge Julia around? It's not just about identifying the dopers, it's also a chance to see what else people may have been taking. A genuine opportunity to improve the knowledge bank via the blood bank.

Spain's reputation for being soft on sports doping has been reaffirmed and a legal process which dictates that all jail sentences under two years for first time offenders should be suspended, is hardly a message of unity. At least Dr Fuentes was struck off – but only for four years. It doesn't exactly reflect a huge deterrent to others does it?


Which is why the availability of those blood bags for the authorities to analyse was massively important. Judge Julia had a chance to show Spain in a positive light in the fight against doping, but instead she's crucified its reputation with her final order.

Sports stars have had their say. Paula Radcliffe said it made her "mad" and she felt like turning up on the doorstep. Andy Murray said the whole thing was a joke. It is.

It's to be hoped that Judge Julia's ruling is overturned on appeal and that the valuable evidence is finally handed over. It shouldn't have been an issue and in this doping scandal, there is ultimately only one dope.

And she was the judge...

Jaimie Fuller is the chairman of Skins and the founder of pressure group Change Cycling Now, whose members include Greg LeMond, Paul Kimmage and David Walsh. To follow him on Twitter click here.

It's election time in the Olympic Movement, with four big decisions due to be taken by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) between now and September.

Readers of insidethegames could hardly fail to be aware of two of these: which city - Istanbul, Madrid or Tokyo - will host the 2020 Summer Games; and which one of eight candidate sports will be added to the 2020 programme.

Knowledge of a third big decision - the identity of the host of the 2018 Youth Olympic Games - must be pretty widespread as well, with Buenos Aires, Glasgow and Medellín due to learn on July 4, fewer than 70 days from now, which one of them is to be entrusted with the responsibility.

But it is just possible that the approach of the fourth and final day of judgement might have escaped your attention.

This would be a pity, since it is by far and away the most important of the quartet.

On September 10 in Buenos Aires, IOC members are due to pick their new leader - the man, or woman, who could act as their public face and guiding light all the way until 2025.

In contrast to the other three contests, in which campaigning by the interested parties has become vociferous and incessant, the race to succeed Jacques Rogge as IOC President is being prosecuted, for now, entirely under the radar.


This is because nobody has yet declared.

Nobody, moreover, is likely to do so more than a week or two before the June 10 deadline.

One of the few public reminders that the momentous decision is looming came some days ago, when Rogge told a German newspaper that he thought the IOC Presidency should in future be a paid position.

It is hard to see this as anything other than a positive suggestion that would help with the ongoing modernisation of a still sometimes staid and old fashioned-seeming organisation - provided it is accompanied by reform of the current expenses regime.

At present, as set out in the IOC's interim report 2009-2010, "the members, the President and the Executive Board of the IOC are not remunerated by the IOC".

However: "the IOC covers all expenses related to the execution of their functions, in particular travel, hotel, meal expenses and a daily allowance for out-of-pocket expenses, as well as a fixed amount for their personal administrative expenses".

These costs, the report goes on, are "included in session, commission and mission expenses in the statement of activities".

Note 17 of the IOC's financial statements quantifies these particular expenses at $10.86 million (£7.01 million/€8.32 million) in 2010.

In addition, the IOC covers the cost of the President's residence expenses – room rent, living expenses, residence taxes, insurance.

These reached a whisker under $600,000 (£387,000/€460,000) in 2010.

I suppose one would also wish to be assured that the President's new salary was pitched at a reasonable level.

Under the existing regime, the IOC director general, the President's chief of cabinet and the executive director of the Olympic Games received salaries and short-term benefits of about $1.8 million (£1.2 million/between them in 2010.

It is also worth pointing out that the IOC's total staff costs have been rising rather rapidly in recent times, at least in US dollar terms - from $43.1 million (£27.8 million/€33.1 million) in 2006 to $65.3 million (£42.2 million/€50.1 million) in 2010.

Reverting to the Presidential race proper, the latest intelligence to have reached me from the stealth campaign being waged across the world at the moment in the corridors and hotel lobbies where international sports grandees gather is that there could, once again, be five candidates, just as there were in 2001 in Moscow when Rogge was himself elected.

Thomas Bach of Germany is widely seen as the front-runner.


It struck me as interesting, in the context of the election, that Bach was reported last week as claiming that the IOC Executive Board should be flexible when deciding how many of the 2020 Olympic bid sports will next month be shortlisted.

It is looking increasingly likely, as I write, that Bach will face two Asian rivals.

Singapore's Ser Miang Ng acted as President of the Organising Committee of the inaugural Summer Youth Olympic Games three years ago, one of the highest-profile initiatives of the Rogge era.

Taiwan's Ching-Kuo Wu, President of AIBA, the international boxing association, may also throw his hat into the, um, ring.

Richard Carrión of Puerto Rico, one of the key figures behind the Movement's remarkable recent financial success, appears much the most likely IOC member from the Americas to emerge as a candidate.

Sergey Bubka, the former champion pole-vaulter from Ukraine, could complete the quintet.

Everything, though, for the moment, remains fluid: some of these five men may not, ultimately, be on the start-line; other names may emerge.

Readers will notice, no doubt, that my highly tentative list includes no female candidate and no-one with French as their first language.

Either lacuna, if confirmed, would be a cause for some dismay.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. To follow him on Twitter click here.

It should be no surprise to learn from insidethegames that Qatar is to bid for the 2015 International Boxing Association (AIBA) Men's World Boxing Championship. The bigger surprise would be if it had not thrown its hat into the ring.

Over the next decade I doubt there will be a global event that this tiny but immensely rich nation, a peninsular just 100 miles long and 50 miles wide, a flat thumb jutting into the Persian Gulf, will not have either acquired or unashamedly tried desperately hard to do so.

It has been given, albeit controversially, the 2022 FIFA football World Cup, bid unsuccessfully for the 2016 and 2020 Olympics and undoubtedly will bid again for 2024 – or until it finally lands them.

As one of their senior Olympic Committee officials says: "It is in our DNA for Qatar to bid for the Olympic Games until we win them. This region deserves to host them."


It is a compelling argument as I discovered on a recent visit – my first to the capital Doha, where insidethegames editor Duncan Mackay was making his 22nd! Over the years he has been intrigued to witness Qatar's gradual emergence as the sporting super-power of the Middle East. But for a first-timer like me it was a breath-drawing experience to observe the acceleration of that process, as evidenced by the stupendous facilities at the renowned Aspire zone, arguably the world's finest indoor all-sports complex, complete with its own state-of-the-art hospital, an amazing example of just what money can buy.

And there is plenty of it in Qatar, rich beyond virtually anyone's dreams thanks to their oil and natural gas resources.

But why is so much of it being spent on sport? An intriguing question, and a puzzling one.

It perhaps no exaggeration to say that if Rio 2016 was to go belly-up Qatar could step in and hold the next Summer Olympics given a month or two to build any facilities that aren't already there. And most of them are.

While that may never happen one still has to marvel at the resourcefulness of a county which has no great sporting traditions of its own yet literally "aspires" to reinvent itself as a global sports power, perhaps even its epicentre in 30 years time.

Already it has overtaken Dubai in this Arab spring of sport, planning to host over 40 international events this year with more than £150 billion ($233 billion/€178 billion) being spent on new stadia over the next decade, the contracts mainly with European firms.


The prime purpose of our visit was to see Qatar's newest sporting project, its Olympic and Sports Museum, the largest exhibition of its kind covering both ancient and modern Games.

For a country that has never held the Games and is a continent and a culture removed from Olympia itself, it is a remarkable tribute to Olympism and a further indication of Qatar's desire to play host to the world's biggest sporting event in the foreseeable future.

Put together by German archaeologists and historian Dr Christian Wacker, unlike most Olympic museums –and there are some a dozen and a half around the world – it depicts the history of the Games warts and all – boycotts, doping, murder and mayhem. The lot.

There is a unique collection of Torches from every Olympics and even an inbuilt mini-stadium, complete with stands and a track where visitors can trot around then mount the podium to take the Olympic oath.

Part of the exhibition will be temporarily on show at Manchester's National Football Museum in July. Well worth a visit especially as the Olympic Museum planned for London's Olympic Park has been shelved because of costs.

Maybe they should have asked the rolling-in-it Qataris to sponsor it.

However, there is scepticism in Europe at Qatar's extraordinary largesse, mainly over the World Cup and the fact that the continent faces a possible winter of discontent in 2022 because of the heat of a Gulf summer.


The consensus is shifting towards UEFA President Michel Platini's notion of switching the tournament to wintertime, and the resulting row notably emanating from England, over the possibility of disrupting the European schedules has caused the Qatar organisers to become rather sniffy.

They are currently declining interviews with western media, which they claim has unfairly savaged them over Qatar, ranked 106th in world football, managing to persuade FIFA that daytime temperatures of 40 degrees plus will not be potentially disastrous.

They are also sensitive about allegations that have appeared in France that there corruption was involved in winning votes among African nations for the 2022 competition.

"All we have had is negative publicity," said a source close to the Organising Committee explaining why they have decided, for the moment, to shut up shop. "This is FIFA's problem, not ours."

The issue remains to be resolved but there are certainly pros and cons as to whether hypo-rich Qatar – the world's wealthiest nation per capita according to the Forbes Magazine list – is suited to be a World Cup host.


In essence, it will be rather like staging the World Cup on the Isle of Wight.

With petrol at 15p ($0.23/€0.18) a litre, the same as bottled water, public transport is almost non-existent as most of Qatar's population of 250,000 (boosted by 1.7 million migrant workers) use cars. The non-elected Government says a metro system is under construction.

Qatar is small, spotless and safe, sat amidst one of the world's most unstable and explosive regions. But expect no Bahrain-type demos here.

World Cup fans should note there are beaches, but no boozers (though alcohol is available to foreigners in some hotels – at a price). Copacabana it isn't.

With Qatar's oil and gas reserves comes a lot of hot air – especially over the climate. It can be much cooler in the evenings when most matches will be played (there is only a two-hour time difference with the United Kingdom) and Qataris argue that players were in more danger from the altitude in Mexico City than they will be from the heat in Doha.

The dozen venues will be air conditioned, on and off the pitch – the cooling system supplied by English company Arup is said to reduce temperatures in the stadiums by up to 20 degrees.

Certainly at Doha's Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium where Raul's Al Sadd won the Qatar Stars League while I was there had air con blowing up from beneath the seats, which made it distinctly chilly around the nether regions!


Doha also found fame when the Premier League chairman Sir Dave Richards made a splash when he stumbled into a water feature, and Rio Ferdinand paid a flying visit to give visit to give television station Al Jazeera the benefit f his punditry rather than turn out for England.

What else? Well, Qatar officially has the world's best airline in Qatar Airways; English is widely spoken (it was a British protectorate until 1971) and the grub is eclectic and very good.

Though should you fancy a hot dog it will be beef and not pork. It might even be camel as Boris Johnson discovered on a recent visit to these parts. I've tasted worse.

Together with Jordan, Islamic Qatar is also more enlightened than most Middle East nations on the emancipation of women in sport.

While they fielded only four women at London 2012 unlike the token duo from neighbouring Saudi Arabia, they were there on merit, having qualified. And their flag bearer was a woman, shooter Bahiya Al Hamad. Over 200 Qatari women took part in both the Asian and Arab Games.


All of which may be designed to convince the International Olympic Committee (IOC) of Qatar's worthiness to host the Games, despite twice being rejected.

Should it ever happen, the Olympics, like the World Cup, will never have a more opulent stage than in this sporting Goliath of the Gulf where, inevitably it all seems to come down to money.

"God has granted us this huge wealth and it is up us to use it responsibly," says its Olympic committee spokesman Hassan Abdulla Al-Mohamedi. "But to do what Qatar has done – and is determined to do in future – you need not only the wealth but the will."

Make no mistake. Qatar means business. Sports business.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

"I got carried away, but I'm happy." Such was the reaction of Dina, a former Gamesmaker from Stratford, East London, after becoming the first successful bidder in London 2012's final auction of items and memorabilia, held on Saturday in the bowels of a Midlands football stadium.

Dina, an Arabic speaker who had worked as a driver for the Iraqi Paralympic Committee during the Paralympics, had her eye on items further down the list.

But she proved unable to resist Lot 1, splurging £460 ($712/€546) on a Team GB cycling jersey signed by Britain's most successful Olympian, Sir Chris Hoy.

As we spoke, James Pugh - an auctioneer with a Herefordshire burr, a winning smile and, it turned out, Radcliffesque reserves of stamina - drew bidders' attention to a pair of diving sensation Tom Daley's swimming trunks.

"Just don't wash 'em and get rid of the signature," he sagely advised.

Moments later, the gavel descended and the coffers of LOCOG, the London 2012 Organising Committee, were enriched by a further £540 ($836/€642), or the lion's share thereof.

A pair of Tom Daley's Team GB swimming trunks sold for £540

No doubt some of us will continue to bang on about Olympic legacy long into the future, but in other respects these truly are the last knockings of Britain's decade-long Olympic adventure.

This weekend, in the one-time capital of the British car manufacturing industry, LOCOG liquidated the detritus from one of the most spectacular parties the world has ever seen.

On May 23, it is expected to hold a final board meeting.

And that, really, will be that.

Even in this twilight of the Olympic gods, however, it is amazing how the Olympic spirit continues to animate large numbers of ordinary Britons.

The turnout at the Ricoh Arena was extraordinary.

I felt as sheepish being ushered in past a snaking queue of people waiting patiently to gain access to a massive garage-sale of items deemed not valuable enough for the auction, as I had more than 20 years before when jumping a similar line-up to get into Leningrad's Hermitage Museum.

Almost everyone I spoke to seemed surprised at how many had come - and it must be a few years since that could be said at the home of Coventry's perennially underperforming football team, busy eking out a point in Nottingham while the sale was going on.

London 2012 duvets, at £35 ($54/€42) a time, were sold out in no time.

But in spite of the queues and the bustle, the mood was upbeat - just as last summer the sullen silence of the London tube had been transformed - temporarily - by an efflorescence of Olympic bonhomie.

Dina's winning bid was one of several to elicit a good-natured burst of applause.


And when a man who had bid determinedly for Lot 111, the scarecrow from Danny Boyle's Olympic opening ceremony, lost out to a virtual rival, who bid £2,020 ($3,127/€2,400) via the internet, the room aaahed in sympathy.

What, I asked him, had he been planning to do with a man-sized scarecrow? (He didn't look the agricultural type.)

"I run an ad agency; we are voted as the 10th-most inspirational place to work in Britain.

"I was trying to get the scarecrow for reception," he told me.

Undaunted, this chief executive moved onto another Opening Ceremony artefact - a punk rocker head - and this time emerged victorious.

Visitors to WAA in Sutton Coldfield can expect to see it on display some place.

Among the happiest campers were a lady who paid £100 ($155/€119) for some of those huge Tempest books from the Paralympic opening ceremony - "It was my prop," she shouted - and a 23-year-old primary school teacher who picked up a black model horse's head, and hooves, for just £20 ($31/€24).

"Oh my God, it's brilliant," the teacher, Charlotte Fallows, exclaimed, when I asked if it was worth it.

She plans to install the beast at her one-bedroom Aldgate flat.

"I think it would look amazing on the wall."

Fallows and Jason Osborne, her attendant bag-carrier, had left London at 6am to reach the sale in good time.


Items on sale ranged from the obligatory Olympic torches to bibs worn by canoe slalom competitors.

One of the oddest lots was a blue Rover car bonnet signed by "multiple Great British Sporting Legends".

Bidders were informed that the related car, with "a full year MOT", was available for an extra £750 ($1,161/€891).

The bonnet fetched £700 ($1,0834/€832).

Everywhere in evidence was LOCOG boss Lord Coe's signature on certificates of authenticity, like an Olympic version of the man who signs British banknotes.

I decided enough was enough when the indefatigable Mr Pugh started inviting offers for the office furniture at LOCOG's Canary Wharf HQ.

As I exited, the sound system outside was playing Pretty Vacant by the Sex Pistols.

It seemed appropriate.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. To follow him on Twitter click here. 

Having run the most successful Olympic and Paralympic Games ever, leading the British Olympic Association (BOA) through the next four-year Olympic cycle through to Rio 2016 is not an overly daunting task for Sebastian Coe.

And even if it is, he is certainly not showing.

Just over five months after the driving force of London 2012 was elected BOA chairman, Coe yesterday held his first official media briefing.

Between now and then, the 56-year-old double Olympic 1500 metres champion has been busy overseeing the construction the BOA's strategic plan for the 2013-2016 quad through to Rio.

The media briefing at the BOA's impressive headquarters at Charlotte Street in London was to unveil that plan and give an update on priorities and milestones for the organisation.

Looking outrageously relaxed as my colleagues in the media and I arrived, Coe greeted us all and took to the top table with the new-look, six member BOA management team.


The six being chief financial officer Peter Yates, director of Games services Mark England, director of communications Darryl Seibel, director of sport programmes and athlete services Kate O'Sullivan, director of Olympic relations Jan Paterson and commercial director Sophie Mason.

Coe has clearly grown to trust his new mangement team since taking over as BOA chairman, which is one of the reasons he has been in no hurry at all to appoint a new chief executive to replace Andy Hunt.

Hunt left in February this year, which was no real surprise after Coe became chairman. Hunt was took centre stage under former chairman Colin Moynihan, most notably when he  appointed himself Team GB Chef de Mission at London 2012 despite little experience of such a position, never even having been to a Summer Games before.

Coe and Moynihan's previously warm relationship became strained during the build-up to the Olympics - which was most publically illustrated in the lead up to the Games when the BOA began a high-profile spat with London 2012 about the sharing of surplus from the Olympics and Paralympics - and it was always expected that Coe did not want Moynihan's man as his chief executive for the next four years.

So Hunt went - the recruitment for a new chief executive now just beginning - and Coe and his management team appear to have done an impressive job of creating a plan for the next four year without him.

The plan contains nothing particularly revolutionary, mostly just a common-sense approach to cutting the costs after the large financial deficit created at the BOA in the lead up to London 2012.

Since Coe has taken over, the number of staff at the BOA has fallen from 96 at London 2012 to 45 at present.

"We need to take fragility out of the balance sheet," Coe explained, in what was seemingly a subtle dig as his predecessor Moynihan.

"That is crucial because it is important for an organisation to have that certainty of revenue and cost under control which was maybe lacking before.

"It is the same with every host National Olympic Committee following the conclusion of a home Olympic Games where you must scale up in the lead-up to the Games and scale down afterwards."

Coe also revealed that the BOA is looking to generate £42 million ($66 million/€50 million) in the next four-year Olympic cycle through to Rio 2016, the same amount they raised in the four-year cycle to London 2012.

They have made a promising start – unveiling Nissan as the first post-London 2012 Tier One sponsor of Team GB and ParalympicsGB at the briefing.

Raising the £42 million ($66 million/€50 million) would make the balance sheet look very healthy because the BOA are unlikely to spend nearly as much in the next four years to Rio under Coe as they did in the four to London under Moynihan.

Such an occurrence over the next four years would keep Coe's stock in the Olympic world sky-high, which would be particularly beneficial for him given that he will most likely serve just one four-year term as BOA chairman.

Waiting in store for him is seemingly the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Presidency – a position that would make him the most powerful man in the sport.

The role is currently occupied by Lamine Diack, who is due to step down in 2015.

Coe is current IAAF vice-president and favourite to succeed Diack – with his only realistic contender being Ukrainian pole vault legend Sergey Bubka,  also a vice-president of the organisation.

For now, though that is a while off, and for now Coe has his thoughts firmly focused on the BOA.

Other than ensuring the financial stability of the organisation - his chief tasks include delivering successful of teams for Sochi 2014 and Rio 2016 and helping Glasgow win a bid race for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games against their two formidable contenders of Buenos Aires in Argentina and Medellín in Colombia.

Ultimately the former athlete will be judged on results in all of these fields.

Not to suggest that Dr Steve Peters has ever given less than full value for money - but the man who has moulded the minds of a generation of British Olympic cyclists is likely to be earning his corn right now in his temporary capacity as psychiatrist-on-demand for Liverpool FC.

What, you wonder, will the man described by Bradley Wiggins as "a world expert in common sense" be saying during his next meeting at the Liverpool training ground in Melwood with...what's his name again...Uruguayan forward...been in trouble rather a lot...racial abuse...deliberate handballs...and, oh yes, sinking his teeth into opponent's arms....

Luis Suarez. That's the man.

Peters retains links with British Cycling, but has widened his ambit in the last six months to include regular gigs with both Liverpool and UK Athletics. Now talking to athletes about how to get the baton round successfully is one thing - but how to handle a Suarez?

Clearly he is going to have to apprehend the Uruguayan's chimp.

The controversial clash between Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic and Luis Suarez which earned the Liverpool forward a 10-match ban from the FA

Peters - or to give him his full title, Dr Steve Peters MBBS MRCPsych BA PGCE Med (medical) Dip Sports Med Consultant Psychiatrist/Undergraduate Dean Sheffield Medical School - has worked with conspicuous success in what he describes as "chimp management" - that is, dealing with the deep, dark part of the brain just behind the conscious bit at the front of the head.

The chimp - well, he's an unruly character. He undermines. He creates doubts and fears. He causes irrational behaviour.

Much of Peters's counsel down the years has involved teaching elite athletes such as Wiggins, Sir Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton how to contain and overpower this unruly little character.

Hoy has spoken on numerous occasions about "boxing the chimp." He doesn't mean hitting it - he means containing it.

More recently Peters has been credited by Craig Bellamy, the volatile forward with whom he worked at Liverpool during the 2011-2012 season, as having improved his form through encouraging him to think more rationally under pressure.

Here, surely, is the basis for hope as far as Suarez is concerned. But presumably the Uruguayan must come to Peters with an open mind, setting aside the laments he has made this week about his FA punishment of a ten-game ban for biting Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic - that is, seven games more than he thought appropriate for his egregious misdeed.

Peters is a man who should understand anger-management from every perspective given his comment when asked how he deals with his own chimp -  "I've got a gorilla," he responded. "People are amazed when I lose my temper."

Dr Steve Peters (left) on duty for British Cycling alongside Performance Director Dave Brailsford

The hubbub over Suarez comes in the same week that another sporting figure - less high profile, although of greater stature - announced their retirement. At 30, Sarah Stevenson's long and successful career in taekwondo, which included two world titles, four European titles and an Olympic bronze, has come to an end. While that record is admirable, it was probably not the reason why she was chosen by her peers in Team GB to read the Olympic Oath at the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Games on behalf of all competing athletes.

Her distinction had been earned, no doubt, from the extraordinary qualities she had displayed the previous year when her mother and father were diagnosed with illness which would prove swiftly fatal, and yet - while both were stricken - she managed, at their insistence, to travel to South Korea and won her second world title.

Stevenson confessed afterwards that she had taken out some of the emotions turmoiling within her on her opposition in Korea. "I was on fire," she said. "A couple of times, against the girls who weren't as good as me, I took it out a bit on them."

It was a highly effective piece of anger management.

Three years earlier, at the Beijing Games, Stevenson had given her chimp full range in the wake of a lamentable judging lapse in her quarter-final against the home defending champion, Chen Zhong, when what should have been a decisive kick by the Briton in the closing seconds was not registered. The girl from Doncaster gave her rage full vent, and her team's protest was later upheld - although it left her with only 20 minutes to prepare for her next fight, which she lost before earning bronze in her final contest.

Now the four-times Olympian - she lost her first round fight at the London 2012 Games after a long struggle to recover from a serious knee ligament injury - has decided to quit the arena. "Retiring was a difficult decision," she said. "I wanted a break after the Olympics to see if I missed it. I didn't, and I don't want to fight again."

Sarah Stevenson bids an emotional Olympic farewell after her first round defeat at the London 2012 Games

What next for her? She will become the first female GB high performance coach as she seeks to pass on her drive and commitment to a new generation of competitors. Her own place as a competitor of endless courage and determination is secure.

And what of Suarez? As he frets about the length of the ban imposed upon him, perhaps wondering whether he might be best advised to consider a fresh start with one of the many other clubs still eager to secure his undoubted skills as a footballer, surely the best advice he could get from Peters is this: bite the bullet.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. To follow him on Twitter click here.

As I pull up to an industrial estate in Coventry, the only sense I am getting is one of complete confusion as to whether I've actually arrived at the right location.

I walk into a unit and see that iconic London 2012 logo, surrounding by hundreds and hundreds of boxes, and I'm now fairly certain that I haven't made a mistake in my instructions.

It's a rather strange experience being in this externally-average storage unit filled to the rafters with cardboard boxes, as in fact, they contain unique pieces of Olympic and Paralympic history from last summer's Games, which will go on sale to the public this weekend.

A huge London 2012 logo which will be sold this weekend

As I poke and probe through the mountains of boxes, I'm absolutely captivated. Every single box seems to contain something that would make any Games enthusiast weak at the knees.

A hurdle used at the Olympic Stadium signed by Jessica Ennis, the umbrella's and costumes used by "Mary Poppins" in Danny Boyle's spectacularly British Opening Ceremony, lane markers used during the Paralympic Games, and even the nametags worn by the world's greatest athletes are all here.

But there's one particular item within these Aisles of Wonder that is particularly unique; the scarecrow used during the "Green and Pleasant Land" segment of the Opening Ceremony.

Equipment and props from the opening ceremony; the scarecrow and "punk head" are set to be highly coveted items at auction

And nine-time Paralympic gold medal-winning swimmer and London 2012 Director of Paralympic Integration Chris Holmes - who is on hand to talk me through the unique items on offer - also seems particularly fond of it as he poses next to it for a photographer, adorned with one of the bowler hats with the lightbulb attached to the top that became iconic in their own right during the Opening Ceremony.

"The scarecrow is awesome and iconic and brings back all those memories," he says.

"It's all quite emotional.

"It's phenomenal to have this stuff to sell off.

"Everyone remembers those great moments from the Games, from the Ceremonies, from the athletics, from the pool, it's fantastic that there are items that cover every element of the Games.

"People could get their hands on a lane marker from some of those world records that everybody witnessed, it's just brilliant"

Lane markers used at the Paralympic Games and a giant London 2012 Paralympics logo, with boxes of banners

From national flags that flew with pride over the course of the Games, Opening Ceremony costumes, signage for events and venues, used match equipment from tennis, boxing, football, athletics and everything in-between.

And you don't have to have a bank-breaking budget to own a piece of Games history.

"The fact that there's so many thousands of items where people can just get that piece of Games memorabilia, from the top end, like a torch which will be in the auction, right down to a little pin badge or a banner from the stadium, everything's just got that bit of Games magic," says Holmes.

"There are the little items like the drums, the umbrellas from that Ceremony, banners and stuff which were around the stadia, all those individual little items that made up the look and the feel and the magic of what the Games were, and we really wanted to enable people from right across the country to have the opportunity to own a little bit of that magic.

"What's great is that there's something across this for everybody

"There's the high-end items like the scarecrow and the torches, they could go for anything really when people get into the auction and realise that there's only one scarecrow, there's only a tiny number of torches, they could go to any figure really.

An Olympic Stadium hurdle signed by heptathlon gold medallist Jessica Ennis

"But it's great that there's something at every level,

"Whatever people's budgets are, there's something in this auction for them, so everyone can have a bit of Games magic and that's the important thing, we really wanted to try and make this stuff go as far and wide to everybody to everybody that wants to be connected and keep remembering those sunny sunny days last summer."

After inspecting the array of items in storage, I'm escorted to "the other side", where most of the items that are set to go under the hammer are stored.

And there will certainly be bidding wars aplenty, with items such as unique Olympic torches signed by Ben Ainslie, autographed Tom Daley swimming trunks, torchbearer uniforms signed by Sir Steve Redgrave and a cycling jersey signed by all eleven of Britain's track cycling gold medallists at London 2012.

A Team GB cycling jersey signed by all eleven of Britain's gold medal winning track cyclists, which will go to auction this weekend

"LOCOG are in a process of dissolution at the moment so all of this will go towards the overall LOCOG budget," explains Holmes

"So this is part of paying for the Games and every element that was involved in that, and when we get to the end of that process, if there are any profits, they'll be announced and the time and they will go into sport.

"We've also donated a lot of stuff alongside this to various charities, not least Chicken Shed who do so much good work in the theatre space with disabled and non-disabled kids and young people, so we wanted to make sure we were giving a decent amount of stuff to charity but also enabling members of the general public to get their hands on a bit of this."

To have the chance to own one of these magnificent pieces of Olympic and Paralympic history, you can go along to the main auction, which takes place at Coventry's Ricoh Arena from 11.30am on Saturday (April 27), when the particularly specialist items will be sold.

The general sale of equipment will run from 10am until 6pm on Saturday and Sunday (April 28), and London 2012 Gamesmakers with their Games accreditation present will be allowed early entrance from 9am on the Saturday to purchase items.

To view the catalogue click here. 

I am disappointed in David Cameron. Though never a Tory voter I have been among the dwindling numbers who appreciated and understood what the Prime Minister has been trying to achieve in dire economic straits and the strategic way he had to go about it.

But he has plummeted in my estimation in the light of his handling - or rather mishandling - of the Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson debacle.

We know now that one of Britain's greatest Paralympians has been ruthlessly gazumped over the chairmanship of Sport England after apparently being given to understand the job was hers and that it just needed to be rubber-stamped by 10 Downing Street.

Her rejection smacks of a shameful piece of political skulduggery for which Cameron himself must shoulder the blame.

He could easily have overturned the hastily revised recommendations from apparatchiks not to appoint her after an interviewing panel had said she was the best candidate and instead listened to both Lord Sebastian Coe and his own Sports Minister who know far more about sports politics than the Whitehall desk jockeys - or the apparently compliant Culture Secretary Maria Miller - ever will.


Instead, he also bowed to those anonymous Tory Peers who whispered in his ear that the ex-wheelchair athlete would be "too political" because her trenchant views on cuts to welfare disability benefits, legal aid and sports funding had got up their toffee noses in House of Lords debates.

I thought Cameron had more bottle than that; maybe he was just showing his true colours. Tory blue.

We have been left with an embarrassing botch-up. Sorry, stitch-up. Embarrassing that is for both Tanni and supportive Sports Minister Hugh Robertson who was left to make the relevant announcement yesterday that the new Sport England chair was to be Nick Bitel.

As it happens, Nick is a good bloke who has served Sport England well as a Board member for a decade and will do a decent and astute job. The well-respected sports lawyer has a terrific track record, brilliantly running the London Marathon - in the administrative sense - as its chief executive since 1995.

Rather ironically, one of his referees for the Sport England role was Tanni herself, with the former Labour Sports Minister Kate Hoey another.


But by not appointing Tanni Sport England miss out on acquiring a much-needed inspirational figurehead who would have lifted a worthy but anonymous organisation from public indifference.

Although considered by the Government a more vital cog in the sports wheel than UK Sport, whose concentration is on elitism rather than grassroots and legacy, its work has been very much overshadowed by Baroness Sue Campbell's high-powered team.

An interview panel headed by Sir Keith Mills originally recommended Tanni replace fellow left-leaning peer Campbell as chairman of UK Sport (Tanni has applied for both roles) with Nick Bitel proposed as the new chair of Sport England.

But the Sports Minister instead favoured ex-sailing chief Rod Carr - subsequently appointed - or ex-modern pentathlete and financier Mark Hanson as chair of UK Sport and Lady Grey-Thompson as the new head of Sport England, with Bitel as vice-chair.

It now seems that under pressure from prejudiced Tory Peers and those meddlesome mandarins whose actual knowledge of sport, one former Sports Minister once told me, is at best scant and at worst negligible, the PM decided to block Tanni's appointment, opting instead for Bitel at Sport England and Carr at UK Sport.

I understand that the Government were disappointed that high-profile personalities such as Sir Keith Mills himself and the retiring FA chairman David Bernstein had not applied for either of the respective vacancies and had even considered re-advertising them. But neither Mills nor Bernstein indicated an interest.


Amid this shifting political maelstrom, it must at times have seemed for Tanni like Fifty Shades of Grey-Thompson.

Whitehall sources now say it was Grey-Thompson's lack of experience in chairing major organisations or handling big budgets - Sport England's is £300 million ($457 million/€352 million). But it is generally believed that the 43-year-old crossbencher's outspokenness on social issues led to intense lobbying from Conservatives who were uncomfortable that some of her views were not compatible with the Government's.

She had expressed serious concerns that disability benefit cuts risked undermining the 2012 aim of widening access to sport and that it was important to acknowledge that the Disability Living Allowance enabled people to do things everyone else took for granted. "Without it I really do worry that people will be ghettoised and isolated," she had declared with a vehemence that clearly rattled the Tories.

This week Baroness Billingham, a shadow spokeswoman on Culture, Media and Sport, said of Lady Grey-Thompson: "The only reason that she has been critical is that the Government have been hopeless...I am sure the Tories wanted someone who is more compliant and is not so critical of their policies."

Former Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe said he believed Lady Grey-Thompson was "the best person for the job". The Labour MP, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary group on disability sports, said: "She is a strong presence in the world of sport, not just on the track but also as a leader for athletes and administrators. No-one should be penalised for disagreeing with the Government." Quite.


This could be interpreted as a snub not only for Tanni but also for the advancement of women in sport and Paralympic sport.

With the exit of Baroness Campbell from UK Sport, we now have both Government sports quangos headed by able-bodied men.

And where were the black candidates we wonder?

Tanni has accepted the decision with the grace and dignity you would expect of her. She merely admits her disappointment at missing out yet has every right to be furious at a recruitment process that has been so badly mishandled.

She says: "I do, of course, respect the Government's decision, and having worked with Nick Bitel on the Board of the London Marathon and LLDC (London Legacy Development Corporation) I have no doubt that he will do a fantastic job. Needless to say, I will continue to offer any support I can to Sport England and those other organisations that make sport more accessible in our society."

But privately she is hurt that the Government chose not to distinguish views on social issues from her ability to run a sports organisation. 

I don't buy the claim by DCMS "insiders" that her "lack of commercial experience" hampered her candidacy. "She's a great athlete and a great Olympian (sic) but in terms of commercial experience she has never run anything."

Hang on a minute. Isn't that what they handsomely pay the chief executive to do? And in the admirable Jennie Price, Sport England has one of the most proven capable operators in sports administration.


Here is Tanni's CV: A former non-executive director of UK Athletics, sits on the Board of the London Marathon, the Board of Transport for London, LLDC and is chair of the Women's Sports and Fitness Foundation Commission on the Future of Women's Sport.

Vice-chairman of the Laureus World Sport Academy and a trustee of the Sport for Good Foundation. She is also a Council member for the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and an International Inspiration Ambassador. In July 2011, she was announced as the President of the Leadership 20:20 Commission on the future leadership of Civil Society.

Legacy Trust UK is an independent charity, set up in 2007 to create a lasting cultural legacy from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in communities across the UK.

The Trust was endowed with £40 million, which it allocated to 12 programmes - one in each nation and English region - and four national programmes: the UK School Games (now the Sainsbury's School Games); Tate Movie (a children's animation project delivered by Tate, Aardman Animations and CBBC) and outdoor spectacle strand Community Celebrations.