It has taken over three decades for Colorado Springs to fully understand the value and the impact for its quality of life, national and local reputation and image that being the hometown of America’s Olympic Movement and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) has created. Now, perhaps our good citizens and leaders will truly embrace it during this special weekend of the US Olympic Assembly.

As more than 400 men and women from across the nation, representing the USOC and its extended family - media, sponsors, member associations, national governing bodies, athletes and 80 cities who don’t have the USOC’s national headquarters but desire its events and a relationship - gather, a stunning report details in the most obvious manner what the USOC means to the city in economic impact alone.

It underscores how critical it is to have retained the organisation’s national headquarters here for the next three decades. The fact-based report, conducted by Deloitte, one of the world’s largest professional services firms, concluded that Olympic-related organisations and businesses have an annual combined $215 million (£136 million) economic impact and helped employ more than 2,100 people in the Pikes Peak region in 2009.

"Part of our obligation to the people of Colorado Springs for their 30 years of support is ensuring that we’re making a positive impact in every way we can," said US Olympic Committee chief executive Scott Blackmun. "This study allows us to quantify the positive economic impact that Olympic-related organisations have on the community and is a benchmark for us to use as we look to grow in the future."

Using accepted industry economic principles and modeling approaches, combined with dozens of interviews with key area stakeholders, Deloitte analysed the direct, indirect and induced economic impact that the USOC, the 22 local National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and other associated businesses have on the El Paso County economy, based on 2009 data.

Key findings of the Deloitte study indicate that the USOC and NGBs employ a combined 719 people in the region, providing an estimated $1.4 million (£884,000) in local tax revenue and $1.15 million (£726,000) in local property taxes. All told, local tax receipts in 2009 total $4.9 million (£3.1 million) from activities associated with the USOC.

As the home of the USOC, the Colorado Springs area drew more than 13,000 athletes and staff to the US Olympic Training Center (USOTC) which provided an additional $15 million (£9.5 million) to the local economy in out-of-facility expenditures. Today, there are more than 90 total companies in the region’s sports sector, 50 of which conduct regular business with the USOC.



On top of that, The Colorado Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau lists the USOTC sixth in its top-10 list of top El Paso County attractions. That rating is supported by the fact that the USOTC plays host to more than 78,000 out-of-town visitors per year and 130,000 total guests to tour the facility, with their impact accounting for $1.67 million (£1.05 million) in visitor spending.

The study also took into effect the qualitative contributions of the USOC, including the economic development opportunities that exist for the region based on its association with the Olympic Movement and a healthy lifestyle. Also contributing to the qualitative impact of the USOC is the indirect exposure and visibility the city receives from the national and worldwide publicity the organization and the athletes training and competing in Colorado Springs provide.

As the hundreds of respected Olympic family visitors enjoy the hospitality and amenities of our remarkable city this weekend, the findings of the report are uplifting and welcomed by those of us made up the first wave of the USOC to arrive in Colorado Springs in 1978 from 57 Park Avenue in New York City, where the organisation had headquartered for decades.

The city had embraced and welcomed the USOC after only one other, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, had formally recruited the small organisation. Only ten people made up that first USOC staff, all packing up and heading West to create a new beginning for an organisation thrust into the limelight in 1978 by Congress and the Amateur Sports Act, and charged with control of the Olympic Movement in the United States in the aftermath of a decade of problems and showdowns between the old AAU and the NCAA over athlete rights and countless other political issues and overall control of amateur sports.

Executive Director Col. F. Don Miller’s cast that first day at Olympic House included his assistant, Marty Duncan, Baaron Pittenger, chief financial officer Bill Bachert, office manager Jim McHugh, attorney Doug Dunlop, marketing chief Arthur I. Kuman, operations director Jerry Lace and his assistant, Larry McCollum, and press chief and tireless historian C. Robert Paul, Jr.

Miller and Pittenger brought me on board as the USOC’s media guy and spokesman in December from CU, where I had spent a decade as the Buff sports information director. Our first contribution to the city’s economic impact and image was the 1978 National Sports Festival, which brought 4,000 athletes in 28 sports to the city for a competition that previewed the future for scores of top competitors who would go on to Olympic glory.

Our annual budget was only about $10 million ($6.3 million) at the time, and yet we were treated to warmth and affection by the citizens and elected officials of our city, who were delighted that the USOC had chosen to relocate. From those humble beginnings, the USOC has grown and prospered, survived the buffeting and damage of boycotts, controversies and upheaval to enjoy the news this week that it now ranks as the most positively-viewed sports organisation in America, and that Olympic and Paralympic athletes are viewed with more respect and admiration than all others in our country.

Now, the USOC is returning in a most palpable way the affection and support it has received over 32 years in the city, and the best lies ahead for the community.

A month ago, the Sports Corp and the Economic Development Corporation hosted a special lunch at the Broadmoor International Center tagged “Building A Great City Through Sports". A sold-out crowd of 500 heard keynote speaker Jim Morris, who led the way in the 1980s as Indianapolis re-built its image and economy through amateur sports say, "Every top-tier city in the United States would kill to have the United States Olympic Committee."

This weekend, as the Olympic Assembly is held for the first time here, Colorado Springs has the USOC and the others don’t. We are known worldwide as "The City Where Olympic and Paralympic Dreams Begin" for hundreds of thousands of the best and brightest of our youth who share the dream of being the best they can be in amateur sport.

What we have here is the most special of marriages, one based on sportsmanship, values and the Olympic ideals. Time to celebrate!

Mike Moran was the chief communications officer of the USOC for nearly 25 years before retiring in 2003. In 2002 he was awarded with the USOC's highest award, the General Douglas MacArthur Award. He worked on New York's unsuccessful bid to host the 2012 Olympics and is now director of communications for the Colorado Springs Sports Corporation.

They call him "Mr Heineken" because he gets to the parts others cannot reach. For almost 17 years, Geoff Thompson has done more than anyone in Britain to make sport an antidote to the culture of guns and gangs in troubled areas such as Manchester's Moss Side and Liverpool's Toxteth.

The work of the five times ex-world karate champion's Youth Charter has been largely unheralded and only superficially funded, but its contribution to keeping kids off the street through sport has been immense. Thompson, its executive chairman, has seen what can be achieved in deprived areas and believes it can - and should- be extended to the rest of the country. But is anyone up there listening?

He is not hard go hear. Not to be confused with the other Geoff Thomson -  the "Invisible Man" who chaired the FA and is now with FIFA's executive,  he is big, black and voluble. Unfortunately he has long been viewed as a loose cannon (though he seems to hit the target); someone who asks too many awkward questions. Which may be why, apart from a brief spell on the board of Sport England some years ago, ago, he seems to be regularly overlooked when it come to appointments  where his obvious talents could be employed advantageously. 

Thompson’s Moss Side story began in 1993 when he started the Youth Charter following the gunning down in Manchester of a 14-year-old Afro-Caribbean kid. "I can accept losing medals but I cannot accept losing lives," he says. He has always believed sport is an intrinsic part of the rehabilitation process, helping to set up sports programmes in a dozen prisons and young offenders' institutions.

He says he finds it hard to see so much potential sporting talent "banged up". "The sad thing is that most do not have the option to get involved further in the sort of programmes that inspired them while they were inside. But at least sport gives them a chance. If you use its unifying power in the widest social and cultural sense you start to find some of the answers."

In the jails and on the streets they look up to him, affording him the respect he surely deserves from the top brass in sports administration. Successive Sports Ministers have promised they would find a worthwhile national role for him, but none have materialised. However there are hopes that the present incumbent, Hugh Robertson, a decent guy who knows the value of such commitment, will come up with something.

Having watched the 52-year-old Thompson (pictured) at work over the years it is evident he has more street cred than other sports administrators, by a distance. Ironically, he originates from the new Olympic heartland of Hackney but so far 2012 has not formally embraced him. In view of Seb Coe's vision of sport as a legacy for youth and the community, that almost seems a crime in itself.

And scanning down the list of appointees to the sports quangos, I find it hard to believe there is anyone more in touch with sport at community level.

Yet he continues to be ignored as someone who could greatly assist the so far less than successful efforts to take sport into the increasingly mean streets as an antidote to youth crime. At least the ambassadorial credentials of the man who, almostb single-handedly, runs the Manchester-based Youth Charter on a shoestring have been recognised in academia by an honorary doctorate of laws from Roehampton University. 

UK Sport’s appointment of one-time netball international Liz Nichols, stepping up from CEO to replace John Steele, now rugby’s head honcho at Twickenham, as chief executive, is a welcome indication that another female foot has stepped through the glass ceiling. She beat a fistful of men to the post and will work alongside chair Baroness Sue Campbell, thus giving the body which distributes Olympic cash a firm women’s grip on the purse strings.

Girl power is also increasingly evident at sport’s highest level, but how many executives hail from the ethnic minorities? Look around the annual CCPR conference and how many black faces would you see? And this is the gathering of the 200-odd constituent bodies of sport’s "parliament".

Offhand I can think only of the inappropriately-named Densign White, who chairs British Judo, and Nigel Walker, the former Welsh hurdler and rugby international who is the newly-appointed national director of the English Institute of Sport, who have senior administrative jobs in sport. Considering the huge contribution black and Asian competitors make to British sport on the track, in the ring, on the pitch and the playing field, this is hardly representative.

So when someone as as able and well-connected as Thompson comes along surely he should be valued, and not so obviously undervalued. Over to you, Hugh.

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 Olympics and 10 Commonwealth Games.

I’ve just come back from a holiday in Prague with my boyfriend and still have a little down time before I go back to my fulltime training. One of the events in my diary is the British Olympic Ball this Friday.

I’m very excited to be going as the Ball is a critical fundraising event for the British Olympic Association in support of Britain’s current and future Olympic athletes.

I want to be able to give back after the fantastic experience I had as part of Team GB at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. My boyfriend will be joining me - we are just hoping that my brother’s tux will fit him…

The 1,000 or so people attending the British Olympic Ball are directly contributing to Team GB’s future success so it will be awesome to be a part of that. It will be my first Olympic Ball and I will enjoy rubbing shoulders with the likes of Sir Steve Redgrave, Jessica Ennis, Zara Phillips and golfer Nick Faldo. Zara and I were part of a sailing team racing for charity around the Isle of Wright last summer. Another first for me; good fun but I will have to discover seasickness tablets before I sail again!

The British Olympic Association is privately funded, so they receive no funding from the Lottery or Government. This basically means that their success is entirely dependent upon the income they receive from fundraising and events such as the British Olympic Ball, presented by BT.

This year over 60 Olympians, together with the Sugababes, Jamie Cullum and Mark Ronson, will be helping make the event a success. There will be a red carpet and you can come along and get pics and autographs of all the celebs and VIPs in a dedicated area. So if you are interested come to the Grosvenor House Hotel at 6pm on Friday (September 24).

I said it when I helped launch the London 2012 Games Makers - the programme which recruits volunteers for the Games - but it is worth repeating: the Olympics coming to London presents the opportunity of a lifetime and Olympic success for Team GB will unite the nation in excitement, pride and celebration.

I experienced this firsthand in Canada. Fundraising events such as the British Olympic Ball are crucial to delivering the hopes and dreams of Team GB’s athletes and ensuring we make the most of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And it is partners like BT who help make this happen.

Amy Williams is the Olympic bob skeleton gold medallist

The two-hour marathon is a little like the four-minute mile was 57 years ago, before Roger Bannister broke the mark.  An impossibility according to some; a distant accomplishment to others.

But our analysis shows that a sub two-hour marathon is possible this fall if runners examine how they run, rather than concentrating exclusively on how they train.

Several myths that have gained credence among otherwise intelligent athletes, coaches and scientists are that African runners dominate middle and long distance races because of genetic gifts, running to school as kids, and being born and trained at high altitudes.

When we actually measure how Africans run, however, we see that their success is largely due to superior stride efficiency, and not some unobtainable inborn talent or special childhood experiences. Our analysis further shows that if American and UK runners are willing to improve their efficiency, they can run the marathon under two hours this autumn, mainly because they are already much more fit than their African counterparts.

It’s all a matter of examining assumptions.

Take, for instance, the strenuousness of the marathon. It is assumed to be due to the horizontal distance of 26.2 miles. But even mere mortals can easily walk, bike or rollerblade this distance without fatigue.

It turns out that it is the vertical distance of the marathon that makes it so grueling.

I’m not talking about the slight changes in elevation on a non-flat course. I’m talking about the vertical distance every marathoner runs during the marathon.

Every runner bounces up and down while running. This bounce can be anywhere from half-to-four inches. Since runners take 1,000 strides per mile, any bounce will be multiplied 26,200 times during a race.

Let’s say a runner bounces up four inches with each stride. Multiplied 26,200 times, this adds up to 8,725 feet or 1.65 vertical miles. This is equal to 6.4 former World Trade Center buildings, or 2.6 Mount Snowdens! That’s a lot of work, and would tire anyone of any level of physical fitness - even Haile Gebrselassie (pictured).

But there’s more. What goes up must come down. So a runner with a four inch bounce drops down four inches with each stride, adding another 8,725 vertical feet, or 1.65 vertical miles, 6.4 World Trade Center buildings, or 2.6 Mount Snowdens. As any runner will tell you, running uphill is hard on the heart, but running downhill is much harder on the legs. With just a four inch bounce, our elite marathoner is running a total additional 3.3 vertical miles.

Imagine if he reduced his bounce to just one inch, as Gebrselassie's compatriot, Belayneh Densamo, did at Rotterdam in 1988 when he ran 2 hours 06min 50sec - a world record that lasted 10 years. 

It means Densamo did quarter of the work that our hard-working and exhausted modern marathoner is doing. When quizzed about how he felt at the end of his marathon, Densamo responded that he felt like he could run another five miles.

If our modern runner reduced his bounce to one inch, he would "only" run a total of .83 vertical miles, putting him well under two hours for the marathon.

But there are other problems as well, which you can see here.

Unfortunately, we find there is little interest on the part of coaches, runners or sports scientists to improve stride efficiency. Instead, the emphasis has been entirely on training. This completely ignores the fact that most of the current UK middle-distance runners, for instance, actually have a smaller stride angle (maximum opening between the front and trailing legs, and the major determinant of speed) than Sebastian Coe or Steve Cram did 26 years ago when they dominated their events. You can see our analysis of UK runners here.

If the UK does not change its emphasis from training to efficiency, chances are excellent that it will host a wonderful party in 2012 and glumly watch their ungrateful guests abscond with all the gold and silverware.

Bob Prichard is the President of Somax Sports Corporation. He is the author of "The Efficient Golfer" - he first golf book to show readers how to use their home camcorder to videotape, measure, analyse and improve their swing mechanics -and he developed and patented the Somax Power Hip Trainer, the first aerobic exercise machine to increase the strength and speed of hip rotation for golf, tennis, football and swimming

After 16 weeks of rehabilitation I am back training, at last, with my GB team mates in Lilleshall. It is a really exciting time for the GB team with section process over for the World Championships.

The places were fiercely fought over, with the members of the junior team, who did so well at the European Championships all vying for places. This is a crucial team selection as we need to secure qualification through to the next round of qualifiers for the London Olympics.

With the selections made, a very strong team has emerged:

• Louis Smith - Olympic, European, world medallist on pommel and European team medallist

• Daniel Purvis - European medallist on Floor and seventh all round and European team medallist

• Kristian Thomas - World Championships all round sixth and European team medallist

• Sam Hunter - European team medallist

• Theo Seager - Junior European team gold medallist and fifth on vault

• Ruslan Pantelymonov - Fourth on Vault at this year’s World Cup Grand Prix in Portugal and the current English champion on rings.

I have every confidence that team GB will have an extremely successful World Championship and get through to the next Olympic qualification stage - I wish them every success and will supporting from the side lines.

On a more personal front my own training is going from strength to strength. My programme at Lilleshall was split into two separate programmes; in the morning session I spent four hours focused on my strength and recovery and in the afternoon I worked alongside the rest of the GB team training some new skills and key elements of my routines.

I am continuing to build on my general strength and fitness and am currently focusing on individual moves on pommel, parallel bars, high bar and rings. On parallel bars I have been working on some new exciting moves that will really increase my start value on this apparatus.

It’s really good to be back with the rest of the squad and a huge motivator!

There have been some exciting developments in the junior team: Britain also has a new Olympic champion - Sam Oldham - who won the high bar gold medal at the inaugural YouthOlympic Games in Singapore in August. Sam also went on to claim silver on the pommel horse and finished fifth in the all round competition, fifth on floor and fourth on p-bars. This is a huge achievement for Sam and GB, he is definitely someone to keep an eye on for the future – well done!

Daniel Keatings, who is powered by Opus Energy, made history last October when he became the first British gymnast to win a medal in the all-round event at the World Gymnastics Championships. To find out more about his sponsorship deal with Opus Energy click here.

As I go past the Olympic Park on the train on an almost daily basis, I have become somewhat immune to its undeniable magnificence. What used to be a baron wasteland in the form of an empty marsh now looks a 21st Century sporting masterpiece in the making with the giant Olympic Stadium and revolutionary Aquatics Centre towering proudly over the East End of London.

Everyday, the building site that is the Olympic Park looks visibly closer to completion but to be honest, I have become rather too accustomed to the stunning back drop being part of my daily commute. While some on my carriage, who I assume do not regularly take the train that offers the scenic view of the Olympic Park, audibly gasp when they see the Olympic venues in Stratford or press their noses up against the window to get a closer look, I, like many other regular commuters from East Anglia to Central London, barely look up from my daily newspaper.

Therefore, I didn’t think I would get too much out of a walking tour of the Olympic Park Area I had been booked on despite the tour sounding rather interesting. The tour involved a walk through the River Lee Valley, the area of the London 2012 Games, and is led by London Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guides who in addition to the London qualification; have undergone a training course for the 2012 Games itself.

Opened by Kate Hoey, the London Mayor’s Sports Commissioner, the walking tours take place at 11am every day - including Christmas Day - until the start of London 2012. The tours last roughly one-and-three-quarter hours and begin at Bromley-by-Bow tube station. Bromley-by-Bow was therefore my first port of call and I arrived at the tube station early to meet my Blue Badge Tour Guide Marc Belben.

Marc, who turned out to be a delightful and interesting individual - which thinking about it is probably a prerequisite if your occupation is a tour guide - immediately surprised me by taking me on a route around the Olympic Park that I had never knew existed. We started on a bridge resting over the River Lea Valley which offered a fantastic view of the Canary Warf and more specifically the large Barclays tower located there which is the home of both the London 2012 Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) and the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA).

Marc informed me that the River Lea Valley, which runs right through the Olympic Park, has been completely decontaminated because of the 2012 Games and that many of the old trolleys and rubber tyres that resided in there had been removed so that the water could be used as a way for boats to transport materials to build the venues with.

We carried on our walk, which passed Britain’s oldest surviving tidal mill, until we came to the famous 3 Mills Studios. This is the location used by famous musicians, such as Lady Gaga and Craig David, and where major blockbuster films have been shot including last year’s children’s hit film Fantastic Mr Fox.

Perhaps more relevantly to London 2012, 3 Mills Studios was the venue used to rehearse the London Bus sequence at the Beijing 2008 Closing Ceremony that featured Jimmy Page on the guitar, Leona Lewis singing and David Beckham completely miss-kicking a ball into the crowd.

It will also be the location that Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle uses to rehearse the London 2012 Opening Ceremony he is in charge of as well as the venue where the Closing Ceremony and Paralympic Games Opening and Closing Ceremonies will be perfected.

We carried on our pleasant walk further, with Marc enthralling me with his encyclopedic knowledge London and the previous Olympic Games the city hosted in 1908 and 1948, until we rather quickly came to the impressive climax of the tour - The View Tube which overlooks the Olympic Stadium.

The View Tube is situated on The Greenway and is almost in the middle of the Olympic Park itself. A remarkable piece of engineering that was built using recycled shipping containers; The View Tube is home to a delightful café which is open seven days a week and even though I admitted earlier that I am not all that impressed by the Olympic Park anymore, the ridiculously close proximity of The View Tube to the Olympic Stadium did make me rethink me statement because no matter how well you think you know it, a close-up view of an 80,000 seat-stadium rarely fails to impress even the most cynical.

It was the perfect way to end the tour and Marc and I sat down for a coffee when a suddenly, a tall man walked by that I instantly recognised. It was no less than Australian David Higgins, the chief executive of the ODA and therefore the man primary charged with ensuring that the Olympic Park is delivered on time and on budget.

Higgins, from what I could gather, was actually giving a VIP tour himself to Tim Phillips, the chairman of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The two looked deep in conversation but being a journalist - and with the help of Marc -  I interrupted their conversation have a general chat. Fortunately, the pair are exceeding pleasant - or unbelievably polite when interrupted - and were more than happy to speak to us.

Phillips explained that they were also stopping for a coffee at The View Tube as it was "the VIP box of the Olympic Park".

As a nice memento of the walk, I asked Higgins if I could have a photograph with him in front of the Stadium he is building and with a slightly surprised look, the likeable Australian and highest paid Government quango boss in the UK (with an annual salary of £394,999) said it would be no problem at all.

Higgins and Phillips soon left, the former telling me he is looking forward to reading this very blog, and my surprising enjoyable tour with Marc was over.

I assure you that I have no obligation to say this but I would strongly recommend the daily walking tour to anybody. The tour can take place in over 40 languages and at just £8 for adults and £5 for children it is an absolute bargain.

And in today’s society, a one full of television, fast-food takeaways and video computer games, it makes a very pleasant change having a scenic walk in the most interesting of areas. It will also probably be the best opportunity you will have to see the Park before London 2012 itself and if you’re not already sold on the Games, you either will be after this tour or you simply never will be.

The only thing I can’t guarantee is that you’ll bump into the chief executive of the ODA but as the VIP box of the Olympic Park. But you never know, if one Lord Sebastian Coe or fellow celebrity, might be lurking around for an opportunistic picture opportunity.

For further information or to book a walking tour click here. 

Tom Degun is a reporter for insidethegames

Just as I was saying here last week that compared to certain other sports boxing is as clean as the proverbial whistle, along comes Ricky Hatton to sneeze white power all over the argument.

The former world champion, arguably the best-loved boxer in Britain since Frank Bruno and before him Henry Cooper, is currently in rehab and the tender care of Max Clifford, as the victim of yet another News of the World sporting sting.

Now those of us who follow boxing have known for years about The Hit Man’s carousing, the booze and the bingeing and how he happily became the self-parodying Ricky Fatton between fights who couldn’t pass a pub without grabbing a pint and a pie. What a card, eh?

There was rumours of late that he had fallen foul of the cocaine habit, as did his former stablemate Joe Calzaghe (and dear old Broooo-no  too). All had distinguished amateur careers before they found fame and wealth in the prize ring, and started sniffing around with the showbiz set, so to speak.

Hatton, of course will never be allowed to fight again even if he so desired, and it is possible that the Board of Control will suspend his newly-gained promoter’s licence. Alas, most in the game knew he was an accident waiting to happen, but no-one did or said anything. But they sure are rallying to support him now.

There has always been something of a fistic freemasonry between fighting men which decrees that when they are not in opposite corners ready to belt bits off each other they are steadfast in support of a brother boxer who may be taking a battering without a punch being thrown.

Which us why none of Hatton’s contemporaries are bad-mouthing him now his reputation is in tatters.

Prominent among those standing firmly by Hatton (pictured) is the former Olympic silver medallist and current holder of Hatton’s old world light-welterweight title, Amir Khan, a friend who, in different circumstances, also might have been his foe in the ring. But such a prospect is now out of the window.

Khan tells us: "If Ricky needs help, myself and my team are here for him. I have been his friend and I will always be his friend. I am one hundred per cent supportive. There’s no point in me telling him he’s been a fool, he knows that himself. I think he realises he’s let everybody down and he has just got to overcome this. We’ll do anything we can to help him, whatever he needs.

"Who knows what sort of pressures he’s been under, depression or whatever? In a way I find it hard to understand because I’ve never touched alcohol or drugs myself - and I never will - that’s because of my religion which keeps me away from stuff like that. It seems to me that it’s the drink problem that leads to the drugs. He and Joe have been elite sportsmen all their lives, as Frank was, on top of the game and role models but it seems it’s the crowd they get in with."

Khan acknowledges that he had his own problems earlier this year and like Hatton and Calzaghe, featured in a tabloid expose in the same newspaper, although in his case, it was claimed he had sent sexy text messages.

"Of course I regret it and have learned from my mistakes. I am a better person for it. It’s made me much wiser. I realise now that I’m someone people look up to, particularly young people and I want to be a role model. I’ve got an image and I want to keep hold of it.  You learn that you have to be careful what you do." A lesson no doubt re-inforced by a rollicking from his dad Shah.

Those of us who have followed the career of the immensely likeable Khan, since, aged 17 as Britain’s sole fistic representative, he won Olympic silver in Athens against the masterful Cuban Mario Kindelan were deeply disappointed at his behaviour and it is good to see he recognises  how foolish he was.



Yet despite their occasional aberrations, there is still much to admire about fighting men, particularly their work for charity. Khan, for example, was hosting an swish event in Bolton this week to raise money for a number of charities including and Bolton’s Gloves Community Centre in which he has invested £700,000 ($1.1 million) of his own money to offer youngsters the chance to box, keep fit and stay off the streets. He has also just returned from an emotional visit to Pakistan, birthplace of his parents, where, as an Oxfam ambassador, he gave hands-on assistance at the flood disaster area.  

What he saw, he says, hit him harder than any opponent ever has."You don’t realise the extent of the damage until, you see it with your own eyes, thousands of people who have been left with nothing. We were at a place called Charsadda in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It was total devastation. You couldn’t help but be moved. It was heartbreaking, unimaginable. I was in Pakistan after the earthquake too. but this was something else.  It’s put the country back years. I wanted to do whatever I could to help people rebuild their future."

With his father, brother and uncle Khan collected and distributed clean water, pitching tents and handing out money and food tokens. "We went into the camps and I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. An area the size of England has been obliterated and people face no present and no future. This tragedy has cut me deeply. It makes you feel so inadequate. I intend to go back again after my next fight because these people need all the help they can get."

Khan, 23, who has already helped raise over £1 million ($1.5 million) for the flood relief victims, says he will dedicate his next fight, which looks set to be against the leading contender for his WBA belt, the big-punching  Argentinian Marcos Maidana, in Las Vegas in December, to the relief fund, to which he will be contributing part of his purse.

Khan’s 19-year-old brother Haroon has remained in Pakistan, for whom he will be boxing in the Commonwealth Games, despite having represented England. "I think he has made the right decision," says Amir. "Every young fighter’s dream is to go to a Commonwealth or Olympic Games and Haroon had set his heart on that but he wasn’t picked for either the development or podium squads, even though he had beaten one of the guys who was.

"Just as I did before the Athens Olympics, Haroon had the choice to box for Pakistan. As it happened, I got selected but it was obvious Haroon wasn’t going to be so he had to take this option because he needs the experience of boxing in a major tournament.  England didn’t seem to want to help him at all.  We didn’t want to argue with them. Haroon has duel nationality - both our mum and dad come from Pakistan and he wanted the chance although it would be a bit ironic if he ends up boxing the English guy at some stage in the tournament - maybe even in the final. 

"He’s looking good boxing at super flyweight and he’s enjoying the atmosphere of the training camp in Pakistan. There’s a chance he’ll go professional afterwards, depending on how he does. It’s like I keep telling all young boxers: if you eventually want to turn professional, you’ve got to maximise all your amateur experience, so you can cope with all different styles. That’s what I did."

But back to the original question. Has the Hatton scandal besmirched boxing? I don’t think so. The sport remains clean - it’s just that some  in it occasionally behave like jerks.

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 Olympics and scores of world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

With generalist volunteering applications opening today, the search begins for our 70,000 Games Makers - people who will give their time, energy and expertise to help make London 2012 a success.

This is a watershed moment for the hospitality sector - it marks the start of the volunteers’ journey to 2012 but also what is shaping up to be a golden decade for hospitality.

There’s a stream of international sporting events coming to Britain, from the London 2012 Olympics to the Rugby World Cup and even the Super Bowl, and we’ll need one million more people in the sector by 2017 to support this growth.

That is why I’m so encouraged by the public’s reaction to the quest for our 2012 Games Makers. We have already witnessed huge appetite to get involved, with thousands of people having registered their interest in the run-up to applications opening.

But how will we create a team of volunteers that demonstrates our first-class credentials in hospitality and service? We can learn a lot from Beijing, where the volunteers were consistently efficient, polite and helpful, but I want the London 2012 Games Makers to go above and beyond, bringing to life the vibrancy, energy and warmth that is Britain’s service industry at its best.

Imagine the impact of millions of visitors to the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games going home with an indelible memory of 70,000 warm welcomes. An achievable dream, but one we’ll only realise if we can build a dynamic and diverse team. A team that reflects the true Britain.

And, once we’ve found the 70,000 Games Makers who will help us sparkle as we host the greatest show on earth, it will be vital to give them the right support. We need to train and prepare the volunteers - providing them with the skills and confidence required for the once-in-a-lifetime challenge of the Games.

To ensure we get this right, for the first time in the history of the Games an organising committee has looked to sponsors to support the volunteers - sending out a clear signal that Britain is taking hospitality seriously.

This sponsorship marks a step change in the approach to volunteering and at McDonald’s we’re proud to be the first Presenting Partner for the Games Maker programme. It means the London 2012 Games Makers will receive an unprecedented level of support to prepare for the crucial role they will play and I’ve seen firsthand the difference this can make to the quality of the customer experience.



Providing quick and consistent customer service is a challenge our people face day in day out and we have a proven track record in developing our 80,000-strong workforce to thrive in this kind of fast-paced, busy environment. We serve over two million customers each day in our restaurants, and we strive to ensure that each one leaves feeling positive about their experience with us.

Similarly we want every single one of the 10 million people visiting the Olympic Park in 2012 to be welcomed and looked after in a way that makes them feel special - whether that’s reacting quickly and going the extra mile to resolve an issue, or simply making the effort to smile and make eye contact with everyone you greet.

And by investing in preparing the Games Makers for London’s moment in the world’s spotlight, we will ensure we give them the valuable and transferrable skills they will need - for their time as a volunteer but also for life and work beyond the Games.

Many of our Games Makers will continue to be the face of Britain’s service industry beyond 2012 and we want to provide them with an experience that delivers something tangible for their CV, as well as a skills legacy that will deliver long-term for the growing hospitality sector. 

So if you think you’ve got what it takes - you’re not afraid of hard work and you want to be a part of something special, from today you can apply to be a Games Maker at www.london2012.com.

Good luck. If you make it through, we’ll see you soon to help prepare you for an unforgettable experience.

David Fairhurst is the Chief People Officer of McDonald's, the Presenting Partner of the London 2012 Games Maker programme

It would be nice to think that the Commonwealth Games which are shortly to get underway in Delhi will offer us another sporting memory to rank with the 1500 metres final that took place in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1974.

I have watched a fair few 1500 metres races, and there is something about the distance which engenders a particular fascination for spectators.

It’s long enough for a sporting drama to play out with a few twists and, more often than not, a late turn.

The 1500m final at the 1992 Barcelona Games was a thriller, with home runner Fermin Cacho eventually bursting clear of the opposition to cross the line as King Juan Carlos looked proudly on.

The 1500m from the 1980 Moscow Olympics was unforgettable for the personal drama of Sebastian Coe, whose earlier 800 metres final had been the stuff of nightmares - it’s the biggest race of your life, for this you came, but no, no, you’re boxed in, you know it’s not right but you can’t stop it happening, run, run to make it better but it’s too late.

As he crossed the line to win the gold he thought he was going to win at the shorter distance, Coe, so controlled in all he says and does, blazed with emotion. It was like looking into a furnace.

Still, the memory of that race in Christchurch endures.

The finishing straight saw a dramatic struggle between men moving into territory they had never been in before, with three crossing the line in personal best times.

But all this was rendered into a sub-plot by the overarching drama of the race. For these men were not racing, but chasing. They were in pursuit of a man who had set out ahead of them and, simply, remained there.

For seven years, the world 1500m record had belonged to Jim Ryun, the American who shared the unhappy distinction of other great runners such as Ron Clarke of never winning the medals his supreme talent deserved. It stood at 3min 33.1sec.

When Filbert Bayi toed the line on that day in February, he was not seeking to beat Ryun’s time, but to win a race. The method he chose to achieve that, however, was boldness itself. He went to the front, and stayed...

Among those in the chasing pack were two home runners, John Walker and Rod Dixon, and Kenya’s Ben Jipcho.

The contest reached its full intensity in the final straight as Walker came through to win his race-within-a-race and cut down the distance on the African, only to see time and distance run out for him.



In an event where the world’s best had been pared down by fractions of seconds, Bayi, barely showing any sign of stress, had done something astonishing, taking almost a full second off Ryun’s mark in clocking 3:32.2.

Walker, too, had broken the old record, finishing in 3.32.5, with Jipcho taking bronze in 3.33.16 and Dixon finishing fourth.

Tanzania’s part in the African boycott of the 1976 Montreal Olympics meant that Bayi did not have the chance to add an Olympic to his Commonwealth gold, although a pre-Games bout of malaria would hardly have left him in top form. Four years later in Moscow he did win silver in the 3,000m steeplechase.

For Walker, that glorious defeat on home soil presaged three years of glorious victories as he became the first man to break 3: 50 for the mile as he ran 3.49.4 in Gothenburg the following year and won the Olympic title his ability so richly merited a year after that in
Montreal.

But Walker was never destined to convert his talent to gold in the Commonwealth arena.

Having missed the 1978 Games, he reached the 1500m final at the 1982 Games only to be beaten by the rapidly emerging talent that was Steve Cram.

Four years later, in Edinburgh, he finished fifth in the 5,000m. When the Games returned to New Zealand in 1990, Walker – then in the closing days of his career - was desperate to sign off with a flourish in the 1500m. But fate was against him.

Shortly before the Games got underway in Auckland I covered a warm-up meeting in the nearby town of Hamilton at which Walker was due to be running.

When his event came up, it was clear that the local hero was not taking part. But shortly afterwards I discovered him leaning against a fence watching the action. He explained that he had been put out of the running after being kicked in the leg by one of his horses.
Being spiked is one thing for a track athlete. Being hoofed is another.

Walker, being Walker, still turned up to race - and duly reached the 1500m final, only to be tripped early on in a race that was eventually won by Britain’s Peter Elliott.

Walker, being Walker, had not remained on the track, but got back to his feet to finish 12th. Elliott subsequently persuaded the great New Zealander to accompany him on a richly-merited lap of honour.

What can Delhi offer to match these deeds? We’ll soon see...

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

The ephemeral moment, two decades ago this week, is still an exquisite, glass of good wine flashback.

September 18, 1990, packed and headed to the Colorado Springs airport with my USOC colleague, Dave Ogrean. But, before closing  the front door, we watched on CNN as IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch approached the podium in a Tokyo hotel with an envelope in his hand, within it the name of the city that would host the Centennial Olympic Games in 1996, the 100-Year anniversary of the birth of the Modern Games.

Athens was the consensus favorite, the city that had hosted those 1896 Games at ancient Olympia, where a team of just 14 Americans arrived by boat to join 245 athletes from 14 nations. Toronto was favoured by others with a respected, longstanding organisation and resources.

Atlanta was America's candidate, joining Athens, Toronto, Melbourne, Manchester and Belgrade in the chase to host the Games. But the world knew that Athens was the likely winner and that the others would be disappointed.

Atlanta was a maverick, a city best-known to many Europeans as a movie set in Gone With The Wind. We had selected Atlanta to carry America's hopes over Minneapolis-St. Paul on April 29, 1988, in a tension-filled ballroom at the Washington Hilton where the USOC Board of Directors, still energised by the startling success of the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, was basking in the USA-led renaissance of the Games.

The evening before the vote was memorable, with both cities hosting the USOC Board in separate ballrooms with food, drink and arm-twisting with backdrops themed  to tell their stories and the character of their cities. There was an old-fashioned "taste of Atlanta" in one room with its distinct Southern charm and in the other, the flavor of the Land of Lakes and the hardy citizens of the Twin Cities.

The Minnesota group had expended some $350,000 (£227,000) on its campaign with the USOC over 15 months, while Atlanta dropped just $250,000 (£162,000) on its quest, led by the charismatic Billy Payne, a former Georgia football star who said that he had been in church in 1987 when the vision of an Atlanta Olympics came to him.

He had  pursued the USOC doggedly for almost two years with his improbable dream. Even on the day the USOC chose Atlanta as its candidate in Washington, there was doubt.

"It would be an upset of major proportions," if an American city wins the 1996 Games, said USOC Executive Director Baaron Pittenger to a group of reporters, and many USOC officials felt that the bid would be too close on the heels of the Peter Ueberroth-led Los Angeles success to be favorably received.

"We don't believe that in Atlanta," said an irritated Payne (pictured), and he and his formidable team, men and women including Andrew Young, Charlie Battle, Horace Sibley, Ginger Watkins, Linda Stephenson, Shirley Franklin, Maynard Jackson and others, set out on a three-year odyssey that spanned the globe, meeting IOC members and international sport leaders to tell their story, wherever it took them.

Young was a compelling force as he met with IOC members from African, Middle Eastern and Asian nations with the heady prospect of their votes on the line.

The regal former pastor, civil rights leader and colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King was a huge player in a game that would cost the six finalist cities almost $100 million (£65 million) total, a modest  sum when placed next to the reported $26 million (£17 million) alone that London spent to garner the 2012 Olympic Games.

But on this early September morning in 1990, this was all behind, and thousands gathered on a plaza in downtown Atlanta in front of a giant screen to see Samaranch approach the podium in Tokyo with his envelope. It was quiet enough to hear the sound of gum being chewed among that throng, or the pounding  hearts of Atlanta's citizens and those of Payne and his delegation in the Japanese ballroom.

The aristocratic Samaranch tore at the envelope, looked at the card that emerged in his hands with a bemused look, and spoke softly into the glare of the lights.

"The 1996 Olympic  Games are awarded to the city of At..." (I swear to this day, watching the big screen in my home, his lips were forming the word "Athens,"), but then, after a pause, came "Atlanta." (final tally, Atlanta 51, Athens 35).

Atlanta erupted, and I locked the front door and headed off to New York for something now forgotten, stunned and delighted  by what had taken place and what lay ahead for all of us at the USOC, another home Games and all the good things that would come with that, the hard work, frustration and joys.

The 1996 Olympic Games remain an enigma today, a resounding success, unfairly hammered by European journalists for "commercialism" and breakdowns in some systems, particularly their own media transportation and housing.

For those of us at the USOC then, most of our memories centre around the marvelous success of our Olympic team, which returned to the top of the medal count among the 197 participating nations with 101, to 65 for Germany and 63 for the new Russia.



It began with the inspiring appearance of Muhammad Ali to light the Games' flame at the Olympic Stadium and the elevating music of John Williams' "Summon the Heroes,"  then continued with the golden triumphs of Michael Johnson on the track, Carl Lewis' fourth long jump gold medal at the age of 35, Amy Van Dyken's four gold medals in the pool at Georgia Tech, and the brilliance of America's female athletes in gymnastics - Keri Strug and the Magnificent Seven - softball and the Mia Hamm-led US women's soccer team in the inaugural appearance of the sport in the Games.

The Games were shaken by the tragic Olympic Park bombing on July 27 that killed one woman and injured 111 people, and at the Closing ceremony, Samaranch disappointed millions of Americans and all of Atlanta by calling the Games, "most exceptional," breaking his tradition of labeling each Games that he had presided over, "the best Olympics ever,"  which he resumed in Sydney in 2000.

The truth is that these Games of Billy Payne and Atlanta were superb in the majority of categories. The 197 nations on hand was a record, Palestine competed for the first time, Hong Kong won a medal, and so did the former Soviet state of Georgia. The resplendent venues, Olympic Stadium (to become Turner Field), the Georgia World Congress Center, the Georgia Dome, Stone Mountain, splendidly refurbished facilities at Morehouse College and Emory University, the Georgia International Horse Park and others, were magnificent.

A record  nine million tickets were sold, the Games turned a profit of some $10 million (£6.5 million), and Atlanta became a true international city. Centennial Olympic Park welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors each day and remains a treasured city landmark today.

Now, Payne is the chairman of Augusta National Golf Club and the estimable Masters tourney. Samaranch passed away in April of this year, Young remains revered for his humanitarian work. Today, the Braves are chasing the National League East crown in what was the Olympic Stadium, and the $1.7 billion (£1.1 billion) spent on the Games remains one of the best investments ever made by an American city.

Mike Moran was the chief communications officer of the USOC for nearly 25 years before retiring in 2003. In 2002 he was awarded with the USOC's highest award, the General Douglas MacArthur Award. He worked on New York's unsuccessful bid to host the 2012 Olympics and is now director of communications for the Colorado Springs Sports Corporation.

By making sports the near-religion it is today, and by anointing athletes with more accolades, money, prestige, winning at all costs is the lesson being taught on soccer pitches, track and sports facilities.

Sport is one of the most uplifting of human endeavours. Watching someone run, jump, throw, or doing it oneself, challenging one's limits, should be part of most human's personal journeys.

I have noted, that in my modest running career, my best times from the mile to 10,000 metres were in races where I was pretty far back in the pack. I always felt that, the four or five races I won in nearly 500 races, were pretty Zen moments.

Earning one's personal bests, in my humble opinion, is part of the sports' attraction. I see how people can cheat in sport, however, that does not mean I either support it or believe that they, the cheaters, actually appreciate how they have brought toxins to the sport that they claim to love.

Performance enhancing drugs has nearly destroyed our sport. Tough stands by meet directors, federations, athletes, coaches, managers have brought our sport back to respectability. United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) have taken testing away from the sports federations, giving testing even more transparency. But, as USADA and WADA get closer, new drugs come out, and soon, gene therapy will be available to wealthy families, and federations, who will do anything for their athlete to win. To me, that is sickening. 

As it has for a decade now, it takes about $100k for an athlete to find an unscrupulous lab, and an enterprising chemist, who can find a pretty solid way to beat the system. Cheating and not getting caught is not cheap. As most athletics athletes are not in possession of such resources, a focus on athletes at the top of the heap, who have the resources to cheat, is part of a programme that I would encourage to create an more even playing field, if that is possible.

Want drug free sports? Then, talk with young athletes and coaches, about ethics, what is right and wrong. Drug testing will only go so far, that is why USADA and WADA are involved in global drug education programmes, which I applaud.    

My concern has always been that USADA and WADA, in fighting the bad guys, could overstep their bounds. The ends never justifies the means. We applaud what USADA and WADA have done for our sport. They do a very needed, but dirty job, in an area that is, on its best days, gray. However, like waterboarding, poor evidence, thinly veiled threats, only hurt the cause of drug free sports. Research and resources are key for USADA and WADA to catch the majority of drug cheats. 

No different than the police officer who sees bad guys day after day, week after week, year after year, and crosses a line to arrest someone who is has done bad things in the past, or who they think is guilty of a recent crime. A bad arrest by USADA or WADA, a case built on weakly reviewed protocols could and would destroy much of the positives that both organizations have brought to the sport.

An absurd arrest or enforcement, as has been done, in the strange case of Chris Lukezic, only makes USADA look foolish.

Sometimes, a little distance and a long deep breath are needed before one sends out a press release. 

Case in point. Chris Lukezic (pictured), one of our top 1,500m runners in the past half decade, retired November 11, 2009. On that day, November 11, Chris announced his retirement to the media, which was picked up by many in the running media. Lukezic was well liked, and had  strong fan support.

Lukesic also updated USATF on his decision. I have to admit that I was sad, as I enjoyed watching Chris race and felt he had more fast miles to run. Chris had found something new to put his enormous energy into: a travel start-up. And he was off!  

Apparently, USADA does not read the running media, as they showed up at the home of Chris Lukezic five months later. On April 20, 2010, five months after his retirement, USADA demanded that he urinate into a cup, as part of a drug test for an athlete who they thought was active, but who had, in fact, retired.

Chris Lukezic is prone to self-analysis. Hell, the guy ran 3:33.28, so perhaps it was too much oxygen on the brain. As Lukezic saw himself as non-elite athlete, he refused to take the test. Now, you arm-chair quarterbacks are asking, "Why, Chris, did you not just pee in the little plastic cup and get it over with?" Chris Lukezic saw himself as a private citizen, and he did not see himself as the elite athlete USADA perceived, so he decided to take a stand. I applaud his quiet act of defiance.

USADA, an organisation's whose prime purpose is to find every sports drug cheat and their support team, does not have much of a sense of humor. Nor do they appreciate a guy who stops racing at the world class level and directs all of his energy into an digital travel start up.

USADA did not appreciate his quiet act of defiance. They gave him a two year ban. USADA did not notice that the guy has not competed since the outdoor 2009 season. They claim that Chris did not file "proper paperwork." Lukezic claims to have notified USA Track & Field of his retirement. 

It is my belief that USADA has bigger fish to fry than Chris Lukezic. Lukezic is not a drug cheat. 

Larry Eder is the President at Running Network LLC and Group Publisher at Shooting Star Media, Inc. 

I was trawling through back editions of insidethegames the other day, as you do, when I came across this intriguing headline dated May 6 this year: "South Korean Olympic gold medallist banned in race-fixing scandal".

The story underneath revealed that the champion in question was one Lee Jung-su, who with his team-mate Kwak Yoon-gy and national coach Jeon Jae-mok had been rigging results of competitions including Korean team trials. It was claimed there was "institutionalised" race-fixing.

The sport was, wait for it, speed skating.

Speed skating? Ye gods, is nothing sacred in sport these days?

Apparently not, So after Test cricket, what next will they try to nobble? The Boat Race, The Open, the Wimbledon finals? How long will it be before the Listed Events are the Twisted Events?

Just about every major sport has an anti-corruption unit or outside  agency overseeing its morals. Germany’s Bundesliga has just enlisted an outfit called Transparency International to act as a watchdog on match fixing from Asian sources, perhaps the biggest indication yet that football has as much to concern itself about the sort of scandal that has hit cricket, as has any other sport.

For fans, seeing is no longer believing, and it hasn’t been since the days of the infamous "Say it isn’t so Joe" fix in baseball and Ben Johnson’s Seoul-destroying sprint.

Funnily enough a sport which I write about most, boxing, has long been the target of snipers who suggest that fight fixing is prevalent.  Readers may well have gathered that I am not short on  cynicism but, hand on  wallet, I cannot recall seeing a bent fight in half a century of covering boxing.

This isn’t to say boxing’s reputation is unblemished. It is well chronicled that the fixes went in when the Mob ran the fight game in the United States years ago but I am, convinced it doesn’t happen here, thanks to a vigilant Board of Control and a forensic media which Seb Coe describes as "the most forensic in the world" keen  to sniff out the slightest smell of sporting mischief - whether it is  footballing philanderers or snooker players pocketing bribes rather than balls.

True, I am aware of some dodgy happenings in amateur boxing, even at Olympic level - but this is among ringside judges who, more often than not, are biased rather then bent. Or plain incompetent. The same happens in ice skating and, I strongly suspect other subjective sports like gymnastics.

Anyway, I have always considered tennis the easiest sport to fix. All you have to do is hit the ball into the net rather than over it.

I happened to be talking with Frank Warren this week and he was telling how was a guest in Sky’s box at Lord’s during the England- Pakistan Test when an MCC johnnie asked him what he did. "I promote boxing," Warren replied. "Hmm," came the sniffy response. "I haven’t watched boxing since the days of Henry Cooper. Its all bent, isn’t it?".

"I’ wish I’d have bumped into him the next day when all that no-ball stuff broke," says Warren. "I’d love to have seen his face."



The promoter can be excused a little smugness for, as he says, there are still those who think boxing is the most crooked of all sports yet in modern times there has not been a shred of evidence to suggest anything shady.

Warren argues: "Apart from this cricket affair we’ve had major scandals in snooker, horse racing,  motor racing, athletics, rugby’s  Bloodgate, highly dodgy things going on in all sorts of sports.

"But boxing still gets a bashing. Yet I can honestly say that in my time I can’t think of any fight that hasn’t been straight. 

"Ok, you get some iffy-match-making, but in these days of tabloid cheque book journalism, if someone had done something like this in boxing, you can be sure it would have come out.

"When you look at all the scandals in the so-called pure sports, boxing’s reputation stands up well.  For one thing most fighters I know are on ego trips and they’ve got too much pride to take dive. Anyone who thinks boxing is bent should go and take a look at Gerald McClellan and Michael Watson (who both suffered severe brain damage). If fights were crooked, there are easier ways to get beat than be beaten up for 12 rounds. 

"Another thing is that you can’t get a substantial bet on a fight these days. I like a little wager myself but it has to be between friends because there’s no bookmaker in the world who would take a big money bet on a fight. No boxer would intentionally lose a fight. Never mind no-balls, boxing is all about real balls."

Actually I do know of one attempt to fix a fight. In April 1969 Brian London fought American heavyweight James Fletcher, who had a reputation as a fearsome hitter. The Blackpool promoter, the late Lawrie Lewis, confessed to some us a few years later that, worried about the outcome, he had asked Fletcher what it would take for him to "go into the tank". Fletcher’s angry response was to blast London out in two minutes flat.

On Saturday week, at Birmingham’s LG Arena, Warren, soon to celebrate 30 years as a promoter, stages a veritable boxathon, which he claims will be the most competitive night ever in a British ring: dozen bouts including seven title fights involving British, Commonwealth and European championships and world title eliminators featuring unbeaten light-heavyweight Nathan Cleverly and welterweight Kell Brook, with Olympic gold medallist James DeGale and former world amateur champion Frankie Gavin in support.

Some bouts will be one-sided but the certainty is that there won’t be a non-trier on the bill. And whatever we may think of the forthcoming David Haye-Audley Harrison match-up, neither will be pulling their punches in a grudge fight that goes back to their amateur days. Judging by last week’s foul-mouthed exchanges, unlike Pakistan’s bowlers, the only mark they’ll be overstepping is good taste.

So of you want to witness a real fix in sport, best to get your skates on.

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 Olympics and scores of world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

In the 32-year history of the United States Olympic Committee and its presence in Colorado Springs, there have been scores of historically significant events taking place or announced.

A short list might include the opening of Olympic House and the inaugural National Sports Festival in the summer of 1978, the heartbreaking April 12, 1980, announcement at the Antlers Hotel that the US Olympic Team would not go to Moscow and the July, 1979 announcement on an OTC bulletin board naming the 25 ice hockey players that would become the Lake Placid Miracle On Ice stars.

There were back-to-back world records in the 100 metres by Calvin Smith and Evelyn Ashford at the ’83 Sports Festival; moments of emotional triumph as Atlanta and Salt Lake City got the nod as hosts for the Games; a pair of visits to the USOC by International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch and others.

But today’s quiet news out of our city that the USOC and the IOC have come to an agreement over Games costs and the clear indication that these two powerful forces are now on the same page and charting a future based on trust and strong bonds is as important as any of those, maybe more.

Make no mistake about it, the USOC is the most important and most powerful national Olympic Committee in the IOC family. The USOC brings to the Olympic movement some of the best staged Games in history, staggering financial support from American corporations and television, some of the greatest athletes in Olympic history, and a passionate, committed resolve to beat the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

The last decade has been beset with difficulties in this vital relationship, including the failed bids by two of our great cities, New York and Chicago, to host the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games. There has been a setback in the USOC’s international presence and its clout, and there have been a series of high profile management issues and turnover that hurt.

What took place today is incredibly meaningful for the next decade, and a tribute to the work and understanding of the importance of timing and history by USOC chairman Larry Probst and CEO Scott Blackmun.

In the eight months that Probst and Blackmun have worked as a team, the USOC has effectively restored credibility and profile to the USOC, starting with the magnificent performance by the US Olympic team in Vancouver.

Blackmun's brief tenure has demonstrated not only his acumen for building a team of solid professionals in Colorado Springs, but a commitment to build a bridge to the community and its citizens in the aftermath of the move downtown to new headquarters.

His remarks a week ago at the "Building A Great City Through Sports" luncheon in front of an enthusiastic and appreciative crowd of 500 struck the right chord in an important moment for the future. Blackmun was clear about the USOC’s commitment to, and appreciation of Colorado Springs, and he outlined programmes and events that back it up.

Following the lunch, which provided a strong message about the impact and the importance of the USOC to the city, dozens of attendees spoke openly about the future, and the opportunities that have opened because of the Olympic presence and their positive reaction to Blackmun (pictured) and his role.

What was announced today was a beginning of sorts, but it is a statement that will resonate in Lausanne and among the members of the IOC, some of them critics of the USOC in the past, some jealous, and some waiting to be convinced.

The door to the future, and the next decade is now open, and for the first time in a very long time, I can see what now may lie ahead for the USOC.

Another welcomed bid by an American city for the Games, a strengthened presence for the USOC in international sport enhanced by hosting important meeting and events such as the Youth Olympic Games, World Championships and exhibitions. Or a leadership role in strategic issues including the war against drugs and athletes and their funding and rights.

But best may be the return of respect by IOC members and National Olympic Committees for the USOC and American sport, because that is central to the mission and the heart and soul of the USOC, its National Governing Bodies and member associations, and its Olympic and Paralympic athletes.

It won’t happen overnight, trust me, but the right people and the right attitude is in place in downtown Colorado Springs.

The September 23-25 gathering of the US Olympic Assembly in Colorado Springs, thanks to Blackmun the first time this prestigious meeting has been held in the city, will cast more light on these issues, and set the tone for what comes next.

It will be one of the most notable among the hundreds of Olympic-related gatherings in the hometown of the USOC, remarkably different in every respect from what happened in the same hotel and its ballroom some three decades ago when a decision was made to stay home from the Olympic Games in Moscow, one that might have been part of the end of the Games as we know them.

It is appropriate in every way that this will happen in Colorado Springs, which welcomed and embraced the tiny USOC and its flagship Olympic Training Center in 1978 when only Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was the only other city to extend a hand as the organisation left New York City.

Our city is known as the "City where Olympic and Paralympic Dreams begin".  Now, more dreams begin here at the foot of Pikes Peak for the USOC, an organisation that began in 1894 in a smoke-filled club in New York City where a dozen men sat around a table and created something special as the rebirth of the Modern Olympic Games lay ahead in Athens two years later.

Mike Moran was the chief communications officer of the USOC for nearly 25 years before retiring in 2003. In 2002 he was awarded with the USOC's highest award, the General Douglas MacArthur Award. He worked on New York's unsuccessful bid to host the 2012 Olympics and is now director of communications for the Colorado Springs Sports Corporation.

One of my top priorities as chair of Sport England has been fulfilled this week, as the Government confirmed the appointment of six new people onto our board.

Renewing and strengthening our non-exec team has been a major focus for me in recent months. I firmly believe that our board needs breadth and depth, as well as individual excellence, to help Sport England deliver its goal to get more people playing and enjoying sport - and helping those with talent fulfil their sporting potential.

Coming so soon after the Secretary of State’s announcement of plans to merge Sport England and UK Sport, some might ask why our board is being reinforced now.

My answer is simple.

We have a clear mandate to deliver a mass participation sporting legacy from a home Olympic and Paralympic Games that is less than two years away. Such responsibility will go well beyond the Games and requires expert guidance and governance at the very highest level.

The appointments we have made provide just that. We have representation from all of the communities we serve and the partners with whom we work; a board that understands the full spectrum of sporting needs and, most importantly, that will hold us to account and ensure that value for money is secured for every pound we invest in sport.

These are skills and experience required right now, in the same way that they will be needed by the non-exec arm of the merged organisation - to make sure we achieve excellence in sport at every level. I am therefore delighted to announce the following appointees to the Sport England board:

Nick Bitel is a name familiar to most in the world of sport. As chief executive of the London Marathon since 1995, he has overseen huge growth in the event, which now sees over 35,000 finishers each year. Who better to help us maximise growth in mass sports participation? He's also no stranger to the world of sports administration having been a board member of UK Sport.

Volunteers are the lifeblood of sport, so it's great to be welcoming the chief executive of a strong community-based voluntary organisation on to our board. Hanif Malik's stewardship of the Hamara Healthy Living Centre has seen it grow from small beginnings to become Leeds' largest ethnic minority organisation in the voluntary and community sector. Hanif will be a passionate advocate for the third sector on our board.

Our partnership with local authorities is key to delivering for community sport, with councils being the biggest investor in sport and sports facilities. As a former director of leisure services and chief executive of Cumbria County Council, Peter Stybelski brings a wealth of expertise on the opportunities and challenges facing both the sport sector and local authorities.

It's great to be welcoming an Ashes winning captain to our leadership team. But Clare Connor (pictured) brings so much more than simply a knowledge of talent development and the intricacies of spin bowling. Since retiring, Clare has overseen further glories on the pitch as the ECB's Head of Women’s Cricket and she was the first woman to be appointed to the International Cricket Council's cricket committee.

Peter Rowley's distinguished career in retail finance in banking and building societies ended last year when he retired after 17 years as chief executive of Darlington Building Society. His financial expertise has been matched by a longstanding passion for, and involvement with, community sport - and indeed Sport England.

If this wasn't enough, Peter is also an expert on social enterprise and is currently Head of Business Support at The Social Investment Business.

Finally, I'm delighted to say Sadie Mason is joining our board. Sadie is chief executive of Active Sussex which, like the other 48 county sports partnerships, does so much to drive increases in sports participation at the local level. She's in a fantastic position to advise us on how decisions we make translate into sporting endeavour on the ground. She is also a former international basketball player and her previous career in banking will be a valuable asset.

These new faces join an already strong team on the Sport England board nd will add strength as we move forward into new territory for the organisation.

Now our work really begins.

Richard Lewis is the chairman of Sport England. To find out more about the new appointments click here.