CHEMICAL WARFARE

The Olympic flame is held virginally aloft before the blue touch paper is alighted. So let the mayhem begin.

I`ve gone off the Olympics in a big way. Despite the indignation and the promises, I suspect that the competition element is still little more than a battle between chemists - those who produce, those who try to mask and those who try to detect the use of strange and magical substances. Chemical warfare has been declared.

And then there`s the politics of it all. Again, we`re told that politics has no place in sport or that sport has no place in politics. But I see that Gordon Brown will be officially welcoming the Olympic flame in Downing Street on Sunday. If he is to be believed that politics and sport don`t mix, then why on earth is he doing this?

China putting pressure on him? Tibet issue? Meeting the Dalai Lama? Billions of £s at stake in the burgeoning trade opportunities with China? Chemists exchange programme being discussed in advance of Beijing and London 2012? Human rights issues? Who knows? The `agenda` is cluttered and confused, whereas it should be simple and straightforward....but we know it won`t be which simply detracts yet again from the ideals of Baron de Coubertin.

Then there is the effect of the Olympics on the man on the Clapham Omnibus. Given that he travels the public transport of London, no doubt he will be happy that the Games are coming there in 2012. He will see the benefits and reap the legacy. But those who reside outside the M25 are supposed to believe that the London Olympics will benefit the whole country. However, yet another poll conducted in `the provinces` yesterday revealed that 70% of those questioned believed that the Olympics in 2012 will bring no benefit to them. If that`s the perception in the south of England, then the feelings in the more remote shires must surely be even more sceptical.

I think my problem must be that I still vividly remember the London Olympics of 1948 - the cinder tracks, the plimsolls and the starting guns with real bullets; Fanny Blankers-Koen, E. MacDonald Bailey, Raymond Glendenning doing the commentaries and the only `substances` available to the athletes being smelling salts. But London 1948 was the first Olympics to have a political defection. Marie Provaznikova won a gold medal with the Czechoslovakian gymnastics team and then refused to return home, citing "lack of freedom" there, after the country's inclusion in the Soviet bloc.

It seems that in Beijing 2008, there may be more refusals to attend than requests to remain behind afterwards, but I doubt that Gordon will be among the refuseniks.