Our Olympic dream is kicked into long grass

FOLLOW that! I never thought I'd have sympathy for the organisers of the London Olympics. But I have now. Already, given the drop-dead spectacle in Beijing, speculative comparisons are being made about the two venues. London hasn't a snowball's chance of outdoing Beijing, in spite of apparently limitless costs.

On a couple of occasions I've collared Seb Coe about the drain of money from the development of sport in the community in Scotland to pay for London's Olympics. The Olympic gold medallist now sits in the House of Lords and has been an inspirational leader for the London bid team. But that said, I still thought he had pulled the wool over our eyes when he brought some of his team to Scotland to tell us that we too would enjoy some of the spoils from London's Games.

Seb was convinced contracts for goods and services would be successfully tendered by Scottish companies. Sceptics were accused of negativity and worse, but a couple of months ago we learned that 97 per cent of Games contracts had gone to English firms, with one per cent awarded to companies in Scotland. With rising costs resulting in even more money being siphoned off the funds available to develop sport, and sports stars, this seems as good a time as any to get the London Olympics into perspective.

Firstly, although the Games are awarded to a city, the money comes from state coffers. No harm in that, in itself, but does it not confer the right for taxpayers to have a say on how their contribution is spent? For example, I'm a taxpayer, and I'd like my money to be used for the most modern sort of swimming facilities, that can be assembled, used, deconstructed, and relocated elsewhere. Given our current financial constrictions, that seems a more sensible use of public money than an expensive, customised centre that will be well in advance of the standard required by good community facilities.

The Chinese government and people are using the Olympics to make a big political statement – the UK doesn't need to. And even if we are in the cheap seats compared to those provided in the Bird's Nest, we should concentrate on providing a seamless service delivery. We can't compete with the Beijing opening ceremony and we shouldn't try. But we could be a lot more thoughtful about the effect on the athletes of the hours of waiting and waving. These Olympics must rank alongside the single worst man-made expansion of our carbon footprint, so could London take sustainability as its alternative ethos for a 21st century Games? That seems like a reasonable starting point, because if the weather experts are right with their forecasts, then our islands can expect the same levels of rainfall as has been experienced this year, when London hosts the Games. Maybe our ingenuity should go into devising ways of minimising the disruption caused by adverse weather.

And maybe also the legacy of the London Games could encompass a move back to a less hypocritical era when athletes took special diets and other preparations to boost their performances, quite legally. For example, shooters routinely took a wee refreshment, usually white wine, I've read, to steady their nerves and their hand. I'm not suggesting creating a level playing field by allowing competitors to get tanked up before their races etc, but maybe the London Games could also be the focus for a root and branch look at what are acceptable substances and what are not.

For example, Alain Baxter, the skier, was stripped of his Olympic medal because he used a nasal inhaler to keep his airways open. Yet with the same intention and result, he might have used nose strips, quite legally. We talk of "drugs cheats" yet allow competitive advantage, created in a laboratory, for swimmers who can afford the new Speedo laser swimming suits. It's not advisable to abolish all restrictions, but in the interests of the health of retired athletes (remember Flo-Jo Joyner?), a more realistic assessment is needed of legal, and illegal, substances used to boost performance.

Eastern promises
Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, accused Russia of murdering his small country. And who's to say he's wrong? The Russian President says Russia must protect its citizens in South Ossetia from the Georgian government's attempt to drive them from what has been their homeland for generations. And who's to say they're wrong?

The Georgians want to be Europeans, encouraged by the US and the EU. The men in Moscow could possibly live with Georgian EU membership, or a special relationship just short of that, but neither army generals nor the Duma will countenance Georgia in Nato. The same sort of strategic consideration shown by John F Kennedy in the Cuban crisis.