Games are not all about the glory

As we bask in the glory of our nation's unexpected success in Beijing I hope we can find the time to spare a thought for those less fortunate figures of this Olympic Games.

It would be easy to focus all out attention on the gold rush that has given Great Britain an unusual feeling of sporting fulfilment.

But one of the sad but fascinating realities of the Olympics is that, at the very moment thousands are up in arms in jubilation, someone, somewhere is coming to terms with massive sporting disappointment.

One of the saddest sights of this year's games was yesterday in the Bird's Nest stadium when home favourite and Chinese icon Liu Xiang limped out of the 110 metre hurdles before his first leap.

This was a man under the burden of more pressure than anyone else at the games - as the home nation's standard bearer for track and field - and he was clearly prepared to go through the pain barrier for his throngs of adoring fans.

But where the mind was willing his body failed - a reminder of the thin line between Olympic success and failure and that these god-like Olympic heroes are actually human.

Paula Radcliffe also showed the guts of an Olympic champion only for the frailties of her mortal body to deny her that title.

I have run marathons myself (admittedly at a much slower pace) and I know something about the pain you have to go through just to finish when fully fit, let alone when carrying an injury.

Her disappointment was doubled by the fact that this was the second time she had been denied her Olympic dream after she was forced to pull out with dehydration 23 miles into the race in Athens four years ago.

There were also the distraught faces of our women's four and men's eight rowing crews who could not hide the fact that Olympic silver represented a failure after four years of hard work with sights set firmly on gold.

This is why the Olympics Games is sport at its greatest, we get to see in sharp co-existence the broadest range of sporting emotions.

The failures and the disappointments are every just as much part of the sporting experience as
the whoops of victory and these sportsmen deserve a place on the Olympic stage just as much as the winners.

The awesome sights of Usain Bolt dancing over the line of the 100m and Michael Phelps tearing through the pool will be defining images of these games.

But for me the experience of Beijing will be equally summed up by Liu's sad limp down the tunnel and the distraught faces of the Chinese fans and Paula gritting her teeth as she hobbled through the closing stages of the marathon.