By Ray Fleming
SOMEONE -- I'm not sure who it should be -- needs to take hold of the political dimensions of the remaining hours of the London Olympics and prevent them from disintegrating into an unseemly shouting match from vested interests in the future of British athletics.
Clearly Boris Johnson is not the man -- he relishes rows; nor is David Cameron to judge by the disagreements he is already having with some of the UK's Gold medallists over the role of school sports. Even Lord Coe, who has hardly put a foot wrong since he took charge, was yesterday reported in the Financial Times as regretting the generally impoverished state of athletics and the struggle for most events except the Olympics itself and a few other global contests to get media attention and sponsors.
Mr Cameron is not having a good Olympics despite the rising tally of UK Gold medals.
In a BBC Radio 2 interview this week he went out of his way to rile the French because they found the Union Jack on the Champs Elysee a bit hard to take -- not the view of most observers. It is said that Lord Coe wants to be the next president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation.
It would be better if he stayed at home to knock heads together and prepare Team GB for Rio de Janeiro in 2016.