I’M NOT known as a sporting cove, but have to admit to being well and truly grabbed by the Olympics.

Even though, like many Brits, I’m disappointed with our medal tally thus far, I’m impressed by our gutsy performances.

The GB Team’s gymnastic bronze was particularly inspiring. As a lad, gymnastics was the only sporting activity I could do with anything approaching reasonable competence Probably something to do with my low centre of gravity.

My older brother, who also wasn’t tall but was very deep, used to favour canoeing. I’ll never forget my pride when he won the annual school race on the local canal.

I shared his victory because I helped with his training, both of us canoeing like crazy against the current on the River Aire to improve upper body strength. When it came to the calm canal water, there was no holding my brother back.

Developing my own upper body strength encouraged the interest in gymnastics, while running sports such as football and rugby always left me lagging behind.

I didn’t join a gym team or a club - just practiced some of the disciplines during school sports sessions.

To be successful in any sport, you need to be competitive and confident and I lacked both these attributes.

I admire anyone who is single-minded enough to succeed at the highest level in competition.

That especially goes for our cyclists, rowers and sailors, who are so good, they can win gold sitting down!

Anyway, all these sports thoughts have reminded me of an incident that occurred at one of the winter Olympics a few years ago.

Ice skating judges were in uproar after one of their number - a man from somewhere west of Liverpool - awarded a skater a 10 even though he’d kept falling over on the ice.

“You’ve got to make allowances,” explained the errant judge. “It is very slippy out there.”