As one who enjoys a sporting spectacle I do wonder what lies in store for us at the Rio Olympics. To hear the rumours of doom in circulation you would think that sending a contingent of athletes there was akin to sending a regiment of redcoats to the Gold Coast in the eighteenth century, there to expire predictably from the yellow jack in the ‘white man’s graveyard’. My limited understanding of the zika virus suggests that pregnant women (or those likely soon to be pregnant) are most at risk and that male competitors at least have nothing to fear. What is happening in Rio? I have heard rumours that some of the venues are incomplete but surely by now they are more than fond imaginings and sketches on the back of envelopes, surely concrete has been poured and a skip ordered. Surely even now there are many thousands of diligent fellows leaning on shovels and displaying a broad acreage of bum cleavage to rival that of the breast cleavage to be seen on the Copacabana beach. Doubtless, the spectacle will be somewhat reduced by the absence of chemically enhanced Russian athletes but sufficient numbers of competitors should be present to fill our TV screens with finely honed physiques resulting purely from honest endeavour and natural talent. And yet there seems to have been so little build-up, so little anticipation for an event that begins in little more than three weeks time. I shall investigate further.