Three paltry medals. Won by two women. All offshore, one in surfing and two in swimming. Too dangerous on land, mused one wit. One gold, two silver. Even the traitorous Judas Iscariot held more silver in his hands. A disaster. Poorer neighbours fared much better. Uganda and Ethiopia got four medals each and Kenya a whopping 10. A Namibian woman ran so fast (silver in the 200m finals) that a one-time Polish sprinter requested “a thorough test to find out if she definitely is a woman”.

Even Cuba, an economically starved country of less than 12-million people, got 15 medals. No doubt our illustrious cabinet is considering buying off Cuban athletes with much-needed foreign currency to join their engineers and teachers already working here...