The TOP TEN greatest Olympic moments

Once the athletes hit the track, all of the peripheral crap about internet access and smog will take its rightful place in the background and we’ll remember what the Olympics are really all about.

These Games will undoubtedly deliver a number of unforgettable sporting memories but, in the meantime, here’s my top 10 (in no particular order) list of perfect (summer) Olympic moments.

1. Nadia Comaneci (Montreal 1976): Not many athletes get to force changes in their sport through the sheer weight of their individual brilliance, but that is what Comaneci achieved. In a sport reliant on the often questionable subjective views of judges, Comaneci achieved on the uneven bars what no one believed was possible - perfection. In fact, so unlikely was the prospect of a perfect 10, that the scoreboard was not able to cope with it, leaving Comaneci staring disbelieving at a score of 1.0, until the realisation crept in that she had forever changed her sport. She did it a further six times during the course of the Games.

2. Mark Spitz (Munich 1972): Seven events, seven gold medals, seven world records, one brilliant moustache. Nuff said.

3. Jesse Owens (Berlin 1936): Four gold medals in any Olympics is an outstanding achievement, but to do it in Berlin at the height of Hitler’s Aryan supremacy propaganda show provided a beautiful irony to underscore a superhuman effort.

4. Bob Beamon (Mexico 1968): Beamon’s remarkable long jump in the rarefied atmosphere of Mexico’s Olympic stadium moved the world record a remarkable 55cm and made Beamon the first man to jump both 28 and 29 feet. His record stood for 23 years and has only been bettered once in the intervening 40 years.

5. Abebe Bikila (Rome 1960): Bikila became the first African to win an Olympic gold medal - and he did it with typical African style and panache by running the marathon in world record time in BARE FEET. He also backed that up in Tokyo 1964 and extended his record, but this time he did it in shoes.

6. Paavo Nurmi (Antwerp 1920, Paris 1924, Amsterdam, 1928):One of the Flying Finns, Nurmi won nine gold medals running distances from 1500-10,000 metres and won 12 Olympic medals in total. Widely considered to be the greatest track and field athlete of all time, Nurmi would have extended his record in Los Angeles, but was by then considered a professional and inelligible – bloody silly rule.

7. Michael Johnson (Atlanta 1996): When you show up to an Olympic final wearing gold shoes, you really need to do something very special or you’ll end up looking a prize tool. Johnson had already got the 400m gold medal in the bag, but his 200m performance was breathtaking. His time of 19.32 seconds has not only never been eclipsed, it hasn’t even been threatened. It was every bit as electrifying as his Canadian namesake Ben’s Seoul performance from 1988 - the difference being Michael did it with talent, not chemicals.

8. Emil Zatopek (London 1952): For most people winning the 5000m and 10,000m Olympic finals would have been a pretty good way to round off an Olympic campaign, but Emil decided, on a whim, to run the marathon too. He’d never run one before, but won it anyway. It’s a performance that will probably never be equalled.

9. Cathy Freeman (Sydney 2000): Freeman’s victory in the 400m final in Sydney will never go down as a pivotal moment in pure athletic terms, but as a patriotic Aussie, the sight of her running that race in the futuristic bodysuit and carrying 20 million Aussies on her shoulders was unforgettable.

10. Dick Fosbury (Mexico 1968): Fosbury’s name became inextricably linked to the high jump after he revolutionised the sport with his famous “flop”. He won the gold medal with an Olympic record leap of 2.24m but, more importantly, forever changed the way athletes compete in his chosen sport. Not a bad legacy.

No doubt the next few weeks will add to the list. Michael Phelps looks certain to fight for his place as one of the all-time greats, although it’s just as likely to come from somewhere completely unexpected.

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