Before You Go - A Last Look At Tokyo 2020

I FIND myself a bit lost today – with no Olympic Games action to watch. So, I thought I could philosophise on the Games and what I took out of Tokyo.

First of all, my top ten Olympic moments:

1. Laura Muir's 1500 metres silver medal. I admit it tears were shed when she crossed the line. She certainly deserved that medal.

2. Katie Archibald and Laura Kenny's gold medal in the Madison. Seldom can one duo have so-dominated a single race. Mind you, British Cycling officials will probably want to know what happened in the two sprints they didn't win.

3. Austria's Anna Kiesenhofer winning the Women's Cycling Road Race. It is always good to see an unexpected competitor going for broke and winning, which the Austrian lassie definitely did.

4. Tom Daley winning his diving gold. Tom has grown-up before our eyes, and, after his implosion in Rio, great to see him finally strike gold.

5. Karsten Warholm smashing his own world record to win the “man killer” 400 metres hurdles, chased all the way by Ray Benjamin of the USA.

6. The Women's event was equally good, with Sydney McLaughlin holding off her Team USAS rival Dalilah Muhammad to win, also in world record time.

7. Duncan Scott bringing home the Team GB medley relay squad for a deserved gold medal.

8. Jason Kenny winning the keirin gold medal, He had all but been written-off, but, he stormed home. I also liked his response to Chris Hoy's congratulatory tweet: “Thanks Mum.”

9. Megan Rapinoe's coolness in scoring direct from a corner in the Women's Football. Megan is a somewhat divisive figure in her native USA, but, I have a lot of time for the lady.

10. The wonderful Hazel Irvine beating every other journalist to the punch, when she said: “Glory Days,” after Jessica Springsteen, 'The Boss's' daughter, won a team silver medal in show jumping. With so-many Springsteen song titles and lyrics to use, Wee Haze was first in there.

I like Modern Pentathlon, which was a sport devised by Modern Olympic Games founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin. Allegedly, the idea was:

A military messenger is despatched to carry a message back to Headquarters. His horse is shot from under him, so he has to fight his way out of a gun battle to carry on.

He then swims a wide river, fights a sword duel, before running back to HQ to deliver his message – hence the five disciplines: horse riding, shooting, swimming, fencing and running.

I know logistics and the demands of TV have seen this classic thread changed over the years, but, I would like to see a return to the classic order. I would also, since the horse riding would be first-up, see competitors allowed to use their own horses and rather than show jumping, compete over a cross-country course.

I would also suggest, the swords used should be sabres, and that, rather than the current 3200 metres, interrupted by the shooting – although, as in the Winter Olympics biathlon, this is a great test, coming down from running to the calmness of shooting – maybe make them run over a traditional cross-country course.

The Rugby Sevens competition was excellent. I felt for Scotland's Robbie Fergusson, when injury kept him out of the bronze medal match, where I think the English coach, predictably and wrongly stuck with his English players.

I did enjoy the Women's event. The Americans had some physically-impressive young ladies, but, I think we were all secretly supporting the Fijian women. In the end, however, Portia Woodman, (Goodbye) Ruby Tui and the other Black Ferns were just too strong as they made amends for losing in Rio.

Argentina beating South Africa, after playing almost the entire match a man short was another great Tokyo moment, by the way.

However, there were other moments which were memorable for the wrong reasons, among these:

1. Jemma Reekie finishing just outside the medals.

2. Eilish McColgan being upended in the 5000 metres

3. Nathaneil Mitchell-Blake being caught on the line in the 4x100 metres

4. Dina Asher-Smith's injury

5. KJT's injury

6. Helen Glover just failing to win that comeback medal

7. Josh Kerr just failing to turn bronze into silver in the 1500 metres

8. Calum Hawkins' injury in the marathon

9. The Swedish pole vaulter failing to set a new world record – he deserved to succeed

10. Caroline Weir's penalty miss in the Women's football.

Any way, that's the Olympics out of the way for another three years. The BBC can put all the “diddy” sports back in their box until Paris 2024, before, in the build-up, joining the rest of the London-based media in hyping-up some of our competitors towards unrealistic medal hopes – that's the Olympic Games now.

So, it's back to the usual menu of over-paid, under-performing footballers, hardly any of whom are British, and up here in Scotland, a return to the position where the only game in town involves a couple of Glasgow-based football teams, neither of which is much good.

Mind you, I have high hopes for Bruce Mouat and his rink at next year's Winter Olympics.