MAIL COMMENT: Wasting a golden opportunity...

A breathtaking win yesterday for the men's cycling pursuit team means we now have our biggest haul of Olympic gold medals since 1920, with the promise of more to come.

But, without wishing to rain on a wonderful parade, there has been a certain narrowness to our success. Six golds in cycling, two in rowing, two in sailing... these are not mass participation sports.

Winners: Private schools celebrate sport

Rowing is public school and university dominated, while sailing remains the preserve of the better-off.

The cost of track-cycling, too, can be prohibitive because of the expensive equipment required.

It is testament to the ability of our fee-paying private schools and specialist clubs to impart a winning mentality.

However, it is also a reminder of our shortcomings in the sports which are more readily accessible to all.

Where is the Kelly Holmes, Steve Cram or Daley Thompson for 2008? Athletes from ordinary backgrounds who once ruled the world.

Is it any wonder, with school playing fields sold off, and state schools struggling to overcome the Left-wing dogma that children should not play to win, that they do not stand a chance?

Yes, we have enjoyed success in swimming.

But the two golds achieved by the remarkable Rebecca Adlington came against the odds.

Her training pool was threatened with closure, and  -  without the dedication of a loving family  -  she might never have made it to Beijing.

Who knows how many champions have fallen by the wayside  -  or even into a life of crime  -  because they did not have Rebecca's strong family, or a place to learn?

The signs are things will get worse. To fund the spiralling £9billion cost of the 2012 London Games, local sports groups are being forced to sacrifice millions.

Government agency Sport England, which distributes Lottery funds, warns that hundreds of thousands fewer people will take part in grassroots sport as a result.

What a waste of a golden opportunity. Any victory for Team GB is sweet, but wouldn't it be sweeter still to see a bit more variety on the podium?

NICE turns nasty

Alzheimer's sufferers deprived of drugs costing only £2.50 a day... kidney cancer patients banned from treatments which double life expectancy...

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, the Government's drug-rationing body, has a long and devastating history of denying care to those who need it most.

Now it has turned its attention to 60,000 arthritis sufferers, who, if NICE has its way, will be refused £100-a-week drugs currently available to them if other NHS treatments fail.

The Royal College of Nursing is so incensed it is threatening to drag NICE  -  already subject to court action by Alzheimer's patients  -  to a judicial review.

NICE, meanwhile, clearly stung by the growing criticism, bites back by suggesting the drug companies are the real villains, for seeking to make a profit from their pioneering new treatments.

Instead of buck-passing, NICE should have the decency to admit a string of grave errors, and reverse them at once.

Dangerous vacuum

Few in Pakistan will mourn the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf, loathed for riding roughshod over his country's democratic institutions.

But, to the West, he was a staunch ally and resolute supporter of the post-9/11 war on terror.

His fall creates great uncertainty in a region which remains as dangerous as ever to Britain's interests, at home and abroad.