Murray is wrong to reach gold standard

Suddenly, he's going to be a huge British story here, looking a hot prospect for the singles title and possibly even the doubles with his brother Jamie.

"Can't wait," he said yesterday. "I feel absolutely fine, both physically and mentally. I'm sure that by the time I get to Beijing on Thursday, I'll be a little bit tired with all the jet lag, but you just get over that and look forward to playing in such a big competition."

Good for him; he's treating the Olympics with the seriousness it merits and, what's more, he's going to stay in an Olympic Village apartment with Jamie and their two coaches. As Jamie noted: "Quite a few of the tennis players are staying in hotels but I don't understand why they're doing that. Having made the decision to play in the Olympics, I wouldn't want to be staying anywhere other than in the athletes' village. It will be great."

That's exactly the attitude you would want to hear from little brother, too. Yet it does not stop the question again being raised: what exactly are multi-millionaire sportsmen like Murray doing at these Games in the first place? Do they really belong?

The answer, I believe, is no. If Murray was to win a tennis title here, it would not represent the ultimate aim of his career fulfilled. That would be to win Wimbledon or any of the other three Grand Slams.

In the past, Olympic glory might have been the passport to riches for some British athletes. Yet should Murray strike gold, he would effectively become the first British sportsman to stand on the podium after he's already earned millions of pounds from sport - and there's something that wouldn't feel quite right about that.

I remember Ron Clarke, the great Australian athlete, telling me before Sydney 2000: "The Games are wonderful and, for every athlete who participates, they should be the most important event they can win. But in tennis, it doesn't matter who wins; that's a travesty. It's the same with basketball and soccer. If professionals are going to participate, they should cherish and relish an Olympic gold."

The mega-stars in question, naturally, still claim it means everything to them. Yet would Spain's Carlos Sastre swop his Tour de France yellow jersey for Olympic gold in the cycling road race? Er, no. Would the basketball icons LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, the richest competitors in the entire Games, rather win the Olympics rather than the NBA title? No way. Would Lionel Messi rather clutch gold or a World Cup winners' medal with Argentina? It goes without saying.

Are Bryant - annual income $39 million - or 'King' James - annual income, a mere $38m - soaking up every minute of their Olympic experience in the Village? Of course not.

They're holed up in a five-star hotel.

Meanwhile, Roger Federer has long espoused how much winning the Olympic title would mean to him yet he too has opted out of the Village, claiming that the last time he did so, he hated "not being in control of my own schedule".

Ah, diddums. These megastars are so spoiled that, if they truly want to compete in these Games, it should be made compulsory by the International Olympic Committee that they have to rough it in the Village, alongside no-hoper kayakers, autograph-hunting swimmers and Michael Phelps. Heck, even Yao Ming, China's national basketball hero now plying his superstar trade in the NBA, sleeps there, albeit on a bed specially designed to cater for his 7ft 6in frame.

When the Games are over, that bed is among items of memorabilia which will be auctioned off by organisers. It's expected to raise a small fortune, which tells you much about why the presence of these megastars is courted so assiduously by everyone from Olympic officials to sponsors to TV networks.

Increasingly, the circus is sold on their gilded names, when actually their participation adds so little because it's painfully clear that the Olympics is an afterthought in their crowded diaries.

Heaven forbid the day that Tiger Woods rolls up in 2016 for the Olympic golf tournament. Sadly, it's a prospect that's bound to happen.

This is nothing personal against young master Murray, you understand. If he wins in Beijing, even if it doesn't add a cent to the $1.3m he's garnered on tour already this year, good luck to him. But I would much rather see him triumphing at Flushing Meadows in the US Open three weeks later. More to the point, I suspect he would, too.