This BOA constrictor must not be allowed to crush all opposition

For while using banned substances and avoiding tests are infringements of Olympic rules, denying people the human right to criticise the persecution of a people by its rulers is a betrayal of Olympic idealism so rancid that the question isn't so much whether Christine Ohuruogu and Dwain Chambers are fit to represent their country, but whether their country is worthy to be represented by them, Although cowed by the horrified reaction into denying that he's a BOA constrictor of free speech, silly old Simon had already spoken to the Mail on Sunday.

"As a team we are ambassadors of the country," he said, in support of that contractual gag of his. "And we have to conform to an appropriate code of conduct." An intriguing point is raised here.

Is it really "appropriate" behaviour for the ambassador of a country that reveres free speech and human rights, do you think, to watch Chinese police beating up an unarmed dissident or half killing a vagrant, and keep quiet for fear of offending the exquisite sensibilities of those who gave the tank commanders of Tiananmen Square their orders? Many of us would have one answer to that where Mr Clegg has another, but Old frankly anyone still capable of being shocked by the cowardice and general uselessness of our sports administrators hasn't been paying attention.

Where it becomes hard to avoid a reflexive shudder is over the possible involvement of Downing Street, which micromanages most things related to the Olympics. With the memory of Gordon Brown's sycophantic jaunt to China fresh in mind, you can't help wonder if, as David Mellor hinted yesterday, Mr Clegg took his orders from the Prime Minister.

I hope this is wrong, and I know that if so Mr Brown will make it clear in the days ahead by telling us so. If not, we are entitled to draw an inference from his silence, much as they do these days in court, because the PM has been anything but reticent lately on matters sporting.

Only on Saturday he had a lengthy radio chat about his love for sport to Old Screwed-

Eamonn Holmes. Now I may have imagined this while day dreaming (it was, as I said, Eamonn Holmes), but I'm sure Gordon mentioned his admiration for compatriot Eric Liddell, himself born in China and later a missionary there.

For the benefit of anyone yet to see Chariots of Fire, the PM could help distance himself from suspicion of pulling Mr Clegg's strings by celebrating how Liddell was willing to abandon his chance of glory to defend a cherished belief.

Mr Brown might also recall how another Olympic champion would later give up the most glittering bauble in sport because he refused to betray his principles — and how later still, largely because of that moral courage, Mohammed Ali was deemed such a personification of the Olympic ideal that he was asked to light the torch in Sydney.

And then, Mr Brown might point out that if, for example, the forthright Paula Radcliffe was prepared to make that sort of sacrifice in Beijing this summer, by expressing contempt for the Beijing regime, it wouldn't really matter whether she was frogmarched on to the first plane home or allowed to stay to run her marathon.

For that act of defiant humanity would confer more veneration and glory on her, throughout the free world and the repressed, than a hundred gold medals possibly could.