As Britain's medal-winning Olympians – including cyclist Bradley Wiggins, heptathlete Jessica Ennis and Paralympic swimmer Ellie Simmonds – are showered with New Year honours, there is growing suspicion that the coalition is trying to conceal the fall-off in sports provision in schools since it came to power.
Purists have harrumphed, the pound-a-liners have potboiled on the op-ed pages, the humble hack or hackette yes, they are both in the NODE has made merry at finding his or her (oops, their?) no-noes of vocabulary or syntax authorised by the Olympians of the OUP.
These are the "athletes' games", returning the Olympic focus to sport after years of interruption by politics; the "green games", with an athletes' village run on solar power and recycled water; and the "wired games", where contenders can create their own home page and check messages from fans across the world on a site especially created for Olympians.
In the interim, plenty of Olympians competing in other disciplines this year were born.Although riding requires some athleticism and plenty of stamina and strength, it mostly demands a bravery that is absent in many other events.
What no one is sure about is what is doing the conversion.In this section Genetically Modified Olympians?
The opponents of Scottish independence will be thrilled with pictures of Andy Murray and Sir Chris Hoy, Scots both, gazing proudly at the Union Jack.This weekend, Sir Mervyn King (pictured), the governor of the Bank of England, showed tremendous agility to hop on board the bandwagon in an article explaining how much bankers have to learn from Olympians.
McDonald's was one of the main sponsors of American Olympians at the recent games.
Some Olympians were taken the wrong way from Heathrow airport by bus; more embarrassingly, the army has had to step in to provide security.
The first, for the men's steeplechase, was won by an athlete who spent the run-up to London 2012 flying back and forth between Kenya and Britain while officials and runners argued over the choice of training camp.Kenya's running stars, who account for 53 of the country's 59 Olympians, are renowned for training in the heat and at high altitudes.
Tens of thousands of athletes must be squired to scattered events through some of the worst traffic in the Americas.The police, already overstretched, must keep the Olympians safe from some of Latin America's most brazen criminals they committed over 2,000 murders in the city itself last year.
If ever Lloyds needed Olympians, it is now.
