The comments of the TVB Pearl Olympics presenters after the men's walking event on Friday night were absolutely appalling. The athletes had just completed a gruelling 20-kilometre course in the heat and humidity of Atlanta. Imagine my utter disbelief when Andrew Sams smirked: 'Thank goodness that's over . . . now for some real athletics.' He later asked Don Bozarth how 'a rubbish event like the walk' could have survived in the Olympics, to which Mr Bozarth agreed that only 'sports that truly require athletic ability' should be allowed in the games. Messrs Sams and Bozarth seem to have completely missed the point of the Olympic games. If a stadium of 80,000 can rise as one to cheer in the last man who completed the walk, in validation of Baron Pierre de Coubertin's exhortation, 'the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well', then what right do sports presenters have to make a mockery of any event? We all have our own personal opinions as to which sports are 'worthy', but this is no justification to put down competitors in any sport. Mr Bozarth, himself a professed triathlete, should appreciate the mind-numbing physical training and stamina, mental conditioning and sheer willpower that goes into preparation for any sporting event. I wonder if these armchair commentators could run 20 km as fast as those Olympians walked it. NAAZNEEN BARMA Repulse Bay
