This, and the intense focus on gold and the medal count, is both gobsmacking and of great concern.

For the Rio games, the Australian Sports Commission used a group of businessmen to come up with a ‘Winning Edge’ funding strategy. This was based on funding those sports which had the greatest chance of winning a medal. That’s pretty blatant and needs some explanation.

We are all entitled to ask what benefits we may expect from such a significant amount of money which could have been so well spent in a different way or on community sport participation, education and health.

One thought is that it will contribute towards an improvement in public health via a dubious ‘trickle down’ effect resulting from ordinary mortals watching high performance Australian athletes winning medals. This theory has not been tested and as far as I can see there is little to no evidence that it is happening; diabetes has tripled over the last 16 years and ongoing increases in the number of overweight adults and youths causes national concern.

Another theory is that there are perceived political benefits gained through the publicity which a gold medal, or a high tally, brings for a winning country. Again this is not tested and sounds unlikely. There are much greater arenas, such as good health and education goals, for impressive national publicity.

Whatever  happened to the principles of the Modern Olympic Games founder, Pierre de Coubertin who said that “The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part; the important thing in life is not triumph, but the struggle; the important thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well”?

I have not been proud of the almost gloating certainty with which we sent our athletes off to win many medals, and now the recriminations and blame-calling because not enough of them came first.

I hope that our leaders will give serious thought to deciding how important sporting success on the world stage is to Australia’s well-being and what Australia wants from the Olympics, and why. I hope too that the intense scrutiny which will follow Rio results in better funding for Tokyo20. Surely, aiming for as many medals as possible regardless of cost is not the right way to go and a more balanced approach must be found. Perhaps Malcolm could give us a Royal Commission!

In the meantime we must celebrate all our athletes for their proud representation of our country and their attempts to achieve to their highest ability; we must also herald our successful winners and forget the medal count. I will remember the excitement, the joys, the disappoinments, the gracious winners, the gracious losers and the girl who helped a fallen rival – and the samba!