I clambered down to quiz them. New York had checked with Pretoria and official denials were being disbelieved. A couple of minutes later, a woman in a silver suit gave those Yanks a bit of work to do. That's the way it is at the Olympics. Getting it right is wonderful.
Victory is what athletes cross the world for.
But the crucial experience that gives the Games their excitement is the dashing of high hopes. When the best of the world are competing, nothing is a dead cert. And on the faces of the beaten favourites, you can see the true distance between silver and gold. Winning isn't just winning these days. As kindly folk, we've developed other ways of saying our people haven't won.