So we're Brits, right? We're cynical. We're self-deprecating. We can be a bit sarcastic, yeah? We've always been more comfortable as the plucky loser. And we're not like those noisy Latins or Americans who like to shout about their success from the rooftops, especially when it comes to sport? Wrong.
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By Ian Stafford

There have been years when the BBC's SPOTY has been, frankly, a joke. Not for the show, nor the presentation, but for the contenders.
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By Ian Stafford

So that's it, the flame has flickered and been extinguished and all we are left with are memories, but indelible memories and a greater sense of pride and purpose today.     We Brits are not big on self-congratulations and nationalistic pride. We're more comfortable with our self-deprecation and cycnicism.
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By Ian Stafford

Now that Sir Chris Hoy has bagged six golds and a silver at the Olympics and the soon to be "Sir" Bradley Wiggins has four golds, a silver and two bronzes to his name the statistics argue that one of these two, and it is Hoy due to his golds, is now the greatest British Olympian...
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By Ian Stafford

So there I was, up in Manchester, pretty fearful as I cycled furiously up and down the steep, wooden banking of the velodrome in a forlorn chase of Jason Queally, who had just returned from the 2000 Sydney Olympics as the new one kilo champion.
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By Ian Stafford

Will we ever see a sporting weekend like that again, at least from a British perspective? I hope we will, but it may take some time.
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By Ian Stafford

So, was it only a few days ago that we were all getting into a bit of a tizzy over Team GB's apparent lack of gold medals at their home Games? It was, as I wrote back then, down to the event schedule, not any perceived failures.
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By Ian Stafford

Three days have gone at the London Olympics and no gold medals yet for Team GB. In the immortal words of Catherine Tate, am I bothered?   Well no, not yet. Far from it.
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By Ian Stafford

And so the time has come. We have waited 7 years since we won the bid, and 64 years since we last staged the Olympics, but the Games are just one day away and we, the British nation, expects.
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By Ian Stafford

*News comes to me that Zoe Smith, Team GB's teenage weight-lifting star, has been subjected to a barrage of highly personal abuse from internet trolls (no, not those hairy, mythical monsters that live under Norwegian bridges but those morons who bravely write abuse from the safety of their grotty, dimly-lit room) on the basis that she...
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By Ian Stafford