Barcelona was, for many of us Olympic virgins, as much about sex as it was about sport. There were the gorgeous hostesses - there to assist the athletes - in their bright yellow shirts and black skirts; there were the indigenous lovelies who came to watch the competitions. And then there were the female athletes - literally thousands of them - strutting, shimmying, sashaying and jogging around the village, clad in Lycra and exposing yard upon yard of shiny, toned, rippling and unimaginably exotic flesh. Women from all the countries of the world: muscular, virile, athletic and oozing oestrogen. I spent so much time in a state of lust that I could have passed out. Indeed, for all I knew I did pass out - in a place like that how was one to tell the difference between dreamland and reality?

Kobe is articulate and thoughtful. And, since this has no business in a news story, I can share it here— his skin is so flawless the dude looks like someone airbrushed on makeup. He also told me he is one of the "short" guys as I stood next to him and got a crick in my neck looking up at him. Jason Kidd has this sense of maturity about him. He strikes me as the kind of guy you will quickly learn to respect. He takes practice seriously and is business-minded. He also has very kind eyes. And LeBron? Well, LeBron is nothing but pure entertainment. He had Dwight Howard in stitches (notice the makeshift cape in the photo slideshow?). LeBron was making fun of himself.. making fun of us.. making fun of his teammates.. breakdancing (poorly), hollering, rapping, and generally living life huge. As one guy pointed out to me.. LeBron is young. He has energy. Yeah, I'd say so.

The Beijing News, in a story detailing the latest opening-ceremony outrage, said stripping naked for measurements was a requirement merely to apply for the position. In an interview with one of the girls who competed for the high profile job, the 20-year-old college student Zhang Fan told the paper that the girls were put in a room and teachers measured them with a ruler. No specifics were given but the measurements were called "bone measurements" which typically include measuring the width of shoulders and waists, length of waists and height.

Then we had a two-hour wait until we actually marched in. At this point, athletes started mingling and I met [USA men's basketball players] Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Jason Kidd. I got my picture with all of them. They were all very nice and asked me about running track. One of them actually ended up asking for my number, and chatting me up for a while, and got out his camera to take a picture with me, but that's a story for another time."