You possibly noticed a correlation between Olympic success and government expenditure. Where we spent absolutely nothing on individual sponsorship - in show-jumping - we came first, fifth and eighteenth, but with a bit of luck could conceivably have got first three places.
In eventing, in which no individuals got any State money at all, we came eighth. But in other sports, in which billions of State money were lavished, we did nothing.
Our camogie team was knocked out by a team of she-pygmies from Congo-Brazzaville who had arrived intending to enter the blowpipe competititon, but there wasn't one. So they took up camogie instead, using some golf clubs, and emerged narrow winners, 14-24 to 0-0. Our hurling team did creditably against some walruses from Baffin Island, before going down 0-1 to 34-238.
High hopes were entertained by our Gaelic footballers who found themselves playing a team from Peru. The little Andean men had originally intended to enter the guinea-pig steeplechase, but alas, on the way to the Olympics, their plane crash-landed in the sea near Rockall.
Happily, both guinea-pigs and Indians were able to swim to the rocks, but the animals were promptly eaten by some airline passengers who had been stranded there after the Ryanair service to Rockall-Hawaii had been discontinued a couple of years before. In hindsight, the Indians were rather grateful for the presence of the guinea-pigs. If the last meal you'd eaten was a Ryanair sandwich, a free-range Andean can really look quite succulent.
The Indians finally made it to Athens, where they saw that entries for GAA remained open. Believing this to be the Greek Athletic Association, they eagerly volunteered. They started practising the ancient Greek sports of throwing the javelin, running round in the nude and pillow-biting. Imagine their surprise as they trotted naked on to the pitch to discover that they were playing the Irish Gaelic football team.
By half-time they'd mastered many of the rules of the game, and after 70 minutes squeaked home, by a mere half-dozen goals and a score or so of points. Yes, it was that close.
Have you noticed any resemblances between our huge expenditure on the Olympic Games, with their dire outcome, and anything else? Yes, of course, our tribunals, in which millions are similarly squandered for similarly little gain. Might we not economise and amalgamate the two forms of activities? The Barr tribunal, for example, could cover the pole-vault and the high-jump admirably.
That the country was taken aback by the Cian O'Connor victory is not surprising. Our neglect of what we do best - equestrian sport, where we routinely compete with the very highest international standards - is not attributable solely to the utterly wretched Irish Olympics committee. Sport in Ireland has been largely urbanised in recent years; with the exception of the GAA, if a particular sporting event is run by and supported by country people, then the media generally will ignore it. Worse, even the implication that horses are involved will cause it to be condemned as "elitist". Hence the fate of equestrianism, which - aside from the Dublin Horse Show, when it temporarily becomes urbanised - might not even exist as far as RTÉ is concerned.
No other sport in Ireland has produced the superb athletes that equestrianism consistently has: Gerry Mullins, Jessica Harrington, Eddie Macken, John Ledingham, Susan Short, Kevin Babbington, Jessica Kuertan, Cian O'Connor, the late David Foster, Paul Darragh, Jack Doyle, Billy Twomey, to name just a few: in their time, these have all ranked with the very best in the world.
Not a penny - not a single penny - was spent in assisting any individual equestrian athletes for these Olympics - for which we should perhaps be grateful. The history of publicly allocated money in Ireland suggests that funds seek out the undeserving to reward and to comfort. Private money is invariably better and more shrewdly spent: it's hardly surprising that Tony O'Reilly, who I'm told is no slouch in the financial line, stumped up for Cian O'Connor. He has made some shrewd investments in his time, but this was by far the best - for him, for Cian and his country.
Why was so much money spent on yachting? Was the Sports Council not in essence subsidising rich people messing about in boats? One two-man boat was given €175,000 in grants. How can that be justified? Equally, why did the Irish taxpayer give four walkers over €200,000 in personal sponsorship? I have absolutely no idea who got the gold medals in the walking events, but I'm equally sure that their fellow countrymen and women are trying desperately to keep the victories a secret. Having an Olympian gold medallist in walking is the athletic equivalent of winning the Eurovision Song Contest.
Unaccountable public money breeds frivolity; hence the overweight rowers, the athletes who didn't finish - including, God help us, a walker - and those who simply shouldn't have been there - including a bejewelled gentleman in a bandana who failed to make the basic height in the high jump. And do athletes who have been so generously subsidised face the prospect of having to pay back their grants if they are seen to abuse such official State sponsorship by, for example, not making the games because they've been disqualified for drug abuse?
Still, the gold we got was of the very best quality. You'll have to read between the lines if you want to know what I really think about Kelly Holmes and her two gold medals, quite out of the blue, at the age of 34.