Men's beach volleyballFor A man, there can be few more unrewarding sports than becoming a beach volleyball player. A woman who wins a match or two can at least look forward to double-page spreads in men's magazines, a dubious accolade as one of the top-10 sexiest Olympians and the rapt attention of a testosterone-fuelled crowd who have bought into the biggest con in town.
But for a man, beach volleyball is what you do between hangovers. It is the sport for men who can't windsurf. It's a way to pass the time when you didn't pull in the nightclub the previous night. It is as much an Olympic sport as a hand of cards.
The women's version might be fraudulent, but it packs them in. It is the Olympic movement's equivalent of safe sex, sanitised for all the family. As for the men, they just look like spare parts.
It was the men's final last night, Spain v Brazil (for the record, Ricardo Santos and Emanuel Rego beat Javier Bosma and Pablo Herrera 21-16 21-15 to bag the gold for Brazil) but it did not draw half as much attention as the women.
Beach volleyball is a strange Olympic phenomenon: a sport designed for women on a man-made beach. Or, at least, a sport designed for men who want to ogle women, which is not quite the same thing.
The previous evening, an Australian journalist proudly showed me his intro about the women's beach volleyball final. It was all about how the Olympics were traditionally about faster, fitter, stronger, but how in the women's beach volleyball, it was all about browner, scantier, skimpier. It is a recurring theme. And it has to be said that, compared to Sydney, where there was a lot of guff about respecting the athletes, fashions have become a little more daring.
But the poor old blokes are still expected to lope around in baggy shorts, tops, caps and shades. In case they inadvertently show any sex appeal, there are rows of female cheerleaders to redress the balance. The men demand respect, and the end result is that they get very little attention at all. You can guarantee that one day soon, in desperation, they will plead to play topless, their country's badge tattooed on forearms.
What exactly do you do with a gold medal in men's beach volleyball? Do you reflect proudly on the years of training and rare athleticism that won it? Do you just brazen it out, in the belief that Olympic gold is Olympic gold? Or is a gold medal in men's beach volleyball about as trendy as a back catalogue of Eagles albums?
In Sydney, where this sexually fuelled nonsense started, beach volleyball succeeded because of the mystique of Bondi beach. In Athens, the Greeks have flocked to it, especially those who don't really care much for sport.
It is worth keeping the women's event in Beijing just to see what the Chinese make of it and because people who spend their time on internet message boards need something different to write about. But the most honest response to the men's event would be to scrap it and admit it is an unnecessary sideshow to the real thing.
Last night's final would have been more true to life if the competitors had broken off occasionally and gone to chat up the cheerleaders. Or if they had a couple of bottles of lager propped at the back of the court. Or if they got bored at 7-7 and wandered off for a swim.
Why denigrate it? Because only by denigrating it do you value the sports that really do fulfil the Olympic ideal. The winner is in the small print somewhere, but everybody here last night should have been watching the athletics.
