Barring the improbable, you're not likely to be seeing much of Aguida Amaral when the television cameras zone in on the pain and the pride of competitors in the women's Olympic marathon championship.

Amaral is one of a tiny group of East Timor sports people here who are officially listed in the programme as Independent Olympic Athletes.

While others dig deep for gold, silver or bronze, her primary objective may be to avoid being transported to the finish line in the meat wagon, the vernacular for the ambulance which collects broken bodies out on the course.

No such prospect clouds the horizon of America's Michael Johnson. As one of the world's highest profile athletes, it will be nothing short of a sensation if he fails to retain the 400 metres championship.

But it's not so much talent as money which puts Johnson and Amaral at opposite ends of the spectrum in this celebration of what once passed as the ultimate in amateur sport.

Johnson's powerful legs have made him a millionaire several times over, largely because of his shoe contracts with Nike. Amaral, by contrast, was so impoverished that her preparations for the Games were on hold because she had no proper running shoes.

Eventually, she was rescued from her dilemma by the intervention of the Olympic authorities. "We had the outline of her feet traced in sand and arranged to have shoes sent to her," said IOC vice-president Kevan Gosper, with an unmistakable ring of self-vindication.

That cameo embodies at least some of the romance of the battered Corinthian ethic which once drove men and women to the outer frontiers of human endeavour.

It also identifies the wide discrepancies among a cast of some 10,000 athletes for a drama which, warts and all, will still hold an estimated television audience of 3.7 billion, captive for the remainder of the month.

Many of Bruce Meredith's contemporaries are likely to settle for slippers and a cosy seat in front of the television, but at 63, grandfather Bruce will be carrying the slim hopes of the Virgin islands in the rifle shooting championship.

In earlier Olympic competition, the retired US army colonel, has never been placed higher than 31st. But if the heavy hand of history weighs on his mind, it's not readily discernible.

"I tire more easily these days he confesses, but the biggest problem I have is vision. Everybody's eyesight goes when they get older and I'm no different.

"But I'll keep shooting until I become an embarrassment. I may never win, but at least I've never been darn last." Just a couple of blocks away in the athletes' village lives Fathimath Fariha, a swimmer from the Maldives. At 13, she'll be laying claim to a special place in the story of the 27th Games as the youngest competitor yet.

Physique, too, can be a great divider. Even in a discipline which has produced some enormous men, the Chinese basketball player Ming Yao is a bit special.

At 2.27 metres, Yao is far and away the tallest competitor in the Games, so tall in fact that he created a special problem for the organisers in their attempt to meet the needs of their small army of guests in the athletes' village.

Conscious of the requirements of basketball players in particular, they arranged for extendable beds to be made available. But even this provision did not measure up to the demands of Yao who has had to have a foam cushion placed at the foot of his bed in order to stretch out.

Perhaps this was one of the reasons why the Australian selectors in their wisdom chose Kristi Harrower to play in their women's basketball team. At just 1.62 metres, she will rejoice in the appellation of the shortest player to appear on the basketball court in these Games.

The challenge of separating the clean and unclean in the enduring drugs scandal is well documented, but the grim reality is that when it comes down to it, wealth, more than any other factor, is likely to determine the different strata over the next 16 days.

With other more pressing problems than sport making demands on the country's purse, India, with a population of one billion plus, has sent only 72 athletes and 47 officials to the Games, just marginally more than Ireland.

And in its crusade to project the image of a young, vibrant country which measures prosperity in terms of sporting success almost as much as gross national product, Australia is thought to have invested as much as £6 billion over the last 10 years in providing facilities, producing champions and staging the Olympics.

"There is a lot of talk about drug cheats," said one African team official, "but what about the cash cheats. Rich countries can buy success. If you want more medals, you just inject more cash."

Welcome to the Games of the haves and have-nots!