Brilliant Kenny falls at last to a giant B charging on a BMX

WE WORRIED for Adrian Chiles a few days ago when he revealed that he'd had "an appalling dream last night, I was in the modern pentathlon and I couldn't find my canoe - I know canoeing's not in it, but . . ." There's a man, we reckoned, who needed the Olympics to end, and quick.

Saturday night come Sunday morning and Kenny Egan was being chased down on his BMX by Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, Sammy Wanjiru, Willie O'Dea and Davy Fitzgerald, the finishing line drifting further away with every turn of his pedals.

It was a hellish nightmare, prompted in part by all thoughts being on Egan's fight ahead, in part due to the horror of witnessing Ethiopia's Deriba Merga lose his bronze medal in an astoundingly brilliant marathon after he'd limped in to the stadium in third, his team-mate Tsegay Kebede sailing past him as the podium beckoned, the poor divil.

A few hours later and just as Egan was finally reaching the BMX finishing line the alarm went off, so we'll never know.

What we do know is the boxing panel don't half scrub up well, Michael Carruth and Co bedecked in suits and ties for the day that was in it, looking for all the world like lads about to mosey on up the aisle.

"Every time you walk in to our studio all I can hear is Spandau Ballet singing Gold," said Peter Collins to Carruth, leaving our Olympic champion temporarily lost for words. But he found his tongue again when we watched a replay of his Barcelona bout.

"Is that hair I see?" Bernard Dunne asked.

"It is," confirmed Carruth, tapping his balding pate, wondering where all the years and the curls had gone.

Fight time, Carruth warned us that "this Chinese fella might only have to blink to get a score". Jimmy Magee's optimism, though, was industrial-strength, and not even the score, as the final progressed, could dampen it.

Dodgy start. In to round two, 2-0 down, "I have no doubt that Kenneth's technique will be king by the time this is over," he promised. "Egan's got his measure now, he's got the distance, he's got the range now," he said, as Xiaoping Zhang stretched his lead to 5-3.

There was, frankly, no stopping Jimmy.

"I'm convinced he's now found the range, he's now found his composure and we'll take it from here."

Round three. "I just feel he's growing in confidence, he's got his man's measure now," Jimmy persisted as Zhang made it 6-4.

But when Egan pulled a point back the Memory Man was off: "Brings back memories of the man in the studio there, Michael Carruth, what a day that was in Barcelona! It's funny that we won two gold medals - well, I'm counting chickens here - in a city with a B as its initial letter!"

"Jimmy," we pleaded, "stop."

This fate-tempting sent our distress levels soaring - they could be last seen hovering above the Bird's Nest.

"And Egan, as I told you, has found that distance," said Jimmy at the very moment our man went 7-5 down. "But so has the Chinese, seven points to five," he acknowledged.

End of round three. "He can picture that house in Neilstown, he can picture going home," he said of Egan, when the only thing we wanted him to picture was the X that marked the spot on Zhang's nose.

It was only when Egan went 8-5 down, with a minute or so to go, that Jimmy appeared to concede that fighting in a city with a B as its initial letter might not be enough. "He may have to throw the kitchen sink at him, with apologies to you Mrs Egan," he said.

It wasn't to be. "He was on the brink of everlasting fame," said Jimmy, "but there's many a boxer who lives in this world of ours who would chew your elbow off for a silver medal."

One of them, Dunne, was less than happy back in the studio, describing the scoring as "craaaaaaaaaazy", noting that, at one stage, "the Chinese got a point for shadow boxing".

Over in Clondalkin Carruth's da, Austin, was sanguine about it all. He told Joe Stack that "if any other athlete out there got a silver medal they'd get the bus through town".

They would too. But there's always London 2012, as the appearance of Beckham, Boris, a bus and Buckingham Palace at the closing ceremony reminded us. It was when that bus turned inside out and Jimmy Page appeared on top playing A Whole Lotta Lovewe knew China's grip on the Olympic Games had been somewhat loosened.

All done bar the mopping up. We'll never know if Kenny held off Phelps, Bolt, Wanjiru, O'Dea and Davy Fitz in the BMX, but he had us glued to our tellies til the final day. A silver lining to a cloudy Games for the Irish. Top man.