"Our country is in ruins and destroyed. You can't imagine how meaningful it will be for me to put our flag in Sydney. I feel so lucky." So said 19-year-old Safiya Hussein on her selection to the six-strong Somalia team, making her the first woman to represent the country at the Olympic Games.

Meanwhile. "Well, you know I'm the type of guy (for whom) it's an honour to go to the Olympics - I don't have too much going on in the summertime anyway." So said Gary Payton, a member of the latest US basketball Olympic Dream Team, whose average earnings could probably pay off Somalia's national debt. The last time Kevin Garnett, for example, put pen to contract he sealed a salary of $120 million over six years.

Each to their own, of course, and at least some of them are honest enough about their failure to embrace the Olympic ideals. "We don't intend to make a whole lot of friends here - the Olympic spirit is about beating people, not living with them," as John Stockton, a member of their Barcelona team, put it.

The 2000 Dream Team only has to show up in Sydney to pick up their golds. On Wednesday they humiliated the Japanese team in an exhibition game. They will, presumably, inflict the same damage on their opponents in Sydney.

True, there should be room in the Olympics for all human life and maybe even a wide range of bank balances, but the presence of these NBA multi-millionaires, a string of the world's top-earning tennis professionals and a liberal sprinkling of well-to-do footballers grates, just a bit.

Naturally enough the official Olympic website has a different view, particularly on the issue of football clubs complaining about having to release their highly-paid players for the Games. "The tournament is big news even before it opens as national associations demand the release of players from jealously protective overseas clubs who regard the Games as an irritating irrelevance."

Jealously protective? Damn it, if I was David O'Leary, for example, I'd be jealously protective too, especially of Marc Viduka (named as one of three over-age players in Australia's Olympic squad) who the club paid £6 million for during the summer, only to learn that he intended swanning off to Sydney and missing a bunch of crucial Champions League games.

What tulip came up with these rules? "In order to be eligible to participate in the Olympic Football Tournament Sydney 2000, players must have been born on or after January 1st, 1977. However, each national association is entitled to summon a maximum of three over-age players in its list of 18 players, i.e. players born before 1.1.1977."

Over-age players? Well, Chile took them at their word, naming 33-year-old Ivan Zamorano of Inter Milan, who captained Chile at the last World Cup, in their Olympic squad earlier in the week. Nuts. All we have now is a poor man's World Cup.

And then there's the tennis crowd. Nice to see Gustavo Kuerten resolved his dispute with the Brazilian Olympic Committee (they wanted him to wear the shorts and shirt of team sponsor Olympikus, he insisted on wearing gear bearing the logo of his own sponsor, Diadora) and decided to play in Sydney after all.

Anyway, I don't give two hoots who wins basketball, football or tennis gold in Sydney, but it wouldn't half restore the faith to see Safiya Hussein taking home a medal. Her inclusion in the Somalia team created ructions amongst her country's Muslim traditionalists, who object to women competing in sport, leaving her father fearful that she will be unable to find a Muslim husband on her return (not least after appearing in shorts).

It's a chance she'll take, though, and even if she isn't expecting to pick up a medal from the 400 metres she'll give it her best and just thrill in being there. It's what the Olympic spirit is about. Isn't it?