You can read nothing from the heats at 3.0 am

"I ask myself, what are we doing here at three o'clock in the morning," Bill O'Herlihy asked himself at three o'clock in the morning, and the milkman looked at me and said: "Do you ever ask yourself the same question?" Certainly not. Where else would you be at three o'clock in the morning except watching SOS herself run in the heats of the 10,000 metres, and then Alexander "Siberian Bear" Karelin defend his 13-year unbeaten streak in the Greco-Roman 130kg wrestling final? Before switching to Eurosport for the closing stages of the synchronised beach clean and jerk coxless clay pigeon steeplechase repechage, Juan Antonio Samaranch's personal favourite. Eh, where else would you be?

Of course he'd no answer to that, all low-fat milk and no double cream, and left, shaking his head, to continue his round (sensibly, on my advice, wearing "spikes" and not "flats" after a heavy downpour). Happy, though, 'cos he'd seen Sonia safely navigate her passage to the final in my living-room. He was gutted, though, because he'd also seen Alexander being beaten on my telly by an American called Rulon Gardner, the youngest of nine children who grew up on a dairy farm in Wyoming and was called "Fatso" by his mates, until he snapped and they ended up being fed through a tube. They called him "Mister Gardner" after that. ("It's not too late to get help, you know," he said when I shared this information with him, but I just said "pass me the butter Ernie or you die").

Bill was happy too for Sonia, but a bit peeved that her heat was, well, a bit uneventful. "You assess absolutely nothing from the heats," Eamonn Coghlan told him. "You read nothing from the heats whatsoever," he added, stressing the point, leaving Bill wondering why he hadn't gone home to bed five hours earlier, seeing as it all proved to be a-less-than-bone-dry squib.

And, indeed, sleep deprivation is doing nothing for Bill's silky smooth presentation skills. "We're going to look at Sonia in a moment, but first of all I must welcome . . . em . . . eh . . . um," he had said earlier. Welcome who Bill, welcome who? "Tracy Piggott," he declared, triumphantly. "You forgot my name, didn't you," she said. He didn't blink, but that was thanks largely to the matchsticks propping up his lids.

Not to worry Bill, at this stage most of us can't remember our own names and aren't altogether sure what planet we're living on. All we know is that it's not the same one David Coleman inhabits. "Sally Barsosio, noted internationally for having elbows like knitting needles," he said of the Kenyan 10,000 metres runner, a revelation that left his co-commentator Brendan Foster speechless for two minutes, 37 seconds - a new personal best.

Back on RTE, they seemed unaware of Sally's "one pearl, one plain" running style, they were too busy analysing Tracy's dreams. "I went to bed this afternoon and I woke up in a terrible sweat," she said. "I had this dreadful dream that I was supposed to be running in the 400 metres hurdles and I hadn't brought my spikes and I kept shouting that I'd never used these blocks before and I was terrified. That's what it does to you, you know. I'm never going to be the same again."

Well, all I could say was: pheeew! I'm not alone! Only the other night I dreamt I was in the synchronised swimming final with Paul Gascoigne, David Trimble and Duncan from Our House as my partners, and it all went horribly wrong when Duncan turned up without his arm bands, Gazza elbowed the Tibetan coach in the face after he chanted "let's all laugh at Everton" and Trimbo stormed out of the pool after Cuban team manager Jeffrey Donaldson lodged a protest, claiming Trimbo's togs weren't half as orange as they should be. Also, Tracy's "I'm-watching-far-too-much-of-this-stuff-for-my-own-good" dream revelation left us uninhibited enough to ask: if you flick back and forth really quickly between the BBC and Eurosport during their live coverage of the pole vault does the fella who's just taken off look like he's hanging in mid air? Or (a) do we need to see a doctor or (b) do we just need a good night's sleep? Or (c) if we ever think of taking up a sport (as opposed to watching them on telly), should we forget Greco-Roman wrestling? Why? Well, the Eurosport commentator told us yesterday that you can be "called for passivity" in Greco-Roman wrestling. You wot? "That is, you're penalised points for just watching and not doing much," he explained. Mmm. Mr Gardner? Your crown is safe.