FIVE RINGED CIRCUS

Beijing 2008 news in brief

What a drag for golden boy Spitz

CRIKEY, Mark Spitz has shaved off his moustache. Does that mean we should all grow one?There he was up there with Fu Manchu, Stalin and Pancho Villa. It's like golfer John Daly losing his mullet or Joey Barton joining Amnesty International. We're all on for that sort of thing around here but having put up with the facial fixture during his swimming heyday, when it would have produced drag, the 58-year-old, who won seven gold medals in Munich, is now totally tash-less. Clearly an expert on the issue of drag, Spitz, who was all tight Speedo and Lady Tickler, has dismissed the influence of high-tech swimming suits in the breaking of world records. The canny Californian said. "If the suit really worked then I'm buying Tiger Woods' golf clubs."

Ainslie's quest

BRITISH golden boy Ben Ainslie is seeking to make history at the Olympic sailing regatta as he begins his quest for a third consecutive gold medal in Qingdao tomorrow.

A silver medallist at the Laser event in Atlanta in 1996, Ainslie captured gold in the same event in Sydney before winning the Finn event at Athens four years ago to match Rodney Pattison's record as Britain's most successful Olympic sailor. The 31-year-old is heavily favoured for the hat-trick.

No pardon for the venerable rat

IT'S not the pesky residents. Chinese government bulldozers have dealt with them and their ill-positioned homes. And it's not IOC members trying to jump to the top of queues in the Marriot. The current top Olympic pest is the rat, after which the Chinese have named 2008. But there is no pardon in that and the no nonsense nibblers are set to face 150 Rentokil technicians and a 400-strong team of pest exterminators to minimise the risk of pest outbreaks during the peak breeding season.

The gum-booted ones of Rentokil have just been appointed by the Beijing government to conduct a deadly sweep through all of the 100 Olympic sites seeking to exterminate the venerable rodent.

•Britain's Olympic boxing hopes have been badly dented with the news that world lightweight champion and gold medal favourite Frankie Gavin has been forced to withdraw from the competition.

Gavin has admitted defeat in his battle to boil down to the 60kg lightweight limit and has left the team's holding camp in Macau, where he had been left behind in order to make one final push. Gavin had always admitted he faced a struggle to make the lightweight limit and had been campaigning almost exclusively in the 64kg category.

 TV networks launch their  big guns

WHILE the race for medals is almost upon us, so is the quadrennial head-butting competition between networks.

RTÉ begin their coverage of the Olympics today at 1pm with Bill O'Herlihy fronting up the show.

But the BBC makes the starting line for the Opening Ceremony 15 minutes before, at 12.45, with Sue Barker and Huw Edwards in the studio.

For RTÉ, Sonia O'Sullivan, Eamonn Coghlan and Jerry Kiernan will provide commentary on athletics, with Bernard Dunne, Katie Taylor, Michel Carruth and Andy Lee joining Mick Dowling for the boxing.

Gary O'Toole and Earl McCarthy provide analysis for swimming and former Olympic rower Neville Maxwell and former Irish soccer international Kenny Cunningham will add their expertise in their respective sports.

The BBC are spending €3.8 million and sending 437 staff to China.

Respect.

Cooking on a sticky wicket

IRISH politicians' preferred method of derision and ridicule is to present themselves at the Mahon Tribunal and lose their memories. In Thailand it is presenting a TV cookery programme. TV chef turned Thai prime minister Samak Sundaravej rustled up a special pre-Games meal of chicken in sticky sauce for 51 Thai Olympic athletes this week. The short visit has given the 73-year-old brief respite from his own sticky wicket - two months of anti-government street protests.

Still the show must go on even when his popularityhas plunged for presenting a cooking program while still working as prime minister.

Gaining a missus after a miss

AH, the sexy sports. Athletics, swimming . . . the 50-metre rifle three-position target event! Matt Emmons lost first place with an ill-timed lapse in concentration on his very last shot at the 2004 Olympics but won the gold a few moments later when his future wife started chatting him up.

The American was one shot from a gold medal in the 50-metre rifle three-position target event when, whoops, he fired at the wrong target. He was drinking a settling beer afterwards when Czech shooter Katerina Kurkova offered her commiserations. His wayward pot-shot has, ironically, raised the level of interest in shooting at the Games. Emmons will compete in two events in Beijing.