Trying to be as positive as you possibly can

Barely awake from a fitful few hours sleep, interrupted by miscarriage of justice nightmares that had CJ Hunter going down for a crime he didn't do, and there he was, all 330lb of him blubbering and wailing on Sky News, telling us he was an innocent man and that he'd prove it to us. Or, at least, Johnnie Cochran would, for a small fee.

You'd want a cold heart not to have been moved by CJ's tears, ones that, we're certain, were in no sense fake at all. After all, which one of us hasn't inadvertently overdosed on nutritional supplements in our time? Exactly. So, let he who is without four failed drug tests to his name and a nandrolone reading 1,000 times over the legal limit cast the first stone.

"Was there a problem with the drug tests?," CJ was asked by one of the reporters. "I'm quite positive," he replied, which, funnily enough, is exactly what the testers discovered too.

"Track and field has never been that important to me," he added, which prompted the auld cynics to ask `if you care so little about your sport then would you, perchance, regard cheating as no particular big deal at all, at all'?"

But CJ's better athletic half Marion Jones believes in him. Kind of. "I believe the legal system will clear his name," she said, a declaration that had me and Sky's Jon Desborough wondering if this was code for: "I'm not saying he's innocent, I'm just saying Johnnie Cochran will get him off." (Like he did for Marion when she missed a drug test seven years ago.)

After Sonia's silver the snaring of CJ was the most uplifting story of these Games. And watching his snivelling performance at that press conference left us cheering: Let's hear it for the poor innocents whose Games ended after round one because they'd been daft enough to keep their bodies and consciences clean. Here's to a few more conartists from countries other than Uzbekistan and Uganda being caught.

Of course, all this ugliness overshadowed a big, big sporty day at the Games, one that saw the start of the synchronised swimming event, the climax of the weightlifting and the men's super-heavyweight competition, where the lads in question can be any weight they want to be.

Last week, Tim Henman told the BBC's Gary Richardson about a spooky experience in the Olympic Village canteen when he went down for breakfast, found a gang of weightlifters ahead of him in the queue and by the time they'd filled their plates there wasn't as much as a cornflake left for Timmy to eat.

Big lads indeed. Like Russia's 27 1/2st Andrei Chemerkin. "He's a police officer with special responsibility to criminals," David Vine told us. Oh yes, trust me, if big Andy told you to put your hands up you'd ask how high.

It's wasn't Andy's day, though. Iranian Hossein Rezazadeh broke two world records to take the gold which he will be allowed keep unless he fails his drug test.

When Hossein successfully snatched and jerked the first of his world records the crowd went wild and bopped in a semi-manic way to Kool and the Gang's Celebrate, which filled the air. Whacky stuff.

Meanwhile, back at Bondi, music filled the air too after every beach volleyball rally. But why, could anyone tell me, did they choose to play INXS's Suicide Blonde, as sung by the late Michael Hutchence, partner of the recently deceased Paula Yates? We're talking a Grade A case of insensitivity here, are we not?

Needless to say, we can't get enough of synchronised swimming 'round my way. In the early hours of yesterday morning (you stayed up too?) Russia's Olga Brusnikina and Maria Kisseleva got loadsa 10s for their near perfect duet free routine which involved them - and one doesn't want to be too technical here - holding their respective breaths for half an hour and waving their legs in the air above water level.

The maddest thing, though, was when they saw their scores they let out synchronised gasps, synchronised cheesy grins, cried synchronised tears and waved synchronised waves to the adoring crowd. Then they walked off to the changing rooms, each step perfectly . . . synchronised.

Creepy . . .