AMERICA - the land of the free. . .and the whooping, hollering, moronic, unsporting sports fan, writes NEIL BRAMWELL.

A surge of nationalistic fervour is understandable during the Olympic Games, the world's biggest sporting tournament.

And while no-one, not even the Americans, can dress their dismal organisation as a success, those jingoistic jerks have had plenty to crow about.

So it is even harder to stomach that brilliant Cuban boxers are booed from the ring after defeating an American, the "U.S.A." chant starts up when a seven-year-old Russian gymnast is about to take her vault, and Irish swimmers are labelled cheats for daring to come within spitting distance of the achievements of Mark Spitz.

For a country of that size, where babies' milk is swapped for isotonic energy drink and rattles for dumbells, the production of the occasional sporting legend is no great surprise.

And if that nation chooses to expose their collective morals by dressing the intrusion into Mohammed Ali's suffering as a gesture of respect, then no shameless exhibition of American vulgarity should come as a surprise.

It would, therefore, be nice to celebrate the occasional trans-Antlantic trouncing.

But with Britain's dismal current stock of athletes, and unless the Lottery investment is ploughed into facilities for the elite, we will have to get used to shirking from the American holler.

Juan Antonio Samaranch obviously took note of last week's column as snooker is to be included in the 2004 games.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.