YOUR name doesn't have to be Spiros, Zorba or Aristotle to appreciate the foresight of that select band of Greeks who ran the first Olympic Games, writes NEIL BRAMWELL.

Almost 3,000 years on, their creation has become the greatest global celebration of sport, the biggest single event on earth, the pinnacle of most sportsmen's/women's hopes and aspirations.

So significant are the Games that Olympic champions become as much standard-bearers of their day as presidents, kings and movie stars.

However, some of the finest exponents of sport in the world are denied the opportunity to display their talent in this glorious arena.

This is wrong.

The Olympics should be open to everyone, no matter their sport.

If Steffi Graf, Pete Sampras and Boris Becker have the chance to compete for Olympic gold, there is no reason why Stephen Hendry, Michael Atherton and Nick Faldo are forbidden from doing the same.

And who decides what sports are, or should be, part of the Games?

Who are these ultra conservative guardians of the Olympic ideal?

I'm sorry, but if they can allow in sports like beach volleyball, baseball and synchronized swimming, they can surely permit snooker, cricket and golf.

And wackier ones like welly-throwing, tossing the caber and, yes, even topless darts.

Who can argue?

The Ancient Greeks?

Let's face it, the only reason they didn't hold a welly-throwing championship is that they all wore sandals.

And though the Greeks may have been great mathematicians, the only thing synchronized about their swimming was that they stuck one arm out in front of the other.

The introduction of new sports could hardly increase levels of cheating and corruption, which anyway is nothing new to the Olympics.

The emperor Nero was once proclaimed Olympic chariot champion after a race in which there were no other competitors and he failed to finish because of drink.

Speaking of which, what about an end-of-Games competition to find who can sink the fastest yard of ale?

There's one record we could all relate to.

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