Post Sports

Ewan MacKenna: The Irish athletes should summon up the courage to tell the truth about Putin's putrid Games

Tucker West, the luge representative of the US, pictured training in Sochi: the Games opened this weekend under a cloud of controversy. Picture: Getty

It was the perfect example of old and new coming together, an obvious demonstration of how it all went wrong somewhere in between. Back in the summer, on a trip to the site of the first modern Olympic Games in Athens, a handful of tourists pottered about, marvelling at the beautiful and elegant simplicity of the Panathenaiko Stadio.

Outside the white marble arena, though, a day before the handing of the flame to ...