This bookie would do anything to up his chances, even sneaking into Olympic Village to get close to the athletes.

But athletes being athletes, they were all shooting off at the mouth and it was all a bit hard for this bookie to work out odds.

Then the bookie notices an Olympic Village chaplain. This priest blesses a Turkish target shooter before she goes off to compete and a couple of hours later she comes back rejoicing with a gold medal. Then a couple of Dutch divers came up to the priest and asked for a blessing and later they come back with gold medals too.

The bookie starts hanging around the priest like a bad smell offering suckers odds on blessed athletes and rejoicing in his healthy collections.

Finally the bookie saw the priest doing a longer than usual blessing, with holy water and all sorts of stuff on a Spanish sprinter.

The bookmaker thought “Bingo!” and quickly went out and put every dollar made on the line by offering huge money on the sprinter. 

Later, as the other sprinters leap from the starting blocks, the Spanish sprinter clutches at his chest, falls to the ground and dies from a massive heart attack.

The bookie in shock chases after the priest and says “You’re a crook! And just when I started to be a believer! I put all my hard-earned winnings on that Spaniard you blessed and now I'm ruined! RUINED!!!”

The priest replied “Well if you paid as much attention to religion as you do to gambling you’d have known the difference between a blessing and the Last Rites!”

When the Big O arrives every four years, I take holidays and No-Doz and become a little more sportscrazy than my normal.

Earlier this week the International Olympic Committee (IOC) launched “Become The Light”, a campaign that spoke of, among other things, “Olympic values”.

I saw a TV ad once which taught: Olympic values are that it does not matter whether you win or you lose but how hard you try and that you know that you gave it your best.

Now they’re great values, but if you think about it, these are anything but Olympic values. In the Olympic Games you are never granted a gold medal, no matter how hard you try, if you did not come first. If you did come first, you will get the gold even if you did not give your best, because in the Olympics, effort and personal triumph means nothing - what matters is results.

In this sense, the Olympics are a little ruthless. But God, like our conscience, does not judge us on our success or failure but on our efforts at the goal. In this sense, the one who does not try fails, but the one who tries always wins and the more effort the more we win. 

Sometimes not winning the prize makes someone a better person, because at times when somebody wins the prize at stake, they become unbearable. I heard of a study once that showed within five years of retirement 60 per cent of professional athletes have spent all their winnings.

I’m not a fan of calling people “losers”. If someone was truly a loser then they are a competitor, a worker, somebody who is giving life a go and that is what we are on this planet for.

In the eyes of God, and perhaps your own, if you honestly try and you honestly lose, you’re a winner.