Charles van Commenee, the head coach of the British athletics team, has set his charges a target of eight medals at the looming home Olympics.

Justin Gatlin beat Jamaica's Asafa Powell on the line to win the 100m in a time of 9.87 seconds at the season-opening Diamond League meet in Doha yesterday.

The Good, The Bad and The Odd

Sir Steve Redgrave has warned there may be some protests against Dwain Chambers taking part in the Olympics from other members of the British team at London 2012 because of his drugs past.

When we come to tally up the profit and loss account for the Olympics, there's going to be a lot in the debit column: bloated costs, Lord Coe's corporate toadying and the runaway creation of eyesores (I have to rinse with Optrex if I even catch a glimpse of bloody Wenlock and Mandeville).

Many visitors pouring into London this summer for the Olympics will arrive at Nadia Comaneci. They'll need to travel by tube to Simon Whitfield (via Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal) before changing there and heading to Michael Phelps (via Carl Lewis).

Postcard from St Kitts: Kim Collins

It has been a week of revelations for track and field Olympians past and present. First came reports that Teddy Tamgho, one of Phillips Idowu's principal rivals for the Olympic triple-jump crown in 2012, had been banned for six months by the French Athletics Federation for an unseemly altercation with an unnamed female athlete at a national training camp. Then Kajsa Bergkvist, the retired Olympic high-jump champion of 2004, caused a stir in Sweden by telling QX magazine that she was a lesbian.

For the second Sunday in succession, Usain Bolt was a figure of isolation in Daegu Stadium. Seven days previously, in the immediate aftermath of his false start disqualification from the 100 metres final, he went pacing off into a quiet alcove at trackside, fuming at his own impetuosity, while the rest of the field chased down the track after the title he had won in world-record time in Berlin in 2009. Had Bolt not jumped the gun, in all probability his rivals would have been running for a silver lining.

Jamaican Usain Bolt was back to his best today, cruising into the world championships 200 metres final with the greatest of ease before whipping the crowd into a frenzy in Daegu.

They were talking about the twitch in Daegu yesterday but there was no sign of a knee-jerk reaction. The morning after Usain Bolt's disqualification from the World Championship 100m final, close scrutiny of the replay showed a momentary twitch in the "set" position by Yohan Blake immediately before Bolt blatantly false started.

Usain Bolt was today disqualified from the final of the 100 metres in the World Championships in Daegu for a false start.