A right kick in the guts

I know what Mahe Drysdale and Moss Burmester have been going through this week. No, I never have and never will make an Olympic final: let's just say that in terms of sporting ability, it's not the case that I'll never be in the same ballpark as those two champions - you'd find me in some minor, dustbowl ground miles from them.

No, my empathy has been over a more delicate matter: Beijing Belly. A full-on, energy-sapping case almost denied Drysdale the chance to make it to today's single sculls final, while an apparently lesser dose hardly helped Burmester in the build-up to his, um, gutsy effort in the 200m butterfly.

Without going into gory details, my symptoms have been more towards the Burmester end than Drysdale's. I know others in the New Zealand media contingent have had it too.

I've had lots of time to sit around pondering things. Are our delicate Western constitutions not adjusting to the local food?

I did see something worrying on Thursday. On the way to the foodcourt in the Olympic media centre, I stopped at the toilet. As I washed my hands a man who looked suspiciously like a chef - he was wearing an apron and a tall white hat - strode past me without stopping at the basin after he had finished his business.

Now maybe he washed up in the kitchen instead. Far be it for me to jump to conclusions. But ... suffice to say I didn't feel hungry any more.

The organisers have placed a big emphasis on hygiene. Each toilet in every venue has a cleaner assigned to it, an army of young people doing a marvellous job keeping the bathrooms and toilets spick and span. And in front of every outlet of the foodhall is a dispenser of antiseptic gel for customers to sanitise their hands before eating.

So I'm hoping the outbreaks we're aware of are isolated cases and not linked to cleanliness. After all, it's a very sensitive subject, hygiene.