Despite what most footballers tell us you can give NO more than 100 per cent and that is, precisely, what Buenos Aires and Miguel Angel Martin have given in their respective bids to host the Olympic Games and play in the 1997 Ryder Cup.

But, one suspects, that even if they'd given 110 per cent it wouldn't have been enough - the International Olympic Committee doesn't yet think Buenos Aires is fit to host the Games; Seve Ballesteros doesn't think Miguel is fit to play in the Ryder Cup (and his name isn't Jose Maria Olazabal, which doesn't help either).

You'd want to have had a cold heart not to have felt some sympathy for the woman given the task of plugging Buenos Aires one last time during Friday's meeting of the IOC in Lausanne, when the verdict on the Olympic 2004 bid was announced.

The occasion, covered live by Eurosport, was like a cross between the Eurovision Song Contest, Miss World and the election of a new Pope. Unfortunately for Buenos Aires they, once again, received not much more than null points, failed miserably to impress in the swimsuit round and didn't get as much as a puff of white smoke.

"Hello Lausanne," said the voice of Buenos Aires' bid, as she made a desperate last minute attempt to sway a few votes her city's way. "This is the sixth time our city requests the honour to be the host of the Olympic Games." Long sigh. "We invite the world to South America, we have never had this pleasure before but with the best Olympic spirit we keep on striving. We send you our hopes and Olympic dreams from our beloved city - Buenos Aires."

(Eurosport's Tim Hutchings had earlier told us that it was Buenos Aires' fifth attempt at securing the right to host the Games, which meant that either he or she had lost count of how many times they'd failed). Two factors appeared to rule out Buenos Aires' hopes from the beginning. First they planned to hold the Games between September 24th and October 10th, by which time the new football season has started, so that's no good to anyone. Second, Tim told us that the IOC delegates had been surprised by the amount of "culture" they had discovered on their junket, sorry, fact-finding mission to Buenos Aires - and that was probably a criticism from the people who had awarded Coca Cola City (aka Atlanta) the last Olympic Games.

So we could forget Buenos Aires. What about Stockholm? Their first promotional film showed us a blonde baby with a big hat, a roller coaster, a blonde couple snogging, a hot air balloon, blonde soldiers with pointy hats and another hot air balloon. Olof Stenhammar, Chief Executive Officer of Stockholm 2004, told us that his city was the athletes' favourite, mainly because they could breath there without ending up with lung disorders (are you listening Rome and Athens).

But a bombing campaign in Stockholm, by someone not all that keen on the city hosting the Games, had given Olaf a PR problem. Tim Hutchings (who may well have spent the previous night knocking back ouzo with the Greek delegation) tried to give us the background.

"The opposition is so strong that recently the Games bid have placed bombs . . . opposed . . . opposition . . . those who are opposed to the Games have put bombs on sporting shites . . . sites to show their opposition," he explained, kind of. And then. "Athens, of course, has been troubled by terrorism in recent months, mainly in Stockholm itself and at a stadium in Gothenburg." he said.

Time for Tim to pull himself together while we watched Stockholm's second promo, this time with Abba's I Have A Dream playing in the background, yet more hot air balloons (what is it about Stockholm and hot air balloons).

Then, hot off the presses, some happy news from Sweden. Tim told us that just that morning police had apprehended a man carrying a bomb who, they claimed "may himself, without anybody else being involved, have been responsible for the bombings in Stockholm and Gothenburg." God I'd say the Swedish police could hardly believe their luck. (Wonder was he was released the minute the word `Athens' left Juan Antonio Samaranch's lips later in the evening?).

Next, Cape Town, the French for which, we learnt, is Le Cap which is probably also the French for the Common Agricultural Policy, thus ensuring Cape Town the farmers' vote. Their promo contained Nelson Mandela, beaches, a whale, beaches and grapes. Rome showed us trees, more trees, a traffic jam-less city (you can do anything with computer aided design these days) and lots of old buildings. "The Coliseum is its best known ruin," Tim told us.

Athens. "Welcome to the city that hosted the first Olympic Games of the modern era," said the chirpy Greek woman (cynics claim the city's transport system hasn't been updated since then). Gianna Angelopoulos of Athens 2004 Bid Committee talked a lot of history and promised that Athens' air would be clean and their transport super efficient by 2004, but she may have had her fingers crossed behind her back.

Then, while the jury was out, we got to see a promo for Lausanne. Lake Geneva, boats, Lake Geneva, boats, Lake Geneva, a few more boats, the Olympic museum (beside Lake Geneva), fishing (on Lake Geneva) and skateboarding (beside Lake Geneva).

Decision time. Big Juan opened his envelope, tried to look astounded before declaring: "The city that will have the honour and the responsibility to organise the Olympic Games of the year 2004 is . . . Athens."

We didn't see the woman in Buenos Aires again but she probably hadn't even waited for the verdict. What was the point? Even if Juan had read out her city's name she would have expected Seve to leap in and have it switched to Jose's back garden.

Still, the evening ended on a high note with Tim offering a little tribute to the last hosts of the Olympic Games. "Many of the IOC members felt the Greeks couldn't do much worse than Atlanta." Oh. Well, maybe Athens will be the Real Thing.