A full-blown media scrum before breakfast isn't the most relaxing way to start the day.

By 10 o'clock this morning I'd been crushed, trodden on and abused by fellow members of the international press corps down at the Hilton Hotel in Central Athens, where Costas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou announced they were withdrawing from the Olympics.

The Olympic organisers are understandably relieved that a scandal which has distracted attention away from the Games for almost a week is finally drawing to a close.

We journalists are also relieved that we can now move on to covering other, and maybe even more positive, stories.



Three forfeited accreditation passes are all that remain of the Olympic dreams of Kenteris, Thanou and their coach Christos Tzekos -- and the only Kenteris that'll be travelling at speed any time soon is the ferry named after him that shuttles to and from his home island of Lesbos.

My main production job of the day was putting together a radio package by my colleague Andy Swiss for the PM programme. You can listen to it here as an MP3 download.