KEY POINTS:
Rugby is upon us but for once the brawn drain found a headline so far towards left field that it emerged dripping wet as a Chinese puzzle.
World champion single sculler Mahe Drysdale's battle with the legendary Rob Waddell for the prized solo Olympic spot, and a major
chance of a gold medal, turned briefly nasty with a tenuous newspaper claim that Drysdale might row for Australia in the Beijing Games if he lost this two-man trial.
The story worked harder than Waddell on an ergometer to manipulate the rules that would allow the outrageous switch. Australian rowing's high performance director was less exhausting work however.
Yes, Aussie rowing bosses had discussed it internally, said Noel Donaldson, adding that while their Olympic rules might be prohibitive, the concept was fine. So where, you have to ask, is real national pride or is a gold medal worth any price?
Where is the honour in scooping up a medal certainty who will forever have 'Made in New Zealand' stamped on his brow, even if it says 'Made in Italy' across the Kiwi boats' bows.
Drysdale is as admirable and likeable a sportsman as you could find, but his subsequent and so-called outright rejection of an Aussie switch looked much better in the headlines than it did in the fine print.
"If it did not work out, I would have to assess my options. If that is an option then perhaps, but I am more likely to go into a crew boat and hopefully win another gold for New Zealand," may rate as vehement in some books, but not in the one marked English dictionary.
Let's hope I am not misreading Drysdale's position here, but if so, then it is only because he needs immediate guidance in the art of squashing a rumour, rather than tapping it on the head.
"Australia - no way. I'd rather dig ditches than cross one," he could have screamed. That's vehement.
As for the Australian rowing, you can take their supposedly humorous inquiry to Drysdale post-world champs with a few grains of the stuff you find in sea water.
Name your price, they are alleged to have said, according to Drysdale, tongue in cheek, but hand already checking the wallet no doubt. They've already got Yanks and Poms on board and would have had Drysdale before you could blurt out Tatiana Grigorieva.
It was another sad day for the Olympic ideals, which have been stabbed with far more weapons than just drug-filled syringes.
An image of flags of convenience being raised through the smog of Beijing sprang to mind, as this exhilarating rowing battle along placid Lake Karapiro took a sudden turn across the high seas.
The five rings of Olympic glory are really a three-ringed circus, selectively oblivious to everything from human rights to the wholesale pursuit of golden national glory via handfuls of silver.
There are rules in place to govern the nationality switches, and stand-down periods are enforced, but they are only low hurdles when high stacks of money and national egos are on the table.
Not only have a flock of African runners zoomed off to represent Qatar and Bahrain, but they've changed their names in the process.
No one wants to deny a pauper a princely sum, but national representation is supposed to mean something more than opportunism. They are not the only ones, but the duplicity in this is only increased when these speedy men from Africa become Zaman, Sultan and Abdullah at the drop of a Kiplagat.
They change allegiance for what the good citizens of Qatar would regard as loose change, although it is enough to be life changing for these magical mercenaries from impoverished worlds.
The head of Kenyan athletics could only express outraged shock when Bernard Lagat, an Olympic 1500-metre silver medallist, became a United States citizen in 2005.
That was an appalling moment for world athletics, although at least Lagat saved a few blushes by resisting the temptation to change his name to Hank Hernandez.
Genuine switches of residency are included among the myriad international transfers of allegiance, as they are called. But there are plenty of fakes.
Drysdale's is a different case but only in the detail, not the principle. He may have been born in Australia, have an Australian father and passport, and resided in Melbourne for a while but until now he has been as Kiwi as Sir Ed.
You can imagine Drysdale's initial shock as his emotions and plans were ambushed when Waddell, the 2000 Olympic champion, gave up the grind of America's Cup racing and returned to his old hunting ground. Drysdale's watertight, self-won Olympic spot was suddenly under a very serious threat. But that's sport, both a rough and glorious ride, and he is settling in for the fight, his friendship with Waddell unharmed.
Packing a brief sad is one thing. Packing the bags is another.
This cross-border nationality mess is a real blow to the integrity of international sport, rugby league's grannygate being a recent case in point.
Rugby is also in on the act. Brad Thorn was born in this country, but the sight of an All Black fleeing back to the Brisbane Broncos as soon as his bank balance was under threat didn't exactly match up with all those test footballers croaking out anthems while clutching their chests for dear life.
There is the odd perverted pleasure in the shemozzle. The oversized and overrated talents of Lesley Vainikolo will be squeezed into an English rugby shirt soon. The next time a British writer mentions All Blacks hauling islanders out of grass huts, we can yell something back about glass houses. Not that the grass hut line will appear again since Lesley opted for a life of loneliness on the English wing.
You can only hope, also, that too many days in the sun had got to the former Australian coach John Buchanan when he suggested international cricket should be propped up by dispensing Aussie discards far and wide.
Instinct and common sense tells us to which country a sports person belongs, but money and dubious national prestige is determining where many of them actually end up.
None of us needs a rule book to work out Drysdale's sporting identity. He has rowed at the Olympics for this country, and won glory as a three-time world champion in the black singlet.
There should not have been the flimsiest of foundations for a story about his switching to Australia, not even a hint.
Just as cricket found out with the death of Bob Woolmer at last year's World Cup, the horrid truth can be exposed by innocent circumstances.
The world found it easy to believe that a gambler's hand ended Woolmer's life. Did any one gasp in absolute, amazed disbelief when the Drysdale story appeared, then cry that this can't possibly be so? That's the real story.
