48 hours: Finally we can see mugs and not just Martians

Athletics began to make its mark in the Commonwealth Games yesterday, so we finally got a chance to have a really good look at competitors in the heat of battle.

Because so far it has mainly been all swimming and track cycling in terms of the traditional Games sports, events where - for very different reasons - the competitors' features are submerged during the contest.

For instance, my initial introduction to backstroke bronze medallist Cameron Gibson was on the podium, where it emerged that he was so tall that the gold medallist - despite having a one-storey head start - was left a couple of floors below.

Cycling has been the highlight for me so far, with the gold medal sprint series between England's Victoria Pendleton, the world champion who emerged victorious in Melbourne over the weekend, and Australia's Olympic champion Anna Meares being the best of the best to date.

Absolutely brilliant. I never tire of seeing top sprinters going tyre to tyre.

Cycling usually shapes up at the Games, and especially in the velodrome where the head-to-head battles are particularly short and sharp for the losers.

But this form of cycling has one inherent weakness - they all look alike. For sure, the team uniforms distinguish the competitors, but you're always left wanting to know what the cyclists really look like as they duke it out.

Thanks to uniformly chunky thighs and space-age head gear, your basic track cyclist appears as a snowshoe on a couple of tree trunks.

Aerodynamic headgear is great if you're trying to win a gold medal or late for school, but put it this way, it's hopeless for things like a police ID parade.

"Yes, officer, all 47 of those creatures stole my purse."

Watching cycling is one of those things you do every two years, at the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, and it takes time to get used to.

By about the semifinals, you finally stop thinking "the Martians have landed".

If Martians ever arrive on our planet, I vote we send track cyclists as a greeting party to help the visitors acclimatise.

Back to the velodrome.

Maybe no other Games sport brings together the old and the new quite like cycling. The kids are on high-tech machines and look like hot dates for William Shatner at a Star Trek convention, but the attendant officials are closer to a pine box than Xbox.

Some of the suited ones look more likely to get around in grey Humber 90s than anything with carbon fibre in it.

But linking these cycling generations is traditional behaviour, which is heart-warming.

Don't get it wrong. Cyclists aren't all lovey-dovey types. The most wound-up, off-the-handle characters you can meet are cyclists, a bunch of fat-less muscle machines who seem to regard pain as their best friend.

The sport isn't all cheer and pedals either. There's the potential for argy-bargy, and despite dressing like an aerofoil, Meares was willing to risk all sorts of wind drag problems by poking an elbow out in the home straight to impede the fast-finishing Pendleton in their second race.

Sometimes, the best slipstream you can give yourself is to throw an anchor your opponent's way.

But the sprint cycling contest is, overall, both beautifully modern and old-fashioned. When the winner has been found, a little human appendage - the hand - emerges from the spaceship and is grasped by the loser in a signal of mutual respect.

Either that, or they are from different planets and haven't found another way to communicate yet.

Other memorable multi-sport moments from the weekend were:

* Sam Warriner's smile in the TV studio after winning the triathlon silver medal. Warriner's story is charming. Until last year she combined her sports career with school teaching in Whangarei.

How on Earth did she manage this? Most schoolteachers I know have one thing in common: they aren't schoolteachers any more. It's too tough.

Warriner told me last year of how hard it had been on her partner as he dealt with her life as a teacher and triathlete. What really struck me during that interview was just how dedicated a teacher she was despite her wish to be a full-time athlete. Warriner also clearly treasured the bonds with her students and their support.

When she recounted on Saturday that she had heard a kid cheering for "Miss Warriner" around the Melbourne course, I got a lump in the throat.

Warriner's success was even more poignant on learning that the great Yvette Corlett, an Olympic and Commonwealth Games champion, is recovering from brain surgery. Corlett, now 76, used the same sort of train-work-train-work-train schedule Warriner employed until recently.

At a barbecue over the weekend, a woman told me that she and her friends were not interested in the Commonwealth Games because the athletes were all professionals rather than fellow citizens who overcame real-life barriers to represent "us" in the higher echelons of sport.

I suspect that this attitude is, quite understandably, the case for many people.

Of course, it is no use hankering for the past ... but still, the Sam Warriner story does bring back fond memories of days gone by.

Next major stop, Beijing. Go, Sam, go!

* Our cyclists have stuck a major spoke in the wheel of our cycling commentators.

While the men behind the mic predicted all sorts of wondrous things, the riders have fallen short of delivering.

This misplaced optimism even found its way into the women's sprint, where New Zealand's Australian-domiciled rider Elisabeth Williams was to be crushed by the brilliant Englishwoman Pendleton.

Before the Kiwi team pursuiters fell apart like Browns cows, we were even informed that this awesome foursome were in the form that would have made a 2004 Olympic medal a gimme.

This was goosebump time, we were told.

Ooops. It was more speedbump than goosebump, not to mention the back-pedalling.

* A cricket question: Why is the major test series of the summer taking place when rugby, league and the Commonwealth Games are firing up? Surely cricket should take its proper place in the height of summer.

* To the national obsession ...

Blues fans may be celebrating after the Brumbies were beaten, but hold all bets on David Nucifora's side, despite a few terrific individual efforts.

It wasn't over-convincing, in the organisation department.

And when wings Joe Rokocoko and Vili Waqaseduadua got within shouting distance, it was like a poltergeist convention.

Hats off to Nucifora and his men for a brave win under fire.

* And finally, the Warriors. Uninspiring against the Eels. You fear the worst is yet to come from an average team that knew it was beaten before the season started, despite all the PR they spun.

High

Sam Warriner's silver medal in the triathlon after getting a teacher's aid.

Low

The Warriors. A world first - eight points off the lead after two rounds