AFTER the greatest Olympic Games in living memory, the yearning remains. The need to get up at 3am to watch people falling off BMX bikes on television.

Beijing 2008 was quite possibly the best two weeks of sporting entertainment anyone could ever wish to see, so packed as it was with excellence from both a British and world perspective.

So great were the achievements that Michael Phelps won eight gold medals, becoming the most successful Olympian of all time, and still wasn’t the star of the Games.

The poor guy must wonder what he has to do.

Phelps became old news the minute Usain Bolt ran 9.69.

And not just any 9.69. A slowing down, chest-thumping, ‘to be honest I can run miles faster than this’ 9.69.

Phelps, surely now consigned to a sad decline on reality television as ‘the guy who was quite good at the Olympics before Bolt turned up’, could win 100 gold medals on the same day in a pool of steaming lava and it still wouldn’t be as neat as that 9.69.

Then, of course, there was the 19.30. The impossible, improbable, ‘is that clock working properly?’ 19.30.

A relay world record was pretty tame in comparison, remarkable only for the fact that the nervy Asafa Powell managed to reach the finishing line before realising that he was in an Olympic final and that Jamaica would be rather cross if he messed up... again.

But the true test of an Olympic Games is not an incredible feat or two. It is sustained and gripping competition throughout the fortnight. Without that, I would not have been watching BMX at 3am.

I would not have found out that such a minority sport was actually rather entertaining – is it bad that the least enjoyable races were the ones without the four-bike pile-ups?

I would also not have discovered that an Australian rider had brilliantly changed his name by deed poll to ‘Kamakazi’. Given that he appears to have spelt it wrong and he was rubbish anyway, I’d stick with Jamie Hildebrandt in future, mate.

As with the ill-fated decision to watch Ben Ainslie’s abandoned medal race at 6am on a Saturday morning, there was no medal for my enthusiasm as Shanaze Reade maintained her close relationship with the Beijing tarmac.

But I’d do it all again, especially given the excellent nature of the BBC coverage.

In fact, I’ll make a note in my diary. London 2012. Must see TV.

* The prize for the Olympian who left the most amount of journalists rubbing their hands in glee goes to Blake Aldridge.

I imagine the British media entourage in Beijing could not believe their luck when Aldridge came out and slammed Tom Daley at the start of the Games.

Aldridge will forever be remembered as the grown man who whined after being told off by a 14-year-old boy for using his mobile phone during the Olympic diving competition.

* Amid all the talk of knighthoods and honours, one name has been cruelly overlooked.

High jumper Germaine Mason won a silver medal in Beijing and has served Queen and country, man and boy - or at least man and slightly younger man - for a whole 28 months.

When he’s not competing for Jamaica, Germaine is a true British hero.

The campaign starts here. Arise, Sir Germaine.