At a World Cup event in the 1990s, Gennadi Touretski agreed to meet me in the lobby of the hotel where they were staying so that I could have 'a short interview' with Alex Popov.

After 15 minutes, the coach intervened ...: 'thanks, time for Alex to go and rest'. Popov popped off for a nap, but Tourestski was just getting going. He turned to me and said: "Ok, now we talk ...". He pointed up and added ... "in my room...".

On the ascent, he regaled me with one of what were always entertaining, and often illuminating stories and observations.

The door to his room was ajar. He pushed it open and there awaiting our presence were four others, one of them a doctor, at least two others coaches, and one chap I remain unfamiliar with to this day. One might have described as The Watchman, though Kafka's creation would have found himself a pole apart from my Russian one-time acquaintance in this context and its disturbingly accurate application to the IOC's failure to keep sport clean and reach for justice when gross injustice has stared back at it from its own history book, for many a long decade:

"I ran past the first watchman. Then I was horrified, ran back and said to the watchman: "I ran through here while you were looking the other way." The watchman gazed ahead of him and said nothing. "I suppose I really oughtn't to have done it," I said. The watchman still said nothing. "Does your silence indicate permission to pass?" ... "

Back to the early post-GDR years, the Soviet era in its dying days., and Gennadi bent down, reached under the bed, and pulled out a small case. He placed it on the bed and opened it to reveal a vodka bottle circled by shot glasses.

He looked up, smiled broadly, and said: "Ok, so, one question, one vodka".