Medals, medals everywhere. In the velodrome, in the lake, in the pool, on the sea. In the sports where they sit down and in some where they don't. In the disciplines that we know and understand and in some of the ones where we have to rack our brains a bit - although if you still think Yngling is a venue on the outskirts of Beijing, rather than an event in the sailing, then you clearly haven't been watching closely enough.

At the women's marathon, though, there were only tears, with Paula Radcliffe coming in 23rd, and illustrating the sad truth that you can't turn up approximately ten minutes after suffering a stress fracture and win gold in the toughest race of them all. But let's face it - it probably wouldn't be the Olympics if you could.

A marathon always presents the host city with its biggest challenge, image-wise. It's not a controlled environment, like the opening ceremony. Children with uneven teeth may turn up, and there will be almost nothing you can do about it. Yesterday, though, the organisers did Beijing proud. It seemed to be a sunny, happy, blissfully uncongested place, blessed with road surfaces one would be happy to eat off - well, before the runners went over them, anyway.

I particularly marvelled at the line of cones marking the final kilometre or so - surely the most fastidiously correct display of cone-work we have seen at a global sporting event. I hope Jacques Rogge, the IOC president, in his closing remarks, takes some time out to mention the standard of the coning. Were the London 2012 cone people watching? That was top class cone-age.

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One thought for London, though: we couldn't help notice how most of the marathon runners who grabbed water bottles from the tables provided, merely dribbled a small quantity over their heads, took the tiniest sip and then flung the remainder into the gutter. Now, far be it from us to sound sanctimonious about one of the world's scarcest resources, but maybe London could score valuable eco-points by making available a Fun-Size serving - just enough to give your marathon runners a treat.

Elsewhere, Michael Phelps finally agreed to stop his gold medal collection at eight. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but he hasn't been photographed biting any of them. Medal-biting is officially an epidemic at these Games. You'll see the swimmers, especially, running the gamut of the photographers' pen and pausing only to gnaw on their gongs in the now accepted manner.

Phelps, though, has tastefully resisted the urge. Clearly the challenge for him at this point would be to get all eight of his medals into his mouth at once, in a kind of gold medal “Scooby Snack”. Don't imagine for even one second that I'm the only person to have thought of this. Someone from Sports Illustrated will have been on to Phelps's PR people the moment the American 4x100 metres medley team touched home. But, Michael - help to reverse this slightly weird trend. Just say no.

Our pundit of the weekend was Michael Johnson, both for explaining the physical underpinnings of Usain Bolt's awesome success in the men's 100 metres and for crisply dismissing the argument that it was somehow un-Olympian of the Jamaican to ease off before the finishing line. It's true that Bolt ran his victory lap marginally faster than he ran the last 15 yards of that final, but, as Johnson refreshingly and realistically pointed out, “The objective is to win, not to give it all he's got'”. Too right. As Johnson further said, “People always got to find something to criticise.” Don't you hate that about people?

Meanwhile, Clare Balding, in for Hazel Irvine, has shown herself categorically unafraid to pick up and nurse her white coffee mug. We thought those mugs were purely ornamental, brought in to imply a cosy, “kettle's on” kind of atmosphere, but actually containing nothing except, possibly, cold water. Maybe we were wrong, though. Maybe they don't call it Olympic Breakfast for nothing. Break out the bacon rolls and the muffins, we say. It's only once every four years, for heaven's sake.