Sutton United boss Paul Doswell writes a weekly column for yourlocalguardian.co.uk.... this week it had to be about the Rio Olympics.

I love all sports – football comes first and cricket comes second – but I love all sports and that is why I am watching as much of the Olympics as I can.

It’s very easy to buy into the spirit of the Games, and I have nothing but admiration for the athletes who give everything to even get to the starting line, let alone win.

There were some documentaries on recently about Serena Williams, Mo Farah and Usain Bolt – these are the glamour athletes – but the amount of work they put in behind the scenes was phenomenal.

It is not until you see them pulling weights across dirt fields, retching and throwing up that you realise – it’s incredible.

The glamour part is the purely the bit that you see at the Olympics, but the admiration I have for those sportspeople is right up there because they push themselves to the absolute limits.

SUTTON UNITED: All bets are off for Gander Green Lane defender

I have named the three who are famous enough to have their own documentary, but they are all like that.

I read that two of our canoeists had lost their funding, and they were having to get up at 4am to train and then going to work for the day, finishing at 5pm, and then going training again in the evening.

They are a fantastic breed of sportspeople, and we should all recognise the amount of work that goes into getting them that place on the podium – the work none of us see.

But what about Team GB..? Incredible.

When you think that a country our size, something like 70 million, is second in the medal table only to a country that has more than a billion – first, it shows that lottery funding does work, and without that I don’t think our guys could compete.

Second, it just shows what a talented nation we are.

There is a downside to the Games, and that is the empty seats we’re seeing on television – but I can understand why they are empty.

The biggest problem is the economic value of the Olympics to Brazil, and I don’t blame the Brazilians who are living in poverty for not supporting the event.

Their view is that the money should be spent on their infrastructure and the simple basics of life, and I cannot disagree with that.

But I started this week’s column telling you that I love all sport, and while I stayed up late to watch the 100m, if I had the chance to compete for gold, I’d love to get in the boxing ring.

And it would be middleweight, not super heavyweight, thank you very much.

You certainly won’t find me on the pommel horse – those chaps get themselves and any future family prospects far too close to a nasty end for comfort if you ask me.