Always good for a statistic is the Inside Athletics newsletter - the behind-the-scenes look at what's good and not so good about the sport.

This month throws up a few interesting facts. For a start, athletics now has an even greater status as the number one Olympic sport. The International Olympic Committee has decided to increase the share of the Olympic television and marketing revenues going to the IAAF to $17.668 million - almost 11 per cent of the total sum of £161.2 million which will be distributed to the 28 Olympic sports' federations. That's more than double what the athletics federation got at the 1996 Games.

But at the IAAF headquarters in Monte Carlo, patience seems to be running out with the Games organisers in Sydney. Most pressing is the issue of where the IAAF "family members" will be seated in the Olympic stadium. They want 400 tickets on the finishing straight - and not "somewhere on the bends" - as the Sydney organisers are offering.