What would happen if rugby were to become an Olympic sport? Who would have to play the Yanks, the defending Olympic champions from the game of the squashed ball, from way back in the 1920s? Yikes, before Alan Tait was born.

In fact, should rugby be an Olympic sport? Er, hand on heart, I don't think so.

You may be dying to know that an Internet poll by the Washington Post in August, however, suggested that 21 per cent of Americans would prefer rugby as the next demonstration sport for the 2004 Olympic games to be held in Athens.

The survey did offer a number of sports to choose from, including ''Twister,'' jumping rope, skateboarding, and the hugely popular men's synchronised swimming.

You may think there are big questions in the world; like why did Pamela Anderson marry that twit with the long hair and bad tattoos and not someone from Kelvinside Academy; why do Celtic claim that Scottish football isn't working when what they really mean is that they aren't maximising their income; and how come the Aussies are so fast in the pool when the place is dry and dusty and the sea around them is full of jellyfish; but, actually, we all know that there is just one question: When will rugby get into the Olympics?

Now, the Olympics are fantastic. From the exquisite shapes in the beach volleyball to the weight-lifting to suddenly becoming a cycling fan as the Brits do well, and the track and field stuff has not even arrived yet.

I had an e-mail from a friend and work colleague who is in sleep-deprivation mode already as it's better watching the stuff live than off tape.

However, there is one thing you can't deny about the Olympics: you succumb to an unquenchable admiration for other sports.

You marvel at the skill of those cyclists going around a velodrome at 40 miles an hour for four kilometres, you are staggered by the swimmers, and you wish you were two feet from the action at the aforementioned beach volleyball.

But, and I don't know about you, as all sports slide from amateur to professional, I baulk - or should that be the colloquial boke, otherwise sometimes spelled bowk - at watching some hugely paid sports stars take part.

For instance, tennis. These people have their Wimbledons, their Flushing Meadows, and their Grand Slam events and Davis Cups, so putting tennis as part of the Olympic schedule is something I've never got used to. Fair dos, yes, but in the same way as ballroom dancing is hardly an ''Olympic sport,'' tennis just does not seem to sit.

It's the same with football. Look, there is enough football around.

The world is wall-to-wall football, everywhere from telly to radio to newspapers, and there's the Premiership, the European Cup, the European Champion-ships, the World Cup, and, oh, I feel a bit dizzy and a bit squeamish. There is no need for football at the Olympics.

Next it will be golf.

This is where you start to find that those who make their living out of a sport, and we journalists are the same, will argue that the inclusion of their sport in the Olympics would be a fabulous idea.

Every tug-of-war person will think that tug-of-war would be a great idea, and so it goes on.

Just guessing, but rugby as a sport will want into the Olympics because it brings exposure and money. And I repeat, it would be for exposure and money. Or maybe it would be for the money and the exposure.

Rugby appeared four times at the Games, the first time in Paris in 1900 there were just three teams, France, Germany, and Great Britain, with the Germans invading the French dressing rooms before the Games even started. Sorry, sorry. Great Britain was actually just a bunch of blokes from the Moseley club in Birmingham.

In the 1908 Games, bizarrely, there were just two teams, England and Australia. England were this time represented by the Cornwall XV. Just the US and France played in Antwerp in 1920, and then the last time rugby appeared at the Olympics, 1924, there were three teams, France, Romania, and the USA, and the American were made up mostly of students from California. They won.

The Olympics are about tradition, and the pursuit of excellence, and, to me at least, they are about fencing, hurdles, sprints, running, horses, pole vault, boxing, wrestling, and all of that.

So far, they are not about the New Zealanders turning up and boring us all with their Haka again.

In fact, I think the Olympics are more than that. The Olympics are actually our chance to marvel at minority sports. They are our chance to be enthused by events and people we know nothing about.

Neither rugby, nor football, should be part of the Olympic Games.