We could all learn from the loved-up Olympic Games

What with all the bombing and biblical flooding, we all probably missed the most important speech of the year. It came from Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee.

“Today the Olympic Games are the only event that brings the entire world together in peaceful competitions,” said the former fencing champion. “Yes, it is possible to compete fiercely against each other and live peacefully together under one roof. People are fed up with all the hate and aggression and negative news they are facing day in, day out. We are longing for something that brings us together.”

While Bach mused about what could be, other suits – those preening, hate-entrenched, revenge-obsessed, forgiveness-averse, overwhelmingly male brigade – sat behind large tables and ordered drones and boys to do their dirty killing.

Far more interested in getting in their tit, before the next one gets in his tat, in time for their tit, and then another tat. That’s the kind of sport they revel in. Entrenched in bunkers of fury, convinced of their rightful place in history, desperate for justification regardless of calamitous consequence, they plough on.

But they should pause and look at the principles of the Olympics, at what

Bach is saying and at the example of the young athletes. While we cheer on the athletes who represent our nations on the racetrack, in the pool, on the BMX track and with air pistols, I hope they can represent us as emissaries of amity.

Previous experience dictates that the Olympic village is one giant Club 18-30 holiday camp, where 10,000 young, fit, toned, dedicated, ambitious, dreaming-of-glory youth gather. “The athletes will show us what humans are capable of,” says Bach. And that means one hell of a party. Or as one journalist I know, who covered the Olympics in Rio, put it: “It’s a shag-fest.”

So, as love breaks out in the Olympic village, can peace break out among the policymakers? How wonderful it would be if beautiful things happened in Paris and then an uncontrollable bug was unleashed upon the world; a pandemic of love. But sadly history, or rather what is happening this very week, teaches us otherwise. The virtue of peace is far less tempting than the glorious slug-fest that is war.