■ Oh. And one more thing. Your performance in the press conference was even more disgraceful than on the court, particularly telling the journo who had the temerity to ask you a civil question that you would - threatening glare - remember his name. Please. On this matter, you'd do well to remember the words of the president of the Scottish Rugby Union to the Wallabies at an after-match function in 1988. ''Always remember in your dealing with the press, lads,'' he said in his thick brogue, ''that it's like making love to a hedgehog. At the end of the day, you're just one prick against a thousand.'' Late-breaking news flash: Tomic appears to have taken these words to heart, and, so far has turned it around in 2013. (Don't mention it, Bernie.) GOLD MEDDLING Let's go back. In the beginning, the sun shone and the Australians ran on green fields and swam year-round and that was enough. Enough to win many medals at Olympics after Olympics. And if more money was needed, then the athletes could sell lamingtons to make up the difference. In 1976, of course, that stopped, when our people came home with just one bronze medal, and so the Australian Institute of Sport was invented. And instead of taxpayers' money going to the traditional things like schools and roads and hospitals and more green fields for kids to run around on, big chunks of it went to elite athletes. By 2009, with so much concern over just how big those chunks were, the government commissioned the Crawford report, which recommended that the balance be put right, and more money should go back to grassroots sports. In response, John Coates, you'll recall, made out that it was the most un-Australian thing since the poisoning of Phar Lap. The government caved in and gave the AOC more money than ever before. And that's where we are now - more than $10 million for each medal won. So let's start with the bleeding obvious. Things are out of kilter. It is one thing to say we need this money more than grassroots sport so we can bring home lots of medals to inspire the kids to run and swim, but when you fail to deliver on that promise, serious questions have to be asked. So, I'll go first. Why not go back to the Crawford report's recommendations? Why not embrace the notion that while Olympic medals are great, when you are paying more than $10 million for each one, it stops being sport and starts being an industry? An industry that is not providing the returns to the Australian people compared with putting the same amount of money into desperately needed sporting infrastructure for the entire population - tennis courts, swimming pools, green fields, basketball courts and all the rest. For too long we've had a trickle-down model for sports funding. That is, give the money to the elite and the benefits will trickle down to the inspired littlies. Enough! Let's go for the AFL model, which is proved to work so well. Put the money into the base. Expand the base. Watch the kids run, watch the kids kick, watch the pyramid grow tall! RECYCLED TRUTH

Yes, of course I have received a lot of correspondence about Lance Armstrong but, despite what you might think, I take no joy in his being exposed as a drug cheat - as I have been intimating just this side of defamation for years - and being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles. It remains an extremely sad story for all concerned, and throws the entire cycling world into disarray. If Armstrong didn't win those titles, who did? The answer is not obvious, most particularly when many of the riders who came second have also been exposed as drug cheats. What does get my goat, however, is those scattered few who still maintain his innocence, despite it all! Please. Their main mantra is that he never failed a drug test. Might I remind you that neither did Marion Jones? And yet the American sprinter did time in jail for her own drug use based on other evidence. In the case of Armstrong, after throwing every resource he had to stop the legal process, and knowing that at the top of the courthouse stairs were 10 former teammates ready to testify as to his guilt, when he pulled the pin. This, this is your innocent man? He is about to have his day in court, his one shot at proving his innocence after all these years; he has come this far, and now he says: ''Yers can all get nicked, I am going home.'' Innocence should be made of sterner stuff. I accept Armstrong was a great competitor, that he made an inspiring comeback from cancer and that he has subsequently helped raise hundred of millions of dollars for cancer victims. But none of that alters the demonstrable truth: he is a drug cheat, the same way Ben Johnson was a drug cheat, a fraud who was not what he appeared to be. CORRECTION I got it wrong in my rant on Lance Armstrong, and I do apologise to readers. I should have checked that every syllable of what I wrote was correct, and I didn't. Specifically, I refer to my words that Armstrong ''subsequently helped raise hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer victims''. For it is far from sure that he does that at all. I had naively assumed that such money as was raised would go to the bleeding obvious: research to cure cancer. Instead, only a very small portion goes to that, while the thrust of the whole ''Livestrong'' organisation seems to have the far more nebulous goal of simply ''raising awareness''. A fascinating article published in Outside magazine last year spells it all out. It is well worth Googling: ''If Lance Armstrong went to jail and Livestrong went away, that would be a huge setback in our war against cancer, right? Not exactly, because the famous non-profit donates almost nothing to scientific research. Bill Gifford looks at where the money goes and finds a mix of fine ideas, millions of dollars aimed at 'awareness' and a few very blurry lines …'' WHAT THEY SAID Tweet of the year: @rdhinds: "Oprah asks 'tough' question. Lance confesses. Lance cries. Oprah forgives. Audience goes nuts. 'Yellow jerseys under your seats!'"

John McEnroe, as Bernard Tomic appeared to throw in the towel in the third set against Andy Roddick during the US Open: ''It looks like the tank job. This is a shame. You don't like to see this.'' Tomic was later cleared of tanking by the ATP. Davis Cup captain Pat Rafter on Tomic the Tank Engine: ''I threw out the big D word, 'disgraceful', to him yesterday. That's just the way it was. He's got to learn. There's no use sugar-coating something, he has to do the work, and I'm sick and tired of tiptoeing around it, and I think everyone else is as well. He needs to realise, that's what he needs to do, and he says he does.'' Australian professional cycling pioneer Phil Anderson on Lance Armstrong: ''Until a few days ago I was barracking for Lance. It was a witch-hunt, a whole bunch of losers trying to bring him down, tall poppy. All the sceptics were always haranguing me and telling me I was ignorant. I have proved to be the fool in all this, along with millions of others.'' Thank you. ESPN faced an appropriately massive backlash after running this headline about New York Knicks star, Asian-American Jeremy Lin: "Chink in the Armor." There was, appropriately, hell to pay, and the man who wrote the headline was sacked. Nathan Tinkler: ''Some sections of the media treat me like I was Christopher Skase, breathing through a mask, sitting in a wheelchair in Majorca. I never run from anybody, everyone always gets paid. I would say the noisy few have made a lot of people nervous, and there is no need to be.'' Whatever you say, Christopher.

Israel Folau no longer a Giant: ''The passion wasn't there.'' Mega tennis coach Nick Bollettieri: ''If I had to pick two or three guys in the world to back me up in battle, Lleyton Hewitt's arse would be the first one I'd have in my foxhole … He gives everything he has and a little bit more. Tomic, I'm not sure he's there yet.'' Sonny Bill Williams on the need to have his agent registered with the NRL before he can be accepted back to the fold: ''We'll cross the bridges and tick all the boxes.'' Dennis Cometti in the Hawks-Demons match, after a Hawks player somehow manages to twist his way out of a tackle, despite being covered by three Demons and being right next to the boundary: ''Oh, the old Ralph Fiennes manoeuvre. Not much space to move, but he made it work.'' The fellow who tweets as God - @TweetOfGod - had this to say in May: ''No miracle I have ever done for man is like unto the one I just pulled off for Man City.'' In another tweet: ''I created breasts to give babies a means to live, and men a reason to.''

TEAM OF THE WEEK

Andy Murray. Became Britain's first major singles champion since Fred Perry in 1936, back when Britain itself was still a world power. Australian tennis. For the third year in a row lost a world group play-off when up 2-1. Brisbane Roar. Back-to-back grand final winners. Greater Western Sydney Giants. Finished with the wooden spoon, but at least won two games in their inaugural year. Meanwhile, the Israel Folau experiment was a disaster.

GREAT LOSSES RIP Lizzie Watkins (1988-2012). The Perth hockey star was tragically killed in May when struck in the back of the head by a ball during a game. RIP Jock Hobbs (1960-2012). The former All Blacks captain and NZRU chairman died in a Wellington hospital in March after a long battle with leukaemia. He was just 52, and a great rugby man. RIP Jim Stynes (1966-2012). The widely admired Melbourne president and 1991 Brownlow medallist died in March at the age of just 45. RIP Murray Rose (1939-2012). The four-time Olympic gold medallist swimmer - known as the Seaweed Streak due to his veganism - passed away in April. His ashes were subsequently scattered on Bondi Beach. Vale.

RIP Jeanne Chappell. The only Australian woman to have produced three Test cricketers passed away, aged 91, in September. Loading RIP John McCarthy (1989-2012). AFL player died in September in mysterious circumstance, hours after arriving in Las Vegas on an end-of-season trip with his Port Adelaide teammates. Twitter - @Peter_Fitz