It's the Olympic Games

Ed Gorman considers what the four yearly extravaganza means

There are some varied dishes on the menu of international sailing, but none more delicious than the Olympic regatta. After a wait of four long years, the unique drama of Olympic sailing is about to be played out once again. For some, dreams will come true, but for so many others, those same dreams will evaporate or, worse, turn into nightmares.

The moment you walk into the superb venue at Rushcutter's Bay on Sydney Harbour, you are reminded in so many ways that this is not just any old sailing event, but something special. The security at the various gates is intense, no matter how many times you go through or how familiar you become to the volunteers manning the metal detectors.

Once in, you notice immediately that it's all been beautifully thought out. Just on your right is a doping control facility - imagine that at Cork Week. Then there's a dedicated weather centre where a team of six meteorologists beaver away from four in the morning to seven at night, producing detailed forecasts for each of the six race course areas.

There are designated eating areas for the 800 uniformed volunteers who help venue manager Glen Bourke and his team run the event. There are designated eating areas for the 402 sailors from 69 nations who are here to fight for 11 gold medals. There's a massage tent, a massive press office and a boatpark which is more like a science laboratory than the usual happy chaos of a club facility.

Journalists are allowed into the hushed atmosphere of the boatpark but only at certain times and with special passes hanging round our necks. It's a place to observe the last throws of a four-year obsession. There are precisely dressed sailors arriving precisely at the time they need to for the day's practice, fiddling with settings, adding bits of tape or taking them away, and talking it all through quietly with coaches. There's a palpable sense of the adrenalin, the nerves and the excitement building as the day of reckoning draws near.

There are a lot of things missing which mark an Olympic regatta out from the rest - some of which are most welcome. For starters there's no beer tent. These guys are concentrating and will get drunk for many days if they win, but there's no place for alcohol now. Imagine Cowes Week without a bar. Something else that's missing is a handicap system and hurray for that. We're talking first past the post here and often it's going to be by just a matter of millimetres. In some classes rig and sail development has gobbled up a lot of money and some medals will be decided by design, but mostly it's all about skill, nerve and the big game temperament.

Some of the best sailors in the history of the sport are here - though we should always remember that the system of qualification by country means that many more of the world's best are not here. That said, there are some legends preparing to do battle. Among them is Jochen Schumann, the German triple gold medallist who goes again in Solings, and Robert Scheidt the Brazilian Olympic champion in Lasers, whose unprecedented fourth world title in that class earlier this year, makes him already one of the greatest sailors of all time.

Then there is the team who carry the hopes of British sailing. Could it really be that four medals could come our way? Iain Percy in Finns is my own favourite for gold. He and his coach David Howlett are as relaxed as you like - for Howlett the progress of Arsenal is almost as important as what happens on the Harbour and that suits Percy fine, because he's always benefited from a healthy realisation that sailing is not the be-all and end-all of life.

Ben Ainslie faces the unenviable task of taking Scheidt on again while both Shirley Robertson and Andy Beadsworth have got unfinished business at the Olympics. The disappointment of fourth place at Savannah is long behind both of them and let's hope that fate is not visited on either of them again.

Coming to Sydney has triggered many Savannah memories - a weird regatta held at a purpose-built marina in a swamp which cost US$20 million to build and was then dismantled as soon as the Games were over. Two in particular that come to mind are the scenes of joy when the late John Merricks celebrated his silver medal in 470s amid much drunkenness at a Savannah nightclub. The other is the strange fate that befell the talented Swedish Soling skipper, Magnus Holmberg, who came to the Games in medal-winning form but then just failed to produce on the day and ended up something like ninth. That is going to happen again this time to some of the favourites for medals here - let's hope none of them are British.