When you attempt to evaluate Rebecca Adlington's extraordinary career, there are two things that stand out.
First, Adlington, who announced her retirement at just 23 this week, is the outstanding British swimmer of the last 100 years.
Second, she is 'just a girl from Mansfield', as she put it.
Retiring with distinction: Rebecca Adlington is 'just a girl from Mansfield'
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Adlington was only 19 when she won two gold medals in the 400 metres and 800m freestyle at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. She made history, becoming the first British woman to win two Olympic swimming titles, let alone in one Games.
She also broke - no, obliterated - a 19-year-old world record in winning the 800m. She became a household name overnight and then she trooped back to Mansfield and received a pair of gold Jimmy Choo heels from the mayor.
There were world, European and Commonwealth gold medals in between but, four years after Beijing, at a home Games she entered as an established name, I thought her achievements surpassed even those of 2008.
There was no gold this time but two, gutsy, hard-fought bronze medals. To hear her speak of 'letting everyone down' brought a tear to the eye because to come third was not to fail. Not in the slightest.
Think of the hours of training, talent and dedication it took to come back and try to defend those titles.
Fittingly, the warm swells of affection that cheered Adlington on to the podium provided two of the most poignant British moments of London 2012.
Golden girl: Adlington stood on the top step of the podium twice in 2008Adlington had delivered, yet again, but she remained 'Our Becky'.
Phenomena like Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps look like the superstars they are.
Lionel Messi, for example, does not, and neither does Adlington, until she gets into the water and glides.
When I interviewed her last year before her charity cycle ride through Zambia, she seemed genuinely concerned about falling off her bike and nattered on about hair straighteners, creepy-crawlies and nail polish.
She also laughed uproariously when asked what sort of training she did outside the pool.
'Can you imagine me doing ballet?' she said. 'I'm awful in the gym. I started off really bad and now I'm all right.'
All right? Adlington's career has been anything but 'all right'.
But then sport, and perhaps the music and film industries, seem to be the only areas in which it is a compliment to be described as all right and normal.
Golden girl: The best British swimmer in the last 100 yearsNot in the sense of being average or unspectacular, but appearing 'everyday' in light of an abnormal talent.
Some of the plaudits we bestow on Adlington have been bestowed on Jamie Carragher this week, too: work ethic, commitment, dedication and loyalty. These make the two high-achievers seem, fleetingly, like us.
Yet the scale of their feats makes them far removed from the everyday.
It is easy to knock Adlington's sense of normalness - and many have, cruelly and grossly unfairly - but this is to miss a sizeable trick.
She was the 'girl from Mansfield' who became Britain's most successful swimmer of the modern era.
She seemed to make the impossible possible. There can be no bigger compliment than that.
What they saidJessica Ennis's coach, Toni Minichiello, hit out at UK Athletics after turning down a consultancy job.
The 2012 Coach of the Year was the only Brit to train an Olympic track-and-field champion but does not fit UKA's criterion of coaching two world-class athletes.
Change: Jessica Ennis (right) will have to pay her coach Toni Minichiello'They've picked the wrong fat kid to bully,' he said.
So, it leaves Ennis in Sheffield paying for her own coaching, and double Olympic champ Mo Farah and long-jump winner Greg Rutherford working in the US with American coaches. Figure that out.
...and this is what I've been doing this weekSaw a glimpse of the future in 15-year-old Morgan Lake at the British Athletics UK Championships in Sheffield on Saturday.
Heptathlete Lake, the youngest competitor in any event, set a personal best of 1.81m to finish second in the high jump on Olympic champion Jessica Ennis's home track.
Star of the future: Morgan LakeSpent my holiday throwing strops, falling over and wincing at the middle-class nonsense of it all while trying to ski. The bruises and aches, though, are well worth it for the (admittedly fleeting, in my case) moments when it all comes together. Think I'll be a bit late for Sochi 2014, mind you.
Watched some biathlon - cross-country skiing and rifle shooting - on French television. Some sports you feel you can relate to, but others are just simply impressive. Biathlon falls into the latter category: a brutal, challenging discipline, but why you would want to ski uphill?
Performance of the weekChannel 4 secured the rights to the 2014 and 2016 Paralympic Games, committing to show 545 hours of action from Sochi and Rio.
If the profile of Parasport is to continue to improve, it needs a free-to-air TV platform now.
The IPC World Athletics Championships in Lyon in July and swimming's equivalent in Montreal in August will provide a useful gauge of whether London 2012 was a one-off.
