So - after all that - we're not going to see this summer's Olympic marathon contested by runners ready for a bit of brain surgery or an afternoon with a wooden floor and a sander.

No, three months after teasing us with talk of a hi-tech mask that would allow our athletes to gallop along without wheezing in the Beijing smog, Britain's Olympic chiefs have finally come to a firm decision.

Our athletes will be allowed to wear the kind of anti-pollution devices normally only seen on bike couriers but (probably) only to train in, and they don't really work anyway.

"Whataloadofmoney", somebody will no doubt cry, and yes, public money has been spent on developing these masks - not much (less than £30,000), though, and they may still prove to be worth the trouble, give or take a tweak or two. The idea was probably also worth trying.

I would normally say that masks in sport should be limited to people who need to protect their faces from painful objects flying towards them or wrestlers who need a bit of help in the 'I'm really scary' department (they should never be used in goal celebrations).

But attempting strenuous exercise during a Beijing summer might be a new category for permitable mask use.

In 2005, according to satellite data, the Chinese capital was the most polluted city in the world.

Last year, the World Health Organisation warned that not only might participants at the Games be at risk from pollution-related health problems but spectators too.

And only last month, the International Olympic Committee was forced to admit that some events - the ones that involve getting really out of breath for more than an hour - might have to be postponed.

Nobody can say the Chinese aren't trying to do something about it now - if you're in the chemicals, concrete or quarrying game in Beijing you can look forward to two months off from 20 July - but when you're starting from a position where the government sometimes has to advise people to stay in with the windows shut then you're looking at a lot of room for improvement.

The IOC has clearly decided you can only play with the cards you've been dealt (though some might point out that the IOC chose the casino) and has come out and publically backed Beijing.

It has also done everything short of banning them to make it known that anti-pollution masks will be about as welcome as Steven Spielberg. The sight of Paula Radcliffe and co running in surgical masks is probably not the image the IOC had in mind for its commemorative coffee table book.

But the lords of the rings know they can't really blame the cyclists, runners, triathletes and walkers for being a bit concerned. After all, it's the participants that are going to wake up as if they have spent a night smoking roll-ups in a coal shed.

So what's the solution?

Well, it's not masks, that much is clear (as one expert consulted by the IOC and IAAF put it, "What's the point of banning something that gives you a disadvantage?").

And the Chinese can only take so much time off before the rest of us start to miss their affordable goods.

No, I guess Paula, the IOC and the local organisers are just going to have to pray for a fair wind. And in future somebody might want to look at a host city's carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide levels earlier than a year out from the opening ceremony.