You could say that it is right and just and not exactly surprising that Muhammad Ali should have been in Washington for the presidential inauguration this week, given that he has played a fairly handy role in the United States and the politics of colour. The same could not be said of Tiger Woods. He was in Washington, too, although you wonder whether that was a commitment he would have met had his knee allowed him to be on the golf course.

Given Barack Obama’s Kenyan roots, I like this one: Pamela Jelimo, was flown in as part of the Kenyan delegation to Washington. Jelimo, 19, is an 800 metres runner and last summer she became the first Kenyan woman to win an Olympic track gold.

Significant absentees: Tommie Smith and John Carlos, they of the raised fists in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics Black Power salute. Smith and Carlos were not exactly out of the action. They watched the inauguration from their hotel rooms in Boston, Massachusetts, both apparently in tears. The next day they would be inducted into the “True Heroes of Sport” Hall of Fame at the Northeastern University Centre for the Study of Sport in Society.

Also from Washington: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has declared that she wants to forge closer links with the Caribbean and her husband, Bill, has given her intentions clarity by saying that he wants to meet Usain Bolt. We already hear that Bolt is “humbled” by all this.

The sprinter might do well to take them to his parents’ home in northwest Jamaica, where he had to cut off his Christmas visit because the water supply had dried up. This has been an occasional hardship for most of his life. Bolt used his feet to beat the world; his neighbours use theirs to go to the river for water.

From Auckland, the great John Walker, the “Flying Kiwi” who won the 1,500 metres at the Montreal Olympic Games in 1976, has declared his intention to give every South Auckland child a chance to learn to swim. Walker is a local councillor and his project is called “Find Your Field of Dreams”. He has fought Parkinson’s disease since 1996.