Australia, that great exporter of soap opera, continues to churn out real-life episodes in the name of swimming’s reluctant megastar, Ian Thorpe. The latest is a reworking of a well-used script: being photographed on holiday with Daniel Mendes, the Brazilian swimmer, making the Thorpedo’s sexuality a talking point again.

Thorpe detests this. Although, when you have sold ranges of jewellery and underwear under your name, you are hardly closing down the conversation. This week’s was his third public declaration that he is not gay.

Comparisons are being made with Matthew Mitcham, the Olympic diving champion, who is openly gay and has struggled to win sponsorship. Thus the question: would “coming out” be bad for business?

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Super Bowl XLIII will kick off in Tampa, Florida, tomorrow night in the shadow of the “Chunky Soup Curse”. In a phenomenon well known for affecting the players endorsed as spokesmen for the Campbell’s foodstuff, they suffer severe injury or loss of form. Fourteen have been affected to date, with one meeting an early death, although the soup itself is blameless. Reggie White, a former defensive end with the Green Bay Packers, who became a spokesman in 1997, died seven years later, aged 43, after suffering a heart attack. That this year’s starting quarterbacks, Kurt Warner, of the Arizona Cardinals, and Ben Roethlisberger, of the Pittsburgh Steelers, are former “Chunkies” has led to Campbell’s sending baskets of good-luck charms plus cans of soup to the mayors of both teams’ cities. The news even comes with a quote from Campbell’s concluding that “either way, a former Chunky guy is going to be Super Bowl champion”.

Sven-Göran Eriksson is fighting another rearguard action — this time in Mexico, where a 1-0 friendly defeat by Sweden on Thursday has inched the coach closer to the sack. All would be saved if, on February 11, Mexico beat the United States away in a World Cup qualifier, a feat not achieved for a decade.

The Mexican press are not entirely unhelpful, though. Record, the daily sports paper, has printed giveaway coupons for fans to pick up a free voodoo doll of a US player. The advertisement reads: “Help end the losing streak.”