IS IT my imagination or are these Olympic Games really the dullest, most uninspiring in living memory?

What happened to the thrills, spills, agony, ecstasy and all of the other drama we normally associate with this four-yearly sporting spectacle.

OK, so Michael Phelps made a memorable splash in the Olympic pool and the unfancied Iraqis made it all the way to the soccer semi-finals. And then, of course, there were the expected drug scandals and the outrageous judging. So what?s new?

All in all, the last two weeks in Athens have, for many of us, been eminently forgettable.

And much of the credit for that can be handed to NBC.

Sorry to disappoint our network friends who?ve been whooping it up at Elbow Beach but ? and I sense I?m not alone in this assessment ? the TV coverage has been pitifully poor.

And for those of us not in Athens, that?s really the only way we can judge the Games.

Precious little, if any, of the action has been shown live and many of us have been left watching events of which we already knew the outcome.

Riveting!

If that?s not been bad enough, for every race, game or discipline actually recorded, we?ve had to endure endless ads and countless syrupy personality profiles of little or no interest to anyone without allegiance to the Stars and Stripes.

Of course, NBC, like any other national network, is going to put the emphasis on their own athletes. That?s to be expected. But it?s doubtful any other country does it with such overwhelming disregard for the rest of the competition.

But that apart, there just hasn?t been enough variation. Thankfully, we?ve seen a fair bit of the track and field ? but not nearly as much as most of us would like to see, and all of it recorded and aired late at night.

Gymnastics and beach volleyball ? events that barely get a look-in during the four years separating each Olympics ? seem to have dominated the screen with precious little of any of the other 30-odd sports.

If the Games have been filled with the kind of excitement the IOC would have us believe is actually unfolding, then unfortunately we haven?t been privy to it.

For the most part, it?s been a bore. Thankfully, come Sunday, it?ll all be over.

IF there?s been one redeeming feature of the Games, it?s that the IOC and various other global associations finally seem to have found a way to weed out the drug cheats.

The millions of dollars spent on developing methods to detect the masking drugs behind which ?dirty? athletes concealed their performance enhancing pills and injections appear to have paid dividends.

The battle, of course, has to continue as those competitors bent on winning at any cost will still search for a way to gain an unfair advantage.

However, perhaps the biggest challenge facing the IOC before Beijing in 2008 might not lie with the athletes but with their own officials. It?s become clear during these Games that a lot more has to be done to eliminate the crooked judges.

In gymnastics, in particular, and also in equestrian, fencing, wrestling, and rowing, we?ve witnessed some appalling and clearly biased judging.

No evidence of ?fixing? has been unearthed but there?s an awful lot of people closely associated with some of the above sports who are convinced that cash or other incentives are being made available.

IOC vice president Thomas Bach said this week that, as with the athletes, judges had to be made more accountable for their actions. ?If they?re seen to be not good enough, they shouldn?t be invited back (to the next Games),? he said.

That?s hardly sufficient. At the slightest hint of impropriety, judges should be investigated with the same vigour used to hound out athletes suspected of drug-taking.

And the punishment meted out should be equally harsh.