Even the North Koreans are up there with the elite

Huh, I never thought that I'd see this happen but when I logged into the Internet this morning, one of the first pages that loaded in my browser was the medal standings after three rounds of the London Olympics.

It is still early days, of course, but who would have thought that among the top five countries is....North Korea with three gold medals! Two of them coming from weightlifting.

Wonderful achievements by these two athletes but they brought me some amusement when they said that their successes were owed to their country's past and present leaders.

First, Om Yun Choi gave all the credit to Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader who died last year: "How can any man possibly lift 168kg? I believe the great Kim Jong Il looked over me."

Then after the second weightlifting gold, Kim Un Guk gushed: "The secret is nothing but the support and encouragement from our supreme leader chairman Kim Jong Un, because he expects so much from all our athletes, and he expects the highest performance from all our athletes. That's the secret."

I suspect our own dear leader in Putrajaya does not expect the highest performance from our representatives in London because there are no medals yet.