TV View: Welcome to "sun-drenched Semple Stadium," chirped RTÉ presenter Michael Lyster on Saturday afternoon and he wasn't joshing the viewers.

The replay between Clare and Kilkenny for a place in the All-Ireland hurling semi-final brought the shining faces of Lyster, Ger Loughnane and Cyril Farrell to Thurles. Shoe-horned into an evidently humid commentary box, Farrell celebrated the fact the game was not being played in Croke Park.

"Thurles to me is the home of hurling," he announced before presciently offering, "I have a sneaky feeling Kilkenny will get through. Most neutrals will feel that Clare lost their chance."

Part of the appeal of the championship appears to be what it represents as much as what it is. A celebration of the Irish summer, its connection with school holidays and long evenings and the broad sweep of interest it attracts from all corners of the island coalesce into its essence.

It strikes a note for its cameos as much as for the contest itself. Tommy Walsh in slow motion rising up in the air among a phalanx of Clare hurls and arms, to field a ball; Henry Shefflin dropping at least two simple passes and collapsing with blood streaming from his face.

"It's the first time we've seen him (Shefflin) in four years not playing well," said Loughnane in a wonderfully back-handed compliment.

When the animated and angry Shefflin left the pitch, he bore an odd similarity to one of the wrestling characters in Channel 4's continued look at the ancient Games. The Ancient Greek Olympics successfully deconstructed the mythology of the Games and illustrated that the ancient event was as corrupt, as cravenly centred around profit and as full of cheats as any of the modern games.

"You didn't win anything in the ancient Games unless you trained intensively, struck to a few disciplines and had a professional team around you," said the narrator. It seems the Greeks had no word for amateur or professional (does the Gaelic language?) so the old idea on which the modern Olympics were born, that of amateur gentlemen, was a myth and an "elite fantasy".

There were a number of reasons for keeping the "lower orders" and those who were engaged in "menial work" from competing against the toffs. At the Henley Regatta of the 19 century, this was made clear by the exclusion of those people who earned their living from working on the London waterways.

There were two reasons. The first was they might embarrass the gentlemen of the regatta if they inadvertently met them in a social setting. The second, and just as terrifying, was the poor would probably have won the events because they were more developed physically due to their work. They were categorised as "professional". The class myth and "professional" agenda were born out of a need to perpetuate the baseless idea of superiority.

"We admired those who appeared to achieve a lot without trying too hard," said a former athlete, who described how a famous South African runner of his day would puff on a cigar up to seconds before his 400-metre race. The same athlete ran one race in a world-record time and picked up his still-smouldering cigar at the end.

Emperor Nero cheated at the Games, offering enormous bribes to secure wins, and while it was an act of sacrilege to cheat, it seemed many athletes' desire to win was stronger than their fear of divine retribution. There was the boxer who beat his opponent to death in competition but was disqualified, not for the killing but for clinching.

From Nero to the marathon runner who hitched a ride for 14 miles, to the Soviet fencer who rigged up his wiring so a strike would register when he pressed a button on his sword, to Ben Johnson and the Salt Lake City bribery scandals, the Olympic Games have been consistent in what they have striven to do but have also consistently failed in those very aims.

The holy site of the ancient Games, Olympia, was twice attacked by other Greek states and numerous times by other raiding parties. But in order to avoid a bidding war, the Games were never moved from Olympia. The Greeks also stayed clear of subjectively judged events. To curb cheating they needed clear-cut winners. Ice-skating wasn't an option.

One thing has remained intact through the years with athletes across many sports and is something Shefflin may have thought about as the Kilkenny doctors were attending the wound near his eye on Saturday.

What transcends the centuries are not the rules or motivations that govern modern sport but the imperfections of human nature in the athletes themselves.

As Lyster said on Saturday, "Jeanie Mac."