Sport is not just about competing and winning and losing. It goes into some dark little corners of the psyche that we didn't think existed. One of these we can call the "arrogance of excellence" and this is a place you don't want to go.
The worst of the current examples is the Caster Semenya affair, followed more recently by the antics of Emmanuel Adebayor in football and Serena Williams in tennis.
All three focus on three brilliant athletes on three different stages and how the ability to excel on the biggest platforms can give rise to spectacular arrogance.
The arrogance of the excellent is possibly the worst trait one can encounter in a sports person, but of the three examples mentioned only Semenya is without blame.
The arrogance is not hers - it is the arrogance of those around her who would use her excellence to boast of their own prowess.
People point fingers at the IAAF for exposing Semenya in the worst possible way but it is possible that the worst culprits are here at home. If it is true they used Semenya as a pawn because of her world championship potential, then their conduct is disgraceful.
Butana Komphela, chairman of parliament's sports committee, accuses the IAAF of racism and sexism in a report to the UN's office of the high commission on human rights. Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya, Minister for Women, Children and People With Disabilities, has reportedly laid a complaint (presumably against the IAAF) with the UN's division for the advancement of women.
Why did Komphela and Mayende-Sibiya go so far afield? They might just have popped along the corridor to the minister of sport's office and demanded his immediate resignation.
Or is Phiwe Tsholetsane of Athletics SA lying when she says: "Our mandate was to come back with medals from the Berlin world championships. How would we have explained not allowing Caster to run to the minister of sport?"
It seems that both the minister and the president of Athletics SA are on the same page in this sordid affair. If that's the case, both should have the decency to resign - but of course they won't.
As for the others, Adebayor and Williams have no excuses. In playing a brilliant match for Manchester City in beating his former club Arsenal, and then openly taunting the opposition fans, Adebayor should be charged with incitement.
Williams refuses to apologise to the line judge she abused in New York as TV replays show the line judge probably got it wrong. In real time, on court, Williams would not have known that. From a world champion, that's arrogance worthy of contempt.