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There are times in this job when you get to interview someone whose story is so inspiring, whose determination to succeed despite the odds is so great, that all your trivial worries and concerns seem paltry in comparison.

Earlier I spent half an hour on the phone to just such a person. It was eight o'clock in the morning, when I'm usually dashing around pestering the kids to get themselves ready for school.

But it was the only time my guest could talk, and with the prospect of me being in the studio presenting 5 live Sport until later on Thursday evening, we linked up the phone lines between London and Italy, with a producer at Television Centre recording it all for Thursday's show.

At the end of our conversation, the question of whether my younger daughter had remembered to pick up her guitar, or whether the elder daughter had practised her seven times table, didn't seem to matter a huge amount.

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So, let's come up with some great sporting rivalries., Coe and Ovett, all go without saying. But what about Gough and Jackson? Or Dawson and Ramprakash?

We're talking Strictly Come Dancing, of course, and if like me you've been counting down to this Friday night since last year's Christmas Special, you don't need me to remind you of the moody magnificence of Argentine Tango, Matt Dawson resplendent in pink lycra for the Cha Cha Cha, Darren Gough turning twinkle toes in the Quickstep, and Colin Jackson's magnificent mid-air splits - although it was Gough, the Barnsley boy, who won the ballroom battle between the two in 2005.

Sports stars have a brilliant record of success in sequins - and with a record five current and past sporting champions in Strictly 2009, there must be a great chance of another one of them waltzing off with the coveted mirror ball trophy in three months' time.

But how come sports people do so well on Strictly? What gives them the edge?

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Are there any Radio 5 live veterans out there who remember a little programme from the mid 1990's called "Women on Top"? When the younger producers of 5 live Sport heard that such a show had once existed, they were gobsmacked that we'd got away with such a daring double entendre in the title - and back in the 'olden days', too.

It was part of the original 5 live schedule back in 1994, and it was a weekly look at the world of women's sport. Eventually it bit the dust in a move to get rid of so called "niche programming" on the network. "Out This Week", a gay and lesbian interest show, and "Sports America" (go on, have a guess...) went the same way - the argument was that the subjects we covered should make the airwaves on editorial merit, rather than be ghetto-ised in their own little slots.

So Thursday night's 5 live Sport was a bit of a return to the ghetto.

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