MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN about the Olympic Games: illustrated histories, compendiums, almanacs, even scholarly journals. But nobody, as far as I am aware, has yet written the definitive opus: a single-volume illuminating the essence of the greatest show on Earth, charting its improbable trajectory from ancient to modern, interpreting its meaning and encompassing its epic dimensions. In that sense the Great Olympic Story, as we may call it, is sport's answer to the mythic Great American Novel. All we need now is a Mailer or a Hemingway to do it justice.

I took part in my first Olympics in Barcelona in 1992 and knew, within moments of entering the surreal environs of the athletes' village, that it was going to be one of the formative experiences of my life. Like many an Olympic virgin I was carried high on the collective euphoria - how could I fail to be when, on my first visit to the huge dining hall, I found myself seated a couple of yards from Merlene Ottey, the Jamaican sprint goddess? We exchanged pleasantries and she smiled regally as she left, half- strutting, half-shimmying towards the exit. I fell instantly in love, although whether with Ottey or the Games I was not entirely sure.

For much of my time in the Catalan capital I was less a sportsman than an explorer, wielding my precious athletes' pass to gain access to the endless array of venues, acquiescing in the tranquillity of archery one day and the artistry of gymnastics the next. I even managed to play well in the table tennis competition, defeating a seasoned Frenchman and giving the world champion from Sweden a scare. But defeat, far from discouraging me, made me even keener to metabolise the Olympic experience, like a man who has had a glimpse of his own mortality.

I was in the athletes' stand at the Montjuic stadium for the greatest Olympic event of all: the final of the 100m; I watched as Linford Christie stood behind his blocks, unmoving, unblinking, the silence in the stadium more intoxicating than any roar. As Simon Barnes, Chief Sports Writer of The Times, wrote: “The neuroses and ambition of eight men fills the stadium when the prize of all prizes is at stake. The simultaneous need for both fight and flight creates a tension unreachable in any other sporting event.”

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It was over in an instant. Christie soared through the line amid an explosion of flashbulbs, arms aloft, revelling in the frenzied embrace of more than 60,000 spectators. But something odd was happening all around me. No applause, no acclaim, just huddled conversations among the athletes. And then the words that I will always associate with the Olympics emerged from an athlete in the seat behind: “I wonder what he was on?” It was the moment my Olympic dream dimmed; seven years later Christie tested positive for anabolic steroids.

The challenge for any literary tilt at the Olympics is to weld together, in a single narrative, both its beauty and its ugliness. It is not just drug-taking, of course - it is the bloated commercialism, the corruption, the institutionalised expediency; indeed, the entire gamut of human vice. The scars are not limited to its modern incarnation, however: back in ancient Greece there was all manner of cheating, violence and skulduggery, not least when Eupolus, a boxer from Thessaly, bribed three opponents to take a dive in 388BC.

This year, being the 100-year anniversary of the 1908 London Games, has brought forth a number of historical volumes, most notably The First London Olympics by Rebecca Jenkins and Olympic Follies by Graeme Kent.

Jenkins, in particular, captures the many ironies of that shambolic occasion and wittily evokes the amateurish spirit that pervaded the early Olympic movement. Another worthy offering is The Austerity Olympics by Janie Hampton, a perceptive and jaunty account of the London Games of 1948, which also manages to whet the appetite for London's third tilt at Olympic hosting in 2012.

Of the books covering the entire sweep, Treasures of the Olympic Games, a collector's book containing all manner of photos and inserts of historic documents, is a standout volume, even if the commentary running alongside the imagery is rather sanitised. A more robust offering is David Miller's Official History, which, despite carrying the imprimatur of the International Olympic Committee, grapples with the many ups and downs of the past 112 years, but without turning the volume into a literary seesaw. The only criticism of Miller is that he is just a tad sycophantic towards Juan Antonio Samaranch, the former Franco supporter who became President of the IOC.

It was Samaranch, of course, who was in the hot seat not only when the scandals broke revealing the edifice of corruption underpinning the bidding of candidate cities but also when Ben Johnson tested positive in Seoul in the most infamous doping scandal of all. Of the investigative books focusing on the dark side of the Games, the most audacious remain those by Andrew Jennings, most notably: Lords of the Rings: Power, Money and Drugs in the Modern Olympics.

I once debated the future of the Olympics with Jennings at the English Speaking Union and was impressed by his fervour. But it hit me - and I made the point during the debate - that his impassioned denunciation exposed the weakness of his argument. The reason we are so appalled by the failings of the IOC is deeply indicative of why the Games may yet survive for a few more centuries: we are captivated by the Olympics even as we mourn its lost idealism. There is, it seems, something integral to the Games that holds so many of us in thrall.

But what? Perhaps no writer has articulated the allure of the Games with more panache than Simon Barnes. On his day Barnes remains the most urgently lyrical of contemporary sportswriters and his reverence for the Olympics is both profound and infectious.

I remember sitting with Barnes and David Chappell, the former Sports Editor of this parish, in a square in Athens on the eve of the 2004 Games - my first as a journalist. For more than an hour Barnes emoted about the Olympics, sounding more like a lover than a hack.

Whether Beijing, a few weeks hence, will surpass the Games that have gone before is debatable, although there is little doubt that it will burn powerful new images on our collective retina. I am especially excited because it will be the first time that table tennis, as the national sport of China, takes centre stage. But whatever passes off, the 2008 Olympics will be a seminal occasion, not least because there will be a muscular political narrative to run alongside the sporting one. It is yet more rich material for whoever musters the ambition to attempt the Great Olympic Story.

The First London Olympics: 1908 by Rebecca Jenkins
Piatkus, £16.99; 288pp
Buy the book

Olympic Follies: The Madness and Mayhem of the 1908 London Games: A Cautionary Tale by Graeme Kent
JR Books, £14.99, 240pp
Buy the book

The Austerity Olympics: When the Games Came to London in 1948 by Janie Hampton
Aurum, £18.99, 400pp
Buy the book

The Treasures of the Olympic Games: An Official Olympic Museum Publication
Carlton, £30, 64pp
Buy the book

The Official History of the Olympic Games and the IOC: Athens to Beijing 1894-1908
by David Miller
Buy the book

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