The Olympics are on, have you noticed?

It’s not quite as exciting as London 2012, when you felt like it was in touching distance, and it’s nowhere near as much fun as Glasgow 2014, when the Commonwealth Games brought colourful, unfettered joy to our city, but it’s still (mostly) great to watch.

I don’t mean the endless hours of road cycling (what IS the point? It’s only a race for that wee sprinty bit at the end – the rest of the time they all just mill about in a pack daring each other to break out first) or beach volleyball or golf. Why is GOLF in the Olympics?

(Nor do I mean the exasperating nonsense about whether accomplished, professional, engaging presenter Helen Skelton’s skirt was too short when she was talking about the swimming heats. Oh, grow up. It makes me want to spit.)

No, I mean the superhuman stuff, like the gymnasts and the runners and the swimmers and the jumpers and the throwers.

It’s awe-inspiring, watch people bend, leap and power their way towards Olympic medals but even more fascinating, often, are the stories behind the sportsmen and women.

The production teams and journalists do a grand job of finding the tales behind the teams – I love the fact, for example, that Adam Peaty – Team GB’s first gold medal winner, and the first man to win an Olympic swimming medal since 1988 – was scared of the water when he was a child.

It was amazing to watch the Republic of Korea’s unflappable women archers in action, taking the gold medal which makes it eight out of eight for the country – it has won that event every time since the sport was introduced to the Olympic programme at Seoul in 1988.

And there's our own Tsegai Tewelde, the Eritrean-born marathon runner who survived a landmine blast which killed his friend and who now lives in Glasgow. He'll be competing on August 21, alongside Elderslie brothers Callum and Derek Hawkins.

But probably the most amazing story from this year’s Games is the tale of swimmer Yusra Mardini, who represents the Refugee team under the Olympic flag and who won her 100m butterfly heat earlier this week.

The 18-year-old fled war-torn Syria with her sister and tried to reach Greece in a boat fit for six but carrying 20 people. When the motor failed, she jumped in and swam for three and a half hours, pulling the boat and stopping it from capsizing before reaching land. She was given asylum in Berlin where her swimming talents were spotted and that led to Rio.

Superhuman, right enough.