Sports Shrine by Lake Geneva

Inside, the building's top three levels are connected by a wide stainless steel and glass ramp that spirals to a skylit dome. In the spiral's center is a black, blue and red Joan Miró sculpture.

Each visitor is issued an attractive plastic card with an Olympic logo on one side (mine featured the jagged Dolomites and the logo of the 1956 winter games at Cortina d'Ampezzo) and an electronic strip on the other. When inserted into the turnstiles, the card allows entry to the various exhibits.

The museum has been described as "interactive" and we had visions of flinging ourselves into a long jump pit or sliding down a luge run, but the only interactive items we saw were computer terminals which, in several languages, provide additional information about the exhibits and the Games. Under consideration is a "simulation room," where visitors will be able to better "appreciate the athletes' exploits by measuring their own performance against those of champions."

If not interactive, the presentation is definitely multimedia. Though there are many static displays, the best and most moving exhibits - especially the film panoramas - incorporate video, sophisticated lighting and music.

A temporary exhibition, recalling the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1992 Albertville winter games, sounded uninteresting but turned out to be a dazzler. Dreamlike, surreal figures danced and flew in an extraordinary show of music and light.

The main floor gallery, which retraces the history of the Olympic Movement, was interesting but not so exciting as what was to come later in the Winter and Summer Games galleries. Here is more prosaic "museum stuff": ancient Greek vases, a collection of Olympic torches, flags (great sculpture of the Olympic flag), and, ho hum, a life-size diorama of the office of Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Games.

Even though the Olympic Museum displays some first-rate modern art, it is essentially still a collection of athletic memorabilia, mementos of the Games are everywhere; a shiny four-man bobsled hangs here, a varnished rowing shell there. And, of course, there is a substantial collection of things like the shoes Jessie Owens wore to win four gold medals in 1936 and lots of medals, old skis, hockey sticks and javelins.

One exhibition room is reserved for philately and numismatics and displays 12,000 stamps and 600 coins linked to the history of the Games. There is also a "donor's wall," inscribed with such names as Coca Cola and IBM, and a corner is devoted to the next summer games in Athens. 

But old stamps and Greek vases, even Baron de Coubertin and the wealthy men who support the Games, must take a back seat to the athletes and their performances. And no collection of skates, running shorts, basketballs or hockey pucks, can recall the great moments as well as film. It is the effective use of this medium that puts the Olympic Museum over the top. 

On our way out we took a last look at Citius, Altius, Fortius, that torso with the washboard belly, and considered the Olympic motto: "You who wish to excel, forge your body and soul to discover the best in yourself, always aim one degree higher than the goal you have set for yourself: faster, higher, stronger." Suitably inspired to aim that one degree higher, I decided to have an extra beer at lunch. 

The Olympic Museum, 1 Quai d'Ouchy, 1001 Lausanne, Switzerland