From Mr Usain Bolt to the modern pentathlon – here’s what to watch during the Rio Games.

Here we are again: planet Earth has completed four more orbits of the sun, lots of ridiculously expensive white elephant arenas have been erected (or are nearly there) in another soon-to-be-mobbed world capital, and a swarm of athletes from all over the globe (even some from Russia, controversially) are gathering in one location, in the hopes of walking away with some discs of metal on a ribbon. It all makes such perfect sense to us. But for anyone who is currently scratching their head in bemusement, wondering quite how to appropriately position themselves in relation to the cultural phenomenon known (for trademark reasons) as “the Games”, we’ve compiled the following guide to getting the most out of the event from the comfort of your own Zika virus-free home.

The opening ceremony of the London Games was commonly considered a great success. That’s partly due to the entertaining sequence in which the Queen and James Bond appeared to parachute into the stadium from a helicopter. However, as a general rule, these ceremonies are usually a complete and utter waste of time, and best avoided if you want your television set to function continuously throughout the rest of the games. Putting one’s boot through the screen might not sound like the most reasonable response to a contemporary dance routine performed by hundreds of precocious children wearing local costume. But three hours in, and nothing will seem more rational.

Look out for: Embarrassing disasters, if you must watch. Because with multiple hours of live TV transmission and thousands of moving parts, there are bound to be some howlers that will instantly be mined for meme gold. The worst of all time has to be at the 1988 Games in Seoul, when a flock of doves were released to symbolise peace, only to be burnt to a crisp by the raging flames of the torch. Awkward.

Ms Serena Williams, Mr Novak Djokovic, Neymar, Mr Bubba Watson, Mr LeBron James: some of the biggest names in the world will be competing in Rio. But superstar sports such as tennis, football, golf and basketball aren't really where it’s at. Here’s a good rule of thumb: if gold at the Games isn’t that particular sport’s pinnacle, best spend your time watching some other events – the ones that don’t get much of a look-in at any other point along the four-year news cycle. Table tennis, for example. Or race walking. Or rhythmic gymnastics.

Don’t worry if you’re not too sure of the rules: everyone’s in the same boat, and you can still enjoy the dressage without knowing the difference between a pesade and a piaffe. In any case, half of the fun is spluttering with disproportionate rage at decisions made by judges who know the complex scoring system a damn sight better than you do. It’s just a shame the International Olympic Comittee have discontinued some events of the past, such as “mail coach” (four horses pulling a wagon at speed), freestyle swimming for sailors (best not to ask), and the long jump for horses (won in 1900 by a gentleman called Mr Constant van Langendonck, who may or may not have enjoyed a second career as an adult entertainer). You’d watch all of that, wouldn’t you? Us too.

Look out for: rugby sevens and kiteboarding (because they’re brand new Games events) and modern pentathlon (because it requires such a weirdly gentlemanly skill set – fencing, swimming, showjumping, pistol shooting and cross-country running).

For every media darling such as Mr Michael Phelps, Mr Mo Farah or Ms Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, there are hundreds of world-class athletes whose achievements fail to catch the public imagination. The Baillie-Stott Law of Recognition states that a viewer’s willingness to scream their support for a Games athlete they have never heard of – doing something they have little or no interest in – is in directly inverse proportion to their ability to remember said athlete’s name an hour later. Freshly made up by me, right now, that law is named after Messrs Tim Baillie and Etienne Stott, who won gold for Great Britain last time round in the C2 canoe slalom, but didn’t get their beaming faces in the British papers every other day like other gold-winning heroes such as Mr Bradley Wiggins, Mr Alistair Brownlee or Ms Jessica Ennis. Ah well, them’s the breaks, life’s not meant to be fair. All athletes are not born equal: that’s the entire point of the Games, right there. In any case, when push comes to shove, we’re not cheering for Messrs Baillie, Stott, Wiggins or Ms Ennis anyway; we’re cheering for the clothes. Mr Jerry Seinfeld was right.

Look out for: Bitter NBA rivals Messrs Stephen Curry and LeBron James competing on the same US basketball “dream team”; Japanese gymnast Mr Kohei Uchimura who is known as “superman” in his country and who is considered the best athlete his sport has ever seen; Team USA’s Mr Ashton Eaton who is favourite to break his own world record in the decathlon. And Mr Usain Bolt. You mark our words, that guy is going to be big.