JUST when you'd thought that the true British sporting spirit was dead .... along come two sportsmen to change it all.

Tim Henman has long been the national darling of Wimbledon. He is British No1, the best we have, and even when he annually got in the semis at Wimbledon we still support him.

We never really EXPECT him to win, so we cheer him even louder to show that we're all behind him. Now, to confound his critics and fans alike, this week Tim won the prestigious BNP Parisbas Masters in Paris.

In the final, he beat Romanian star Andrei Pavel, one of a series of important scalps including world No.1 Andy Roddick that our Tim took in this tournament.

He did it all with the same consistent, almost contemptuous accuracy that heralds this new Tim.

He looked more focussed, more determined, more like a winner.

Yet, at the end of it all, he spoke in the same modest way as always. A wonderful display of English sporting triumphalism at its most under-stated.

At the same time, 59 year-old explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes tried out new highways and byways quite literally by completing seven marathons, in seven continents, in seven days.

And all that, just months after having a double heart bypass operation.

He was raising money for the British Heart Foundation, and covered 183 running miles and 45,000 miles of air travel to Chile, the Falkland Islands, Australia, Singapore, London and Egypt.

I don't know what his feet are like, but he must have the constitution of an ox. And, of course, that bulldog spirit.

At last -- a chance to really glory in sporting achievement without it being tarnished.