By Jonathan Rawcliffe & Phil Harlow BBC Sport at The Crucible

The inhabitants of the Crucible's media centre are well used to dealing with famous faces, with players, coaches and television presenters all popping in at regular intervals.

Sometimes you're tripping over former world champions just to get a cup of tea.

But even the most hard-bitten journalists were craning their necks to get a close-up glimpse of a certain Dame Kelly Holmes on Thursday.

Kelly Holmes was a star guest at the Crucible

The double Olympic champion was in Sheffield to announce her decision to run her last race in Britain at the city's Don Valley Stadium in August.

Kelly was given a VIP tour of the Crucible and agreed to brave the media room to do a quick radio interview.

Now I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories, but surely this must be more than a coincidence.

Think about it. On the very same day Kelly tells the world she's winding down her illustrious athletics career she turns up at the most famous snooker venue in the world.

It's all starting to make sense.

That's why I can't understand the reaction of the bookies when I asked for the odds on Kelly following up her Olympic gold medals with a world snooker title.

Sport can do funny things to people.

But it's unlikely you'll see it produce anything more ridiculous than the celebration Preston's Ian McCulloch trotted out late on Thursday night.

McCulloch won a topsy-turvy 19-frame thriller against Graeme Dott.

His final-frame clearance of 63 completed, he let out a mighty scream of ecstasy.

He then treated the crowd to a strange improvised dance, losing the plot in spectacular fashion, before jigging his way backwards across the arena floor.

With The Crucible waiting to hear whether it will continue to host the World Championship, one fan did his best to draw everyone's attention to the romance of the famous venue.

John McGilloway went down on one knee to pop the question.

To huge cheers - after a double kiss and right on cue, naturally - his girlfriend Michelle said yes.

After all the romance the diary can handle, let's hope they don't break off the engagement.

Watching snooker in the Crucible auditorium is not the entirely silent experience you might expect.

For a start, the BBC commentary booths are not completely sound-proof, and if John Virgo is in there, you certainly know about it when he gets excited.

The whirring of photographers' cameras is also clearly audible to the players.

This problem prompted referee Jan Verhass to twice ask them to curb their furious snapping during Ronnie O'Sullivan's second-round match.