Another Olympics, another controversy.

Knock me over with a feather.

I realize this is supposed to be one of world’s great sports celebrations, free of politics and chicanery — the best of the best squaring off for the sheer joy of competition and national pride. But as usual the integrity of the Games has been called into question.

First we have the fake fireworks and cute little girl lip-syncing a song sung by a little girl Chinese Olympic officials didn’t deem quite as cute, and now we deal with questionable judging in gymnastics and boxing, all seemingly benefiting the host nation.

And speaking of gymnastics, how about those Chinese girls? And I say girls because they certainly aren’t women. Some are barely teens. A couple might not even be old enough to compete in the Olympics.

But compete they did, winning the gold medal only days after being issued birth certificates and successfully negotiating a potty training session (“Mommy, mommy, come quick! I did good!”)

But if you want to look at shady goings on in the Olympics you can cite more than enough examples to fill this space.

I still remember watching the United States men’s basketball team getting jobbed by the officials in the infamous 1972 gold medal game against Russia — one that saw the eventual “winners” continue to get shots under the basket until they made one.

Remember the 1988 Games in which the Korean boxers were unbeatable, even though they kept getting beat? This was a make-up call for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles where American boxers seemed to always get the home country verdict.

And figure skating fans recall the unique scoring by a French judge in the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games that gave a flawed Russian performance higher marks than a flawless effort by the Canadian skaters. The end result was shared gold medals.

Recently a former East German female shot putter — who is currently a male East German retired shot putter — said steroid use led to her becoming a man. As a woman, she was pumped full of dope by her coaches.

I was glad this issue was cleared up. For years I thought it was common for East German women athletes to be well over six feet tall and have full beards and Adam’s apples.

Originally the Olympic Games were about amateur competition, but that ship sailed long ago. And supposedly they’ve always been about fair competition, but that hasn’t worked out too well, either.

Oh well. I guess we need to just grin and bear it and soak in the 674,323 hours of TV coverage. Besides, who doesn’t like a good badminton match?

And just think … in 2012 we get to do it all over again, reveling in the Chinese “women’s” gymnastics team.

Even though the athletes who’ll make up the team haven’t even been born yet.