So let's just look at this year's world rankings for the 100 metres.

Top, with 9.75 seconds, Tyson Gay. Who has just admitted failing a doping test. And reported to be among five Jamaican athletes to have failed a test is the man who stands third in the listings with 9.88, former world 100m record holder Asafa Powell.

And who's fourth? Well, that's Justin Gatlin, the United States former Olympic champion who is now back in the sport having served two doping suspensions...but let's not worry about him for now. There's enough to worry about, as far as world athletics is concerned, with today's shocking news concerning the three men above him.

Reports have indicated that one of the other three Jamaican athletes to have failed a test is Sherone Simpson, the 2008 Olympic 100m silver medallist.


It is hard to think of a harsher blow for the sport.

Actually no, it isn't so hard. Similar news concerning the man currently sixth in the 100m listings, Usain Bolt, would be harsher. Almost terminally harsh.

There is no suggestion Bolt has ever been involved in any doping abuse. But it is hardly an easy state of affairs when the man who stands clear as the sport's great modern icon has a growing number of fellow Jamaican athletes who have run afoul of the anti-doping authorities in recent times.

Yohan Blake, Bolt's younger training partner under his coach Glen Mills, served a three-month suspension in 2009 for taking a banned stimulant.

In 2011, sprinter Steve Mullings was banned for life for a second doping offence. He had been training alongside Gay in Clermont, Florida under coach Lance Brauman.

In between winning the Olympic 100m titles at Beijing and London, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, coached by Stephen Francis, had to serve a three-month ban for taking a banned painkiller following dental treatment.

Earlier this year, double Olympic 200m champion Veronica Campbell-Brown, who is also based in Clermont, Florida and worked with the Brauman training group until 2009, was found to have taken a banned diuretic and now faces a suspension.


Now we discover another five reported Jamaican wrongdoers, including, reportedly, Olympic 2008 100m silver medallist Simpson and the man whose world record Bolt broke shortly before the Beijing Games, Powell.

Both Gay and Powell have been part of the world sprinting landscape for the best part of a decade. The American made his big international debut at the 2005 World Championships, finishing fourth in the 200m. His fall from grace is all the more inexplicable for his previous hard-line stance on doping – he was one of the first Olympic athletes to volunteer for a US Anti-Doping Agency programme that requires regular testing of urine and blood samples.

Powell was part of the silver-medal winning sprint quartet at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester and has been a consistently high performer despite failing to claim significant individual championship titles. By October of last year, Powell had recorded 88 legal sub-10sec 100m runs, the highest number achieved.

As men, Powell – who is coached by Stephen Francis in Kingston – and Gay – who has been coached by Brauman and former top US sprinter Jon Drummond – have a quiet demeanour in common, but while Powell is a relaxed and jokey character, Gay always presents as rather nervous and brittle.

Gay's personal website betrayed no hint of concern tonight – featuring as it did his latest Facebook posting, congratulating Andy Murray on his Wimbledon victory – "he showed crazy speed on that court in the final".

The crazy speed shown by Gay this season – he also topped the 200m world listings with 19.74sec until Bolt knocked 0.01sec off that time at the Paris Diamond League meeting – has built expectation for the forthcoming World Championships in Moscow.

After conclusive victories in the US trials over 100 and 200m, Gay appeared ready to put in a serious challenge for the world titles he won in Berlin in 2009 but has since seen secured by either Bolt or his Jamaican training partner Yohan Blake, who took advantage of Bolt's disqualification for a false start to win the 2011 100m title.

Now the sport is robbed of that excitement in Moscow.


News of the kind which has just broken leaves followers of athletics in an unhappily familiar state of ambivalence. Of course, it raises the big question that stems from all high-profile doping positives: can we now believe what we are seeing?

It is a mental process with which all followers of the Tour de France currently in progress will be familiar in the light of the blizzard of recent doping revelations centring on the now discredited seven-time champion Lance Armstrong.

There is, too, another familiar question. Is this bad news actually good news in the long term? And is no news bad news?

The fact that the big guys go down under doping bans shows that someone is not afraid to test them and punish them.

Twenty-five years ago, after the seismic sporting shock of Ben Johnson's disqualification for doping after winning the Olympic 100m title in a world record of 9.79sec, the then President of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, insisted: "This is not a disaster. For it shows the IOC is very serious, and that we are winning the battle for a clean Games. The gap between our aims and those who are cheating is narrowing."

Athletics, certainly, is a lot wiser and more active over cheating than it ever was. Which is why, ultimately, today's bad news has to be seen as good news for all the thousands of track and field competitors who do not take the wrong road to results.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. To follow him on Twitter click here. 

I think we're all sick of the setpiece sporting celebration, aren't we?

If I never see another footballer sliding to a halt on his knees with arms outstretched before devoutly kissing his badge of convenience I will not repine.

If I never see another "baby-cradling" group dance, or choreographed prance around a corner flag, I will not mind.

(The latter celebration is widely credited as being originated by Cameroon's veteran forward Roger Milla, who ran to the corner flag and wiggled after scoring at the 1990 and 1994 World Cup finals. However, the credit for this celebration should surely go to Frank Lampard – senior, that is, the West Ham left back whose unlikely diving header against Everton earned an appearance in the 1980 FA Cup final and whose subsequent decision to hare off and caper around the corner flag was, by his own admission, a complete mystery. These two are obviously exempt from all criticism.)

Roger Milla (left) celebrates in characteristic fashion after a goal for Cameroon against Russia at the 1994 World Cup finals

It has almost got to the point in football where the only sincere action after scoring is the non-celebration, which is practised on occasions by players who have scored against clubs they recently played for. The most memorable example of this was the shattered, anti-celebration by Denis Law of the backheeled goal for Manchester City in 1974 which he believed would relegate the club at which he had spent his most glorious days, Manchester United. As it turned out, United would have been relegated whatever the result of that game, but Law did not know that at the time and appeared stricken at what he had done, being substituted soon afterwards.

I don't much care, either, for the swallow-diving try-scoring effort in rugby, with accompanying hand signals. And judging by the reaction within rugby following the showy efforts of such as Chris Ashton, the audience whom these efforts amuse or entertain is severely limited.

The most recent celebrations to come under scrutiny in the sporting field have been those at Wimbledon where, if you recall, Andy Murray became the first male Briton to win the gentleman's singles title since Fred Perry in 1936. Surely you remember? Dour Scottish lad? Watched by Gerard Butler and other notables?

Coming to terms with a dream come true...Andy Murray gets advice from tournament referee Andrew Jarrett after beating Novak Djokovic in the final

There was certainly a lot of dramatic collapsing by winners at Wimbledon this year. It used to be that you only collapsed if you won the title in extreme circumstances. Björn Borg would sink to his knees after securing his 137th or 138th title, or whatever number it was, but only after an entire tournament of buttoned-up, ice-eyed restraint. Roger Federer has been known to hit the deck at the moment of victory – but again, this is in contrast to his restrained demeanour throughout the foregoing competitions.

Now, it seems, you can grand slam yourself onto the turf if you win any match, even if it is in the early rounds. The currency of collapse is collapsing.

No one, however, could question the veracity of Murray's reaction after finally securing the title he had longed for. He meandered about Centre Court like a bee looking for a flower. He appeared to be in a dreamlike state, although he had effectively just woken up to the wider realities of life after the trance-like concentration he had brought to the match, a concentration deepened over the past 18 months by the impassive figure looking on in sunglasses from the players' box, Ivan Lendl.

Happy daze...Andy Murray greets members of the crowd during a Centre Court walkabout after winning the Wimbledon title

As the current Olympic champion distractedly confessed to the BBC's Sue Barker – whose courtside interview no Wimbledon champion or runner-up can now escape – he could not remember the final point of the match, the climactic moment of a last game in which, three times, he had had the title within his grasp, and three times missed it.

In truth, Barker herself seemed a little dazed by events after she had returned from courtside to the studio to discuss the moment of "British sporting history" she and an estimated 17 million other interested parties had just witnessed. The way in which this former French Open champion, and Wimbledon semi-finalist – damn you, Betty Stove! – had gone about her business during the fortnight of action in SW19 was largely exemplary, but there were times when her desperate espousal of home hopes resembled the one-eyed obsession of a doting parent.

Having asked Lindsay Davenport, the 1999 Wimbledon champion, to talk about likely new challengers for the women's title, she added, archly, "haven't you forgotten someone?" In other words, the American had not mentioned the new British darling of the courts, Laura Robson.

If that moment was embarrassing, some of the pre-match trumpeting of Andy Murray in artfully assembled clips – The Pride! The Passion! The Parochialism! – was excruciating. However, the reaction of the young man from Dunblane in the moments when he began to realise he had achieved his highest ambition had an authenticity which was unmistakable.

At that point, he seemed akin to Cathy Freeman, the Australian 400 metres runner who fulfilled all the longing of her nation as she became the first Aboriginal Olympic champion at the home Games of 2000 in Sydney just a few days after fulfilling the responsibility of lighting the Olympic Flame.

Cathy Freeman takes in the enormity of her achievement in winning the 2000 Olympic 400m title for the home nation in Sydney

After crossing the line, Freeman pulled down the cowl of her one-piece running suit and sat blankly on the track amid a ferment of adoration.

Freeman and Murray are both now part of sporting history – two momentarily bewildered souls at the epicentre of their own achievement.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. To follow him on Twitter click here.

If there is one thing that the last week has proved, it's that cycling definitely does have a fantastic future – if only it would sort itself out.

There is no doubt the Tour de France is a magnificent spectacle and through the course of the last week, we've seen some great competition, a bout of controversy and more than a little farce.

The 100th Tour kicked off with the first three stages in Corsica. It was always guaranteed "special" status purely because of the centenary, but right at the start, it was overshadowed by events that provided the sort of headlines cycling clearly didn't need.

On day one, an Aussie team bus got stuck under a bridge at the finish line with the riders only minutes away. A rapid decision to move the finish line 3km closer to the leading pack before they then reverted back to the original finish line, caused a massive pile up as riders re-adjusted for strategic position. It all meant that stage one ended without the involvement of several of its major players, who were either part of the crash or hampered as a consequence.

Day two featured a loose dog which missed causing mayhem in the peloton by a couple of inches and the overall result was that the first two stage winners, Marcel Kittel from Germany and Belgian Jan Bakelants were almost a sideshow.

Then day four had United States crowd favourite Ted King disqualified for finishing out of the cut-off time by seven seconds, after some allegedly dubious timing by officials, contradicted by Ted's very own data.


Marcel Kittel and Team Argos-Shimano celebrates after winning stage twelve of the 2013 Tour de France

When Andy Murray punched the air after his historic Wimbledon triumph on Sunday (July 7) it was the reaction of a man who knows a fair a bit about boxing. Outside of tennis it is his favourite sport - he has even sparred with his great pal Amir Khan - and no doubt he'll now be happy to pass on a few tips to that may help our noble artists break an age-old jinx.

Here is one Olympic gold medallist who has successfully gone on to win a World Championship - which is how Wimbledon is generally recognised in tennis. This is an achievement no British Olympic boxing champion has accomplished. As yet.

None of the five post-war post-war gold medallists up to 2012, have acquired a world pro belt.

Three, flyweight Terry Spinks, (Melbourne 1956), middleweight Chris Finnegan (Mexico City 1968) and not-so-super--heavyweight Audley Harrison (Sydney 2000) all went on to challenge for one but failed.

Lightweight Dick McTaggart (1956) never turned pro while middleweight James DeGale (Beijing 2008) still awaits the opportunity.

But what about Lennox Lewis, some may ask? Most forget his 1988 super-heavyweight gold was won in a Canadian vest - the country for which, though born in London's West Ham, he has dual citizenship.


Oddly enough, three other British Olympians who won lesser medals - Khan, Richie Woodhall and Alan Minter - did attain pro World Championship status, but in boxing all that glittered in the Games was not gold.

So maybe the 2012 Olympic super-heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua was making mental notes about Murray's aptitude and attitude as he watched his progress from the Royal Box at Wimbledon last week.

The leaked news that Joshua is to join Eddie Hearn's mushrooming Matchroom stable was obviously overshadowed by Murray's great moment.

Both fighter and promoter have tweeted that such information is "premature" but the reason for the delay in its confirmation is surely because promoter Hearn did not want the impact to be lost in the understandably wild euphoria of Murray's victory.

Like fellow 2012 gold medallist Luke Campbell it appears Joshua has opted to take the orthodox professional route by also joining the fight emporium run by the prodigal son of the ubiquitous Barry Hearn in a seven-figure four-year deal in which a significant factor is regular exposure under Hearn's exclusive contract with Sky TV.

Campbell, 25, makes his paid debut on an open air show, also televised by Sky, at the Hull KR's Craven Park rugby league ground in his home-town this Saturday (July 13) where it is expected Joshua will be introduced from the ring as his new stablemate.

Joshua, 23, who hasn't thrown a punch since the Olympics, and has had a foot operation, has been under pressure to make up his mind whether to take the pro plunge or remain with the GB squad, a decision that had been required imminently with the World Amateur Championships looming in the autumn.


Although GB have dropped out from the money-earning World Series Boxing after just one season, Joshua was desperately wanted for the the hybrid AIBA Professional Boxing tournament (APB) created by world governing body AIBA's fiercely-ambitious overlord Dr C K Wu, and which controversially allows fighters to box professionally while retaining their Olympic eligibility.

"I want to be a proper world champion, not boxing in some back street venue in a foreign country with no-one knowing who you are or who you are fighting," Campbell told insidethegames in a recent interview.

Campbell's comment and Joshua's subsequent switch are a sobering reminder to Wu that when push comes to punch, most top amateurs will invariably go down the tried and trusted route to professionalism.

AIBA should also note the mounting opposition to their intention of professionalising boxing in the Olympics, major fistic elements in the Britain, the United States, Africa and much of Europe voicing fierce condemnation.

Most professional boxers of my acquaintance feel the same. David Haye, the former heavyweight world champion, does not mince his words. "I think its a bad thing that pros should be allowed to compete at the Olympics, it's not fair," he says.

Haye, who won a silver medal at the 2001 World Amateur Championships, adds: "I was an amateur for 12 years and competed as a pro for last 10, during which I have had 12 round fights and several World Championship bouts.

"To go back to the Olympics and to fight potentially a 17-year-old boy, who's only had 20 fights would be ridiculous, and dangerous. It should not be allowed.

"The Olympics are for younger kids and amateurs who have striven to win a medal. Rather than pros going back to the amateur level, it should always be the other way round."


Haye believes Joshua is making the right move. Had he elected to join Britain's Euro champ Andrew Selby at APB, and get beaten either there or in October's World Championships in Kazakhstan, he would have had to knock a couple of noughts off his eventual market value.

I understand Joshua had seriously considered linking up with the former world heavyweight champion Lewis, with whom he spent some time earlier this year. Multi-millionaire Lewis is now planning to invest in his own fight academy in Jamaica, training, managing and promoting young fighters from all over the world. "I see myself as a sort of professor of boxing," he says.

Joshua may well have benefitted from such heavyweight tuition but equally he might not have been too impressed with Lewis's failure to revive the flawed fortunes of the 2008 Olympic bronze medallist David Price, for whom, it was case of once smitten twice shy in Liverpool on Saturday (July 6) when veteran American Tony Thompson emphatically repeated his previous ko victory.

Lewis had been drafted in to coach and condition British heavyweight champion Price but even he couldn't put muscles on chins.

Joshua had also talked with British promoter Frank Warren, who believed they had a deal, and Oscar de la Hoya's US-based Golden Boy. But one of the problems would have been Joshua obtaining an American visa and and work permit because of his albeit relatively minor drugs conviction for which he received community service two years ago.

Joshua's anticipated defection means that Team GB have now lost half their Class of 2012, with middleweight bronze winner Anthony Ogogo now a Golden Boy and lightweight Tom Stalker, the team captain, another Hearn capture.

But better news is that welter silver medallist Fred Evans has decided to stay on for Rio, together current world number one flyweight Selby.


And Nicola Adams, whose ever-sunny disposition has done so much to enhance women's sport, insists a professional career was never a consideration, despite a number of offers including one from Amir Khan's organisation.

Adams, 30, who retained her European flyweight title last weekend when two other British women, Lisa Whiteside and Savannah Marshall, also won gold, says: "There are still thing I want to achieve. I want to get a gold medal in the World Championships and be the first British boxer to become a double Olympic champion."

The ambitions and Joshua and Campbell now take a different turn. I believe Joshua will make his first pro appearance on the undercard of the proposed Haye-Tyson Fury fight in Manchester on 28 September, while the tall, fresh-faced southpaw Campbell has surprisingly elected to move up several weight divisions and will box Andy Harris, a 30-year-old light-welter in Hull on Saturday.

He explains:" I know it's a big step up from bantam but I'm eight or nine kilos heavier now than at the Olympics and there's still nothing of me though I'm punching that much harder."

The last time I spoke to Campbell he said he still had to decide who should be in his corner. Maybe he and Big Josh should give Andy Murray a call.

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

As the highly anticipated anniversary of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games becomes ever closer, events will start to kick-off across the country to celebrate the historic achievements of Team GB and Paralympics GB.

Everyone from teachers and parents to politicians and athletes will be talking about what sporting legacy has been left for young people.

For me, legacy has always been about inspiring young people, not just to take part in sport, but to be inspired by sport, to get involved, try volunteering, coaching, officiating or helping out at events. This message was clear when seven young people were handed the Olympic Flame almost 12 months ago.

One year on and hundreds of young people have been leading legacy plans for their schools and developing a range of ways to get their peers involved in sport, after being involved with the Youth Sport Trust's Lead your generation project. The aim is simple; it's all about young people at the heart of delivering a meaningful legacy from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. It's led and informed by young people and they are making a real difference.


Seeing firsthand the activities taking place, I've been so impressed and even more taken aback by the level of commitment given to their projects. Their determination and drive to do something for their peers is inspirational.

Fadumo Olow, who is 18, organised an all girls sports day for 200 young girls across 12 schools in Slough with young girls taking part and trying new sports including handball, benchball, football and seated volleyball. This was all part of her legacy plan as she is passionate about increasing girls' awareness and participation in sport. She worked for months to put on an event with the aim of encouraging young girls to enjoy taking part in sport and show them that there are lots of sporting opportunities available. She even secured Olympic rowing gold medallist Katherine Grainger to attend and support the event, which was a huge success.

Fadumo is a key role model in her school and community with many young people aspiring to be like her, which is brilliant to see. This for me is what legacy is about and is happening all over the country. Fadumo is just one of hundreds of young people working hard to ensure there is a legacy for young people now the Games have been and gone.


To celebrate the work that is going on in schools, events have been hosted in Loughborough and London, which have seen hundreds of young people share their legacy plans and put on demonstrations of the sports and activities they have introduced into their schools.

This was one of the busiest International Olympic Committee (IOC) gatherings I can recall – though it will be nothing on the Session in Buenos Aires in September.

As we return to our various corners of planet earth, here is a summary of what I think we gleaned from these long days beside Lake Geneva.

● Thomas Bach will dominate the remaining weeks of the IOC Presidential campaign.

Like him or not, and even his supporters exude more admiration than warmth when discussing his qualities, the man from Tauberbischofsheim can boast a truly formidable Olympic CV.

A tireless networker, a capable, if far from inspirational, public speaker and now author of a detailed, carefully thought-out manifesto, he looks a certainty to finish either first or second in the six-man race.

But he does not yet look invincible – if support coalesces eventually around one of his five rivals.


This anointed anti-Bach challenger could, in effect, be chosen by the other candidates themselves, if they are prepared to strike deals ahead of the September 10 vote.

Or he could be chosen, more haphazardly, by the electorate, as successive rounds of voting whittle down the field.

The problem, from the anti-Bach perspective, of waiting until the last minute, is that the German looks capable of getting close to a majority relatively early in the poll, leaving him needing to coax votes out of only a few more of his IOC colleagues to push him over the line.

The longer opposition to Bach remains divided, the harder it will be, barring the unexpected, for any one of the other candidates to stop him.

● Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah has underlined his status as a front-rank Olympic powerbroker.

Prior to the 2018 Youth Olympic vote, I was told on several occasions that Sheikh Ahmad had put his weight behind the Buenos Aires bid.

It follows that the South American city's victory in a poll it did not go into as favourite, will be widely interpreted as a strong sign that the President of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) and chairman of the Olympic Solidarity Commission is now a man of real influence in the Olympic Movement.

This was a very good meeting for him.

● Relations between the IOC and SportAccord President Marius Vizer are at a low ebb.


This is the almost inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the absence of the International Judo Federation (IJF) President's name from a list of nine individuals nominated in Lausanne to become new IOC members – particularly as the list did include the President of the National Olympic Committee of Romania, the country where Vizer was born.

Vizer's SportAccord manifesto included the introduction of a new united World Championships, which could easily be seen as a fledgling rival to the Olympics.

Nonetheless, he would be a powerful enemy to make: this year's World Judo Championships take place in Brazil just ahead of the IOC Session in neighbouring Argentina; Vizer was joined last year at the London 2012 judo competition by Russian President - and Honorary President of the IJF - Vladimir Putin.

● The use of mainstream political leaders to help out bids, though it can be highly effective, is fraught with risk.

This was underlined in Lausanne on at least two occasions.

Medellín's efforts to win the Youth Olympic Games for Colombia were buttressed by the presence in Lausanne of Juan Manuel Santos, the Colombian President.

He duly contributed a dignified, Presidential speech to a lively presentation.

Some observers were clearly startled, though, when he alluded, in a subsequent answer, to a peace process in Cuba involving his negotiators and the guerrillas.

I doubt such an off-the-cuff remark would actually have cost Medellín votes, but I also doubt it was something Colombian bid directors planned for.

Tokyo 2020 had added Deputy Prime Minister Tarō Asō, a skeet shooting competitor at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, to its Lausanne team.


An engaging character, all was going well until he mistook the word "lobbying" for the word "doping" in a question from media and launched into a rambling reply.

This was trivial in itself (though not for the poor media handlers and bid advisers); IOC members were in session elsewhere.

But it followed a sub-standard media roundtable the previous day; this is not a good time for a bid to be developing an accident-prone reputation.

● There is still life in the Istanbul 2020 bid

After a dispiriting month, a bad session in Lausanne could just about have sealed the latest Istanbul Olympic bid's fate.

But, led by the irrepressible Hasan Arat, bid chairman, the Turkish team kept its head, raised its game and unveiled a new star in the shape of Ali Babacan, the youthful Deputy Prime Minister for economic and financial affairs.

I still think some immensely stressful times lie ahead – not least if, as seems likely, it is judged necessary for Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to be present in Argentina (see comments on mainstream political leaders above).

But, whatever may be happening in the rest of the world, inside the Olympic bubble there is emphatically no recession.

If this bid is to be tripped up, I still think it is more likely to be on concerns regarding security and/or project management prowess than because IOC members judge its relatively high cost to be out of keeping with the spirit of the times.

● Tokyo must find a way of regaining momentum quickly

For all the Japanese team's efforts, for all the bid's manifest qualities – of which a Mount Fuji-sized $4.5 billion (£3.1 billion/€3.5 billion) cash mountain is far from the least – I still detect scant excitement among IOC members at the prospect of returning to Tokyo after 56 years.

In Switzerland, I got a sense of growing frustration that the message just does not seem to be getting across, which might account for the slightly Keystone Cops flavour now in danger of enveloping the bid.

In practical terms, Tokyo desperately needs a convincing anchor speaker to bring to its final presentation precisely the passionate gravitas that Seb Coe summoned up eight years ago for London 2012.

In this context, I wonder whether August 11, 2012 may come to be seen as a key date in the campaign.

This was the day Koji Murofushi, a gold medal-winning hammer thrower was disqualified from the IOC Athletes' Commission election.


Murofushi, a commanding stage presence, with good English and a relaxed yet dignified demeanour, could potentially have delivered that almost mystical Olympic edge that Coe gave to London.

Though the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) concluded eventually that Murofushi's reputation and integrity as a sportsman remained completely untarnished, it is hard to see how Tokyo 2020 can make much use of him now.

In any event, he is not an IOC member – a fact underlined when Danka Barteková and James Tomkins, two of the four winners in that controversial election, played a small part in formalities for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games vote.

● Madrid is on a roll

Buoyed by the boost that fate, in the shape of the recent protests in Brazil and Istanbul, has handed them, the Spanish bid took full advantage in Lausanne, serving up crisp, no-nonsense sound bites for the media and a royal superstar - Felipe, Prince of Asturias - for the IOC.

Just about the only thing that could have gone better was the Thursday morning event in the majestic Palace hotel, when the three 2020 rivals exhibited their bids for a few hours in adjacent rooms named after prominent local personages/institutions.

The Spanish capital was allotted the Salon Sir Peter Ustinov for this task, while the Salon Olympique - clearly the most apt title - went to Istanbul.

Prince Felipe and his colleagues have not won yet, though: their "realistic bid for realistic times" will come under more scrutiny now - and I am still not convinced that the low-cost option will hold quite as much appeal for IOC members in their comforting cocoon of sponsorship and broadcasting dollars as some think.


● Mike Lee has still got it.

Buenos Aires's win added to the British bid adviser's lengthening list of Olympic victories.

His company Vero's input was just one of a list of ingredients contributing to the Argentinean city's recipe for success.

And this was less high profile a campaign than some of the Summer/Winter Olympic, and for that matter World Cup, bids Lee has been involved in.

I think, nonetheless, that I detected his influence at work at certain key junctures, not least when the Argentine Olympic Committee (COA) was quick to distance itself from a controversial advert featuring the Falkland Islands in the run-up to London 2012.

"It was the right bid for the city at this time," Lee told me after the vote, heaping praise on all elements of the bid and those responsible.

But the bear hug between him and COA President and IOC member Gerardo Werthein after the result was announced spoke volumes about how much his contribution was valued.

● These are strange days for IOC insiders.

They know, clearly, that change is on the horizon, but cannot be sure what form it will take.

This made for an odd atmosphere in Lausanne, the Olympic capital.

Whether this is direct cause and effect is unclear, but the bureaucrats seem to have fallen back on an instinct for privacy that would not look out of place in the British civil service.

Not only the 2020 presentations, but also the speeches of the six men vying to become the next global figurehead of the Olympic Movement were behind closed doors, for reasons that not even IOC members seemed able to articulate.

This would be fine in most private clubs, but the IOC shows every sign of revelling in its unprecedented international prominence.

As some Presidential candidates at least appear to appreciate, this stature imposes what should amount to an obligation on the IOC to foster maximum transparency as it goes about its business.

The ninth IOC President will need to look and sound convincing on camera.

I am baffled as to what was to be gained by keeping the cameras at bay as the Presidential contenders made their first formal pitch to IOC colleagues.


● Recession, what recession?

We have heard plenty in recent weeks on how Big Sport needs to come to terms with the new realities; I may have been responsible for some of the preaching along these lines myself.

But, actually, whenever you enter the cushioned corridors and geranium-fringed walkways inhabited by the real movers and shakers, the trials and tribulations of everyday life start to appear impossibly remote.

While much of the rest of the world suffers, it is worth remembering that Olympicland will have its activities funded, in large part, over the next three years by the fruits of commercial contracts inked before the boom turned sour.

Has the IOC been shaken into curbing its recent appetite for grandiose projects?

I am less persuaded of this than I was a week ago.

● A salutary reminder

Seeing the pain and disappointment in the eyes of the Glasgow 2018 Youth Olympic bid team after their elimination served as a jolting reminder of the heavy emotional toll this unpitying industry can take.

They had not put a foot wrong that I could see, but in the Olympic world, as elsewhere, you cannot push water uphill.

This was just not their time. Nothing they might have done would have changed that. End of story.

The good thing is that, not only will they have lifted their city's stock of goodwill for next time, whenever next time is, but they were able to fall back on the good offices of British IOC vice-president Sir Craig Reedie and wife Rosemary to ensure that they spent a memorable day in the Olympic citadel even so.

It was typical of the Reedies that they should set aside their own disappointment to do this.

Such gestures, from people whom you would not blame for adopting a much more high-handed attitude, help you remember that, when all is said and done, we are better off with the Olympic Movement than without it.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.

Nine months before the London 2012 Olympic regatta, Mark Hunter - who has just announced his retirement from rowing at the age of 34 - rowed for his club, Leander, in the Fours Head of the River race on the River Thames.

As he leaned against the wall outside British Rowing's headquarters at Chiswick - the boat in which he and his fellow lightweight crew had come within a second and a half of their heavyweight counterparts safely stowed in the racks made available there to members of Britain's elite - Hunter reflected on the season that had just concluded. And the Olympic season to come.

For Hunter, the Fours Head represented a very satisfying day at the end of what he described as "a really difficult season", albeit that it had ended with another world title in the lightweight double sculls with his fellow Olympic champion from the 2008 Games, Zac Purchase, who had returned to racing after missing most of the season with a viral illness so debilitating that there were days when he couldn't get out of bed.

"We came from nowhere and retained our title," Hunter said. "That shows what a good combination we are. If we can perform next year like we did at the World Championships, the Olympic title is ours to lose. That's the way we are looking at it."

Ours to lose. And lose it they did. By the margin of just 0.61sec after being overhauled by the Danish pair of Mads Rasmussen and Rasmus Quist in the final 25 metres.

Shattered...Great Britain's Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase after defeat at the London 2012 Olympic regatta

The agonies Hunter and Purchase endured during and immediately after that race will have made a lasting impression on many of the millions who witnessed it either from the packed stands of the Eton Dorney course, or via television.

On a day when British rowers maintained their gold standard with victories from the lightweight double scull of Kat Copeland and Sophie Hosking, and the men's four, Britain's golden pairing from Beijing were the very picture of despair after the line, Purchase sobbing with hands over his face, Hunter, eyes hidden by dark glasses, bent blankly over his blades.

Hunter had to be helped out of the boat by Sir Steve Redgrave and team doctor Lady Redgrave and could barely speak to the BBC as he tearfully apologised "for letting everyone down."

The home pair had got away to a great start, but then Purchase's seat had jammed, and as it was within the first 100m the race was able to be re-run. "It didn't have any bearing on the result," Purchase insisted afterwards. But you had to wonder how much nervous energy leaked out of the British pairing as their team technicians worked feverishly to correct the problem.

Whether he likes it or not -and he won't like it, I'm sure - Hunter will always be remembered as much for the circumstances of that defeat as for his previous Olympic and world victories.

While Purchase fulfils the classic profile of a middle class rower - born in Cheltenham, educated at King's School in Worcester, and whose marriage last year to Felicity Hill, now Felicity Purchase-Hill, took place at St Paul's Cathedral and was covered by Hello magazine -Hunter comes from a less exalted background.

Born in Forest Gate in East London, his competitive career began when he when he had joined his local club, Poplar, Blackwall and District, at the age of 14 and proceeded to show a succession of public schoolboys how it should be done.

Mark Hunter - an Eastender - and West Ham fan - who has scaled the golden heights of Olympic and world championship competition

Hunter comes from a rowing family - his brother, Ross, was the 2006 winner of Doggett's Coat and Badge, a single scull event which is the oldest rowing race in the world, having been contested annually on a four and a half mile stretch of the Thames since 1715.

For Hunter, then, life in the world's rowing and sculling elite came from a grounding similar to that of his Olympic forebear Ken Dwan, another Coat and Badge winner, who rowed single sculls in the 1968 and 1972 Olympics and now runs a boat repair business on Eel Pie Island on the Thames at Twickenham.

In 2009, however - the year after Hunter and Purchase had set lose unforgettable in-boat celebration in Beijing after taking gold - this son of the east End (and avid West Ham fan) found himself living the life of Riley.

Hunter was living by a beach in Santa Monica, spending a regular but by no means overwhelming part of his week teaching rowing to novice crews at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), the novices all being female, the sunshine being constant.

And when he wasn't been doing that, well, he was partying and having fun, in Santa Monica, in Westwood, in Bel Air, in Beverly Hills...

In short, as Hunter himself said, it was "heaven every day."

For as long as he could remember, this East Ender has fantasised about such a lifestyle. "Since I was a kid I always wanted to travel to California," he said. "I wanted to get away from the UK to relax and enjoy life, and it couldn't have done any better."

The dream job had been arranged a couple of months before the Beijing Olympics, and Hunter left for it just three weeks after those Games had finished in glory.

Mark Hunter (left) and Zac Purchase taste Olympic gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics

The new career went well. The novices thrived. The UCLA head coach was more than happy for him to stay on.

Hunter had a season ticket to paradise.

And he traded it in for a single back to Blighty.

Thus he found himself in the grinding routine of old, getting up in the dark, braving wind and rain, labouring in the weights room and on the familiar reaches of the Thames.

Why? The lure of a home Olympics.

"That first Olympic win was special," Hunter said. "If we could win again in London it would be pretty amazing. It is going to be a lot of hard work, but we've done it once and we know how to do it again."

Among those who witnessed Hunter and Purchase's Beijing victory was fellow British rower Alex Gregory, who had narrowly missed out on selection and was watching from the stands as a reserve.

"When Mark Hunter won the lightweight double sculls with Zac Purchase I was sitting right behind his brother and his dad and I saw how much it meant to them," Gregory recalled. "They had tears streaming down their faces and they were hugging each other – I can feel myself welling up right now just thinking about it. That made me realise what it would mean to my family and friends if I could win an Olympic gold."

Four years later, as part of the four, Gregory won that gold on home waters – on the same day that Hunter and Purchase lost their Olympic title.

Alex Gregory (left), who watched Hunter win Olympic gold in 2008, earns his own four years later in company with (from left) Pete Reed, Tom James and Andy Triggs Hodge

Among the comments on the BBC website under the story of Hunter's retirement was this one from NJDevilMatt: "The effort he and Purchase put into that epic race last year sent chills down my spine. To hardly be able to stand after competing is how it should be! You should always give everything you have, and more. And for that moment, he will always be in my heart."

There are many who concur with those sentiments. So, Mark Hunter, as you set out for what you call "new adventures", do so in the full knowledge that you have never remotely let anyone down.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. To follow him on Twitter click here.

At the London 2012 Olympics, I was given the very special honour of taking the Olympic Oath on behalf of all the athletes that were competing in the Games.

As I held a corner of the Olympic Flag that special night, I declared: "In the name of all the competitors I promise that we shall take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules which govern them, committing ourselves to a sport without doping and without drugs, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honor of our teams."

It was a magical moment to say those immortal words at the Olympic Stadium in Stratford in front of 80,000 spectators and a worldwide television audience of around 900 million.

Unfortunately in the London 2012 taekwondo competition, I didn't manage to repeat my Olympic medal-winning performance from Beijing 2008 but I will still never forget what an amazing and inspiring few weeks those Games were; not just for me and all the other athletes, but for the whole of the UK.

The really important thing now is that we continue to build a real legacy of sports participation from the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, particular for young people.


As one of Sport England's Sporting Champions, one of my roles now is to meet with young people to inspire them and motivate them and I will be looking to do exactly that later this month at the Sainsbury's School Games in Greater Manchester.

The event is something that I'm really looking forward to, not least because it will be taking place at the superb Sportcity in Manchester, which is the location where I spent a lot of time training in my bid to become one of the world's best athletes in my sports.

The Sainsbury's School Games is backed by crucial National Lottery funding from Sport England and designed to increase the opportunities for young people to take part in sport across the school year. It is also an event that allows them to give their best in the sporting arena, make new friends and have lots of fun. At the end of the day, that is what sport is all about.

The concept of the Sainsbury's School Games takes me back to that Olympic Oath I made at the start of London 2012.

Although there are still some out there who struggle to see the huge benefits of participating in sport; it is in my mind unquestionably a force for good.

When taking that Olympic Oath, my words highlighted the importance of abiding by the rules, of being committed, of not cheating and of competing in the true spirit of sportsmanship.

These underline the three Olympic values of friendship, respect and excellence.

These values are something that all young people should strive for both in sport and in life.

By doing so, they will keep Olympic Flame burning brightly and the inspirational legacy of London 2012 very much alive.

Sarah Stevenson is a British taekwondo athlete who won a bronze medal for Team GB at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. At the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, she was chosen to take the Olympic Oath on behalf of all the athletes competing. She is also one Sport England's Sporting Champions that will attend the Sainsbury's School Games. To register a school for the Sainsbury's School Games click here.

Who was that chap standing alongside Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne outside Number 11 Downing Street on Budget Day, occasionally glancing down nervously at the famous Red Box?

The face was familiar. For those who didn't recognise him it was Paul Deighton, who this time last year was getting set to raise the curtain on London's great Olympic show as impresario Lord Coe's principal stage manager.

Then he was London 2012's chief executive, the man Seb himself said was the lynchpin of the entire 2012 operation, and one of the main reasons why it all ran so smoothly.

Now he is Lord Deighton of Carshalton, Osborne's chief henchman as commercial secretary to the Treasury, a key figure in reviving Britain's fiscal fortunes.


What a difference a year makes. Forty-nine weeks ago, Deighton, already a multi-millionaire who had been plucked by Coe from the City well before the moguls of the banking industry became the nation's bêtes noire, was putting the finishing touches to the Glory Games from behind the scenes.

He was, said Coe, "the best appointment I ever made."

Cameron thought so, too, and persuaded him to take up the Treasury post from the House of Lords once the Olympics were done and gold-dusted.

Deighton's brief was to "bring some of the Olympics magic to the broader economy".

Arsenal supporter Deighton, who made his fortune as an investment banker with Goldman Sachs, was the prime architect of the latest Spending Review, in which elite sport fared rather better than expected.

As the first anniversary of the Games approaches, Deighton is by no means alone in being one of Coe's Class of 2012 who have moved successfully to pastures new on the back of their contributions to the Olympics.

The Games had a cast of thousands, many of whom are now regular attendees at the Job Centre. Of course, all knew when they were hired that it was not a job for life.

However, the principals seem to have fared rather better than the chorus line.

Most, if not all, of Coe's big hitters appear to be gainfully employed elsewhere.


While Deighton is in Government, Debbie Jevans, London 2012's brilliant director of sports, is now organising England's 2015 Rugby World Cup as the tournament's chief executive.

This is a role for which she was snapped up before Coe took charge at British Olympic Association (BOA), where it was widely believed he had earmarked her to replace Andy Hunt as that organisation's chief executive.

It was also thought that his much-lauded communications chief Jackie Brock-Doyle, named PR Week's Professional of the Year for 2012 for her work the Olympics and Paralympics, might move with him to the BOA.

Instead she collected an OBE and landed herself a plum post as chief executive of A-listed PR outfit Good Relations, part of the Chime Communications group now owned by Bell Pottinger, which she has taken up after a six-week business course at Harvard.

In addition to overseeing Good Relations, Brock-Doyle will also be involved in CSM, the Chime-owned sports marketing division now chaired by former boss Coe.

Her own number two at London 2012, Joanna Manning-Cooper has joined Jevans at Twickenham as the World Cup's communications and marketing director.

Nice work if you can get it– and having proven ability via 2012 suggests you can.


Of other London 2012 denizens, Sir Craig Reedie, now an executive board member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and currently leading the 2020 Games Evaluation Commission, is expected to become President of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) later this year.

Curiously, Coe's estimable deputy chair, Sir Keith Mills, despite being touted for just about every vacant hot seat in sport, including the Football Association, Premier League, UK Sport and Sport England, did not push for any of them.

However, he did lead the selection panel for the Sport England chair but his (and the Sports Minister's) recommendation of Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson was disgracefully snubbed for what insiders suggest were personal reasons by Culture Secretary Maria Miller.

Now Tottenham Hotspur director Mills is concentrating on pursuing his sailing interests, identifying races such as the Vendee Globe as marketing opportunities that could help grow the IMOCA 60 class around the world.

Last year, he bought the global commercial rights to the class, which for years has been dominated by the French, describing it as "one of the best products" he had ever worked with.

He has subsequently launched Open Sports Management (OSM) as a vehicle to commercialise the sport in the same way that Bernie Ecclestone turned F1 motor racing into a multi-million pound business.


Which brings us back to his friend Lord Coe himself. We know he has taken the reins at then BOA and has already implemented strategic changes following the exit of fellow Tory peer Lord Colin Moynihan. But there is now growing speculation about a possible return to politics even before the 2016 Rio Olympics, something he has previously resisted.

Will his close friendship with Prime Minister David Cameron entice him to change his mind and run for Mayor of London if Boris Johnson, as is widely supposed, stands for Parliament at the next election to further his own leadership ambitions?

There is no doubt the Prime Minister would snatch Lord Coe's hand off knowing his candidacy would virtually ensure the City Hall post remains in Tory hands, such is his lordships' public esteem in the wake of a euphoric Olympics.

Coe has always maintained that his five years as a MP for Falmouth were far from the happiest of his life; but the mayoralty would be different. Although he has said he would never return to real politics there is possible scenario which could bring about a U-turn in 2015.

This is a critical year for Coe, who is set to bid for the Presidency of world athletics, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), a post which would automatically guarantee him membership of the IOC, which he is reasonably predicted to head one day.

However, it is strongly rumoured that the present IAAF overlord, octogenarian Senegalese judge Lamine Diack, may now opt not to retire, a situation that would leave Coe's sports political aspirations in limbo.

Especially as his chief rival, Ukraine's pole vault star Sergey Bubka, already an IOC member, has already thrown his hat into the Olympic rings as one of six candidates vying to take over from Jacques Rogge in September.

Coe's new role with the BOA is unpaid, but he stands to make around £12 million ($18 million/€14 million) from the sale of his leisure management consultancy firm to Chime Communications. So he is hardly on the breadline.

Some who attended the Tory party spring lunch at London's Dorchester Hotel say the tone of a speech he made there suggested his appetite may have been whetted for a comeback to the political arena. If this is the case, the BoJo baton is ready and waiting.

But word also reaches us of an equally intriguing speculative scenario. That his main opponent in any mayoral race could be another fellow London 2012 board member Dame Tessa Jowell, the former Olympics Minister (and Minister for London), between whom there was always a healthy respect despite the political divide.

I'm told she would not be averse to accepting the Labour nomination. Now that would be an Olympian battle well worth waiting for.

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

President Jacques Rogge stands down in September after 12 years at the helm of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and many believe the successful launch of the Youth Olympic Games will stand as his crowning achievement.

"This is the legacy of your Presidency," said Ser Miang Ng, organiser of the first YOG in Singapore three years ago. "Thank you for your vision and your gift to the youth of the world."

As the host city for the 2018 is due to be chosen by the IOC in Lausanne on Thursday (July 4), many might be surprised to learn that there were competitions for school age youngsters in an Olympic setting almost 90 years ago.

The 1924 Paris Olympics were immortalised in the Oscar winning film Chariots of Fire, but little more than a week after Eric Liddell's gold medal in the 400 metres, the very same Stade de Colombes was the setting for children's events.which the French called "Jeux de L'Enfance".

After his Olympic exploits, Liddell returned to missionary work in China but would surely have been pleased to see the YMCA's growing involvement. The IOC President at the time was Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founding father of the Modern Olympic Movement.

At pains to restore the Olympic programme after the Great War, Coubertin had forged a relationship with Ellsworth Brown, the Physical education secretary of the Central YMCA in the United States.

Brown and his colleagues had tried to establish the Olympic ideal in the Far East and wrote to say that "they had established a Kindergarten Olympics."

In 1920 Brown was invited to address the IOC Session in Antwerp shortly before the Olympic Games.The handwritten minutes of that meeting note "he made a very detailed speech," in which he put the YMCA's expertise physical education at the disposal of the IOC.

"The fundamental aim is to bring sports within the reach of every possible person in every possible country," he said.


Coubertin, in typical style "thanked him for his indefatigable devotion to the Olympic cause which he served with intelligence and zeal".

In 1921, Paris was selected as Olympic Host City for 1924 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the founding of the IOC

The following year, Paris 1924 Organising secretary Frantz Reichel, reminded the IOC, "There had been plans to allow the YMCA to organise sports demonstrations at the Games."

Coubertin gave his approval "providing the IOC protocol was adhered to in all areas".

His enthusiasm was not surprising. Some 40 years earlier he had been inspired by visits to English public schools where sport targeted precisely the 14 to 18 age range that would later be used for the Youth Olympic Games.


The demonstrations planned for 1924 "had the goal of developing the physical constitution of children and achieve a perfect balance between physical moral and intellectual faculties."

They were included alongside pelota Basque, Canadian canoe and boxe Francaise, a type of kick boxing.

The man given the job of making it all work was Professor Louis Schroeder. He had been head of the gymnastics department at the YMCA College in Springfield, Illinois, but got to know the French through his service in the US Army. He coached the French at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp.

Schroeder 's work delighted the organisers. "He succeeded in arranging a remarkable ensemble, comprising demonstrations, notable for their diversity and ingenious combinations," one official said.

Participants included boy scouts and cub scouts in France and America, schools from across France and YMCA Groups from the US, Italy and Great Britain.


The invitations to the London YMCA arrived during March 1924. Their Committee immediately voted "a grant of £25 towards the costs if a team could be assembled".

Each day at precisely 2.30pm, the programme began. The Ranelagh baseball club, set up in Paris by American expatriates, began proceedings against The Paris "All Stars", a specially chosen American team.

This was followed by a basketball match between Methodist Memorial and London YMCA.

Later there was cage ball. Similar to handball, it had been developed by Emmett Dunn Angell, a naval sports instructor for military use, but was adapted for younger participants.

"It solves the problem of an invigorating healthful, pleasurable competition in which no one is excluded," he claimed.

There were zig -zag races, relays with clubs and batons and demonstrations of dodge-ball.

"Each sport was minutely studied and adapted for each age group," said the organisers.

The British basketball team enjoyed "remarkable success, defeating, after hard games, three separate teams of Americans, French and Italians."

Volleyball involved various French towns and later, an international match involving French and American youngsters.

Sadly, the stands were almost empty, despite organisers inviting children along to swell numbers. "We should add that they followed the events passionately," they claimed.

Even so, organisers claimed, "The practice of these sports had remarkable results in the schools. These sports were not only demonstrated but taught and became popular immediately, to the great benefit of the young people."

Schroeder eventually returned to the US and later became a real estate agent. He mischievously delighted in telling reporters that he had been responsible for the "Olympic" debut of basketball and baseball.


In fact basketball was included on the Olympic programme in 1936, volleyball in 1964 and baseball achieved medal status in 1992, so it could be said that the Jeux de l'enfance did indirectly play a role in changing the programme.

In the late 1980s Jacques Rogge led the European Olympic Committees as they established "European Youth Olympic Days", designed to bring the youngsters together after a decade in which the Olympics had been blighted by successive boycotts.

When he became IOC President , Rogge described the YOG as "a challenge of combining elite sport, modern education and culture."

The celebrations in Singapore and Innsbruck - which hosted the first Winter Youth Olympic Games in 2012 - set great store on inclusiveness and friendship, the very philosophy of those Jeux de l'enfance.

Born in Hackney, a stone's throw from the 2012 Olympic Stadium, Philip Barker has worked as a television journalist for 25 years. He began his career with Trans World Sport, then as a reporter for Sky Sports News and the ITV breakfast programme. A regular Olympic pundit on BBC Radio, Sky News and TalkSPORT, he is associate editor of the Journal of Olympic History, has lectured at the National Olympic Academy and contributed extensively to Team GB publications.

On September 24, 1988, at around 2pm, Ben Johnson received a phone call.

It was from Brian Mulroney, the Canadian Prime Minister: Johnson had just blown away the field in the Olympic 100 metres final in Seoul and been given the gold medal, and the Canadian leader was phoning to congratulate him.

"You were just marvellous," Mulroney said. "There is an explosion of joy here in Ottawa."*

A few days later and, with Johnson disqualified in circumstances we all know about, Mulroney was left to reflect on "a moment of great sorrow for all Canadians".

In the spin-conscious age that we inhabit, I am repeatedly amazed at how often politicians mess up when it comes to sport.

In fairness to Mulroney, Johnson's win appeared initially to be one of the two greatest moments in Canadian sporting history, on a par with the cold war-era ice-hockey win over the Soviet Union in 1972.

I should also mention that he won a general election less than two months later.


Even so, that phone call seems a prime example of how sport can catch politicians out.

Even when the victory you are celebrating stands, it is nearly always a bad idea to appear to be basking too explicitly, or precipitately, in the reflected glory of sporting champions.

That would be one golden rule I would inscribe in my spin-doctors' handbook on how to utilise sport for political ends effectively and without faux pas.

A second golden rule would be that it is nearly always a bad idea to try too hard to act, or allow yourself to be roped into acting, like a regular spectator or fan.

Along with indelible memories of great athletic feats from London 2012, I cannot escape the image of British Prime Minister David Cameron playing some weird bongo drum device at Eton Dorney, as we waited for Team GB sprint canoeist Ed McKeever to do his thing.

Yes, I can be curmudgeonly, but let's just say it didn't raise his political stock in my particular book.

Time can also be the enemy of efforts to turn sport to political advantage.

I suppose the recent protests in Brazil are one example of this; London 2012 was another.

This started out as a classic New Labour project, a natural sequel to "Cool Britannia", which showcased former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's international networking skills and charisma.

By the time the Games actually pitched up in London, however, Labour's chief political rivals were in power and the main beneficiary, if accumulation of domestic political capital is the yardstick, was Boris Johnson, the bicycling Tory Mayor.

My last golden rule would be to ask what Nelson Mandela would have done in similar circumstances.


The former South African President's decision to don the green and gold Springbok rugby jersey at the 1995 World Cup rugby final in Johannesburg transformed a sporting occasion that the home team was widely expected to lose into a resonant forum of national reconciliation.

Without needing to utter a sentence, the former prisoner showed Afrikaners, in front of an international television audience, that, no matter what he had suffered, he would treat their traditions with respect; he simultaneously sent an unmistakable signal to the non-white majority that he expected them to do the same.

When you think that a petty-minded politician might have been tempted to stay away from the team's expected humbling and then gloat about it afterwards, this was a gesture in every way worthy of the greatest statesman of our age.

It is one of the moments he is destined to be best remembered for.

* Details taken from The Dirtiest Race in History by Richard Moore

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. To follow him on Twitter click here. 

It is hard to believe that in less than a week we will find out who is the next host city for the 2018 Summer Youth Olympic Games. My home city Glasgow is on the final shortlist along with Medellin in Colombia and Buenos Aires in Argentina. For the past year I have been an ambassador for Glasgow's bid and it has been an incredible experience.

I'm an 18-year-old drama student from the East End of Glasgow and I have been involved in our bid right from the start when I was asked by the National Theatre of Scotland to host the launch ceremony at Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow. It was a fantastic experience that day and has continued for the past 12 months.

In October I travelled to the International Olympic Committee Headquarters in Lausanne with my fellow Bid Champion Mahad Ahmed to deliver our candidature file. And on Wednesday (June 26) we were with double Olympic gold medal winning cyclist Ed Clancy and hundreds of school children as we launched the "I Wish...For Glasgow 2018" campaign. It was great to see young people play sport and dance in the city's streets for the launch. That is what Glasgow is all about.

Right from the beginning Glasgow's bid has been all about young people. Since our bid was launched we have engaged with over 1.5 million young people across the UK, showing Glasgow's ability to mobilise the world's youth. Glasgow is a young city with such a vibrant cultural and social life. People who come here will be able to feel safe and at home. All young people like to have fun and believe me, if we win the race to host the Games, Glasgow will put on a fantastic celebration of sport, culture and education.


So when I think about 2018 I wish that we get the opportunity to welcome young people from across the world to Glasgow for the Youth Olympic Games. We love sport and we love to have fun. I want to share everything that is good about Glasgow with people from all across the world and to learn about other cultures. The 2018 Youth Olympic Games would give us that opportunity.

As a youngster growing up in Glasgow I was always encouraged to take every opportunity that was in front of me. I've tried my hand at football, swimming, netball, dancing and then eventually acting where I found my passion. The main reason that I feel so strongly and passionately about Glasgow winning the Youth Olympic Games is the motto, "Be a Champion in your Own Life". No matter what your passion is in life Glasgow supports you all the way.

It has been great being there every step of the way during the bid and we are all looking forward to next week's announcement.

Having announced his retirement from the track this week at the age of 37, Marlon Devonish can reflect with satisfaction upon one of the most productive careers ever enjoyed by a British athlete.

His record of 13 medals in major senior international championships is a measure of both talent and longevity. It might have been 15 - but for the punishment meted to the British 4x100m squad following the doping positive of one of their number, Dwain Chambers. That retrospective action nullified the sprint relay medals which Chambers had helped win for Britain at the 2002 European Championships - a gold - and the following year's World Championships, where the quartet took silver.

Famously, one of that team, Darren Campbell, demonstrated his disdain for Chambers' actions at the 2006 European Championships, where a sprint relay quartet including Chambers, who had served his two-year ban, won gold. Campbell, who had been ambivalent at best at the decision to restore Chambers to the team, pointedly refused to take part in a lap of honour with the man whom he always felt had betrayed his own natural talents.

But such high profile activity would not have sat comfortably with Devonish, an amiable Midlander who has been loyal over the years to his local club, Coventry Godiva.

It was entirely characteristic that, when asked on the eve of the London 2012 Games about the possibility of teaming up with Chambers once again, with the likelihood looming that his lifetime Olympic ban under the British Olympic Association's byelaw would be waived, Devonish should respond: "I would have no problem passing the baton to him or receiving it from him. People make mistakes."

Which was not to say Devonish was lax on the subject of doping abuse. "I think the whole world should have the same system and that the ban should be longer," he added. "Four years would be about right. Four years means you miss an Olympics and that is more of a deterrent."

Marlon Devonish (second left) tastes gold at the Athens 2004 Olympics along with fellow sprint relay members Mark Lewis-Francis (left), Darren Campbell and Jason Gardener (right)

During Devonish's glory years he was a modest and accommodating interviewee at all times - a badge of honour that is not celebrated in any official biographies. At times, indeed, he was too accommodating.

One of the high points of the sprinter's career came at the 2003 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Birmingham, where he won the 200m title in 20.62sec. For the press, there was an obvious immediate angle - three weeks earlier, after winning the Norwich Union Grand Prix on the same National Indoor Arena track, Devonish had commented: "I don't like running indoors. My heart's not in it."

He had been brought to this conclusion not so much by his heart as by his long legs, which he felt did not suit the tight curves and steep banks of indoor tracks.

But lo. Less than a month later he found himself a global champion on the boards. His initial reaction was one of surprised delight. "I'm so, so pleased," he said. "And to think...I almost didn't run. To walk away with the gold medal is fantastic."

But his natural candour meant he couldn't stop there, at the point where any agent would have been happy for him to conclude. No. Marlon went on to add that winning titles indoors "didn't really count" in terms of the big picture.

I, and others with me, winced. "Don't knock it, Marlon! You're a world champion!" we implored. He was being unnecessarily harsh on himself, for whatever reason, but it was a loveable fault.

Devonish doing his thing. His long legs were not suited to indoor running - but ideally suited to the demands of running outdoor bends

Just over a year later, Devonish had another gold medal that he felt no need to apologise for - from the Athens Olympic Games.

The high point of a career which had begun in spectacular international terms with victory in the 100 and 200m at the 1995 European Junior Championships came in a 4x100m win which is now part of British athletics folklore, eternally linked with the two other British track and field golds contributed at those Games by Kelly Holmes.

The second of those two golds, in the 1500 metres, had been won only a few minutes before the team took to the track for their final at 9.30pm, and the Athens stadium was still buzzing in the aftermath. "We can't just win a medal now - it has to be gold," Campbell told his team-mates Jason Gardener, Devonish and Mark Lewis-Francis.

Not only had Chambers's folly lost Britain two prestigious relay medals - it has also put their participation at the 2004 Games themselves in jeopardy as, once the performances in which he had taken part were annulled from the records, the team's competitive standing plummeted to 15th in world - and only the top 16 were invited to the Games by the IAAF.

Thankfully that status was retained and they squeaked into the competition. But once there, Britain's sprinters faced harsh comments from the former world 110m hurdles champion Colin Jackson - who had been roped into 60m and relay duty during his time - and world 400m record holder Michael Johnson, both of whom were working for BBC.

Jackson opined that Britain would struggle to get any male sprinter into a final and that winning a medal was "completely out of reach." It was not a popular opinion - particularly with the combustible Campbell - but it proved correct. As far as the individual events were concerned.

But in the relay, a different, and glorious story.

The team that stood on the track that night would also have been aware that they risked establishing an unwelcome hat-trick for the British sprint relay team following its failure to carry the baton at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics. More pressure to contemplate as they lined up against a United States team including the previous Olympic champion in Maurice Greene and the newly established Olympic 100 and 200 champions in Justin Gatlin and Shawn Crawford.

But we all know what happened next. That is, we recall the eye-bulging finale in which Lewis-Francis, the prodigy who fell to earth, earned tangible reward for his vast talent by holding off Greene's surge on the final leg to cross the line one hundredth of a second ahead.

Marlon Devonish (right) celebrates with Mark Lewis-Francis moments after the US quartet have been beaten at the 2004 Olympics.

But do we recall the other details of the race? Perhaps not. The US team had a horrible changeover between Gatlin and Coby Miller, the second and third leg runners. Miller went too soon and had to check back; Gatlin stepped on his foot and left a hole in his shoe in passing the baton.

Gatlin and Miller had not trained regularly together, which may have led to their problem. The US relay team was effectively split, with Gatlin and training partner Crawford on one side, coached by the soon-to-become notorious Trevor Graham, and Miller and Greene on the other. There was not a harmonious spirit about the team - which contrasted with the togetherness of the British squad.

Britain's race had not been without technical problems, however. A false start by first leg runner Gardener meant he had had to exercise special care in case he completed that unwelcome hat-trick with another false start which would have meant disqualification.

But by the time of the second and third leg changeover, Gardener and Campbell had done enough to keep Britain in the hunt along with the US and Nigerian teams. And the Campbell/Devonish changeover worked a treat, enabling the latter to extend those long legs around the final curve to huge effect. Devonish was always a sumptuous bend runner, and never more so than on that night of nights, when he operated to such effect that he was able to hand the 21-year-old Lewis-Francis a two-metres lead which proved just enough to secure one of Britain's most unlikely Olympic victories.

So farewell then, Marlon. You're history, man. But you are also a History Man.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. To follow him on Twitter click here.

It is an in increasingly pertinent question and one that no doubt Sir Craig Reedie will be seriously contemplating should he take over as sport's drugs-buster-in-chief later this year.

The 72-year-old Glaswegian, who helped mastermind London's successful Olympic bid, is favourite to become the new head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) at a crucial time when, according to the organisation's founding President Dick Pound, efforts to stop doping in sport are failing.

Pound claimed recently that the testing system misses four out of five athletes who dope. The highly-regarded Reedie, the former British Olympic Association chairman, is already an executive member of WADA Board and is leading the Evaluation Commission into the the bids for the 2020 Olympics on behalf of the International Olympic Committee.

His only rival for the job, Switzerland's Denis Oswald, appears to have ruled himself out with his decision to run for the IOC Presidency in September. WADA are due to elect a new President to replace current incumbent John Fahey, the former New South Wales Premier, in November.

Heading up WADA is now one of the most significant roles in world sport, with doping an ever-present menace in so many sports. We we do not need reminding of scandals in cycling and latterly in Jamaican sprinting to underscore that.

Where there's money, there's dope - and dopes. All ready and willing to take it, whatever the cost monetarily or medically.

British sprinting has survived a couple, of major drugs shocks - Olympic champion Linford Christie was thankfully in his athletic dotage when he was caught out and Dwain Chambers, though a household name with great potential, was not a world beater.

But I have often wondered what the effect would be if, heaven forbid,. someone of the stature of Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah or Bradley Wiggins has failed a drugs test during the Olympics. It would have plunged a dagger through the heart of British sport.

Now professional boxing, probably the sport with which I am most familiar, is currently caught up in an alarming drugs spiral that appears to have permeated here from the United States

Peeing into the bottle has become as much a required ritual in the sport as touching gloves before then final bell. With good reason.

No-one is suggesting boxing is suffering from a large overdose of the Lance Armstrongs, though there is no doubt it has a serious drugs problem.

The UK Anti-Doping Agency (UKAD) confirm that nine British professional boxers have been guilty of drug violations in the past 12 months - more than in any other sport.

Although the use of prohibited substances has been prevalent in US rings for some time, the sudden onset of pill-popping among British fighters is giving the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC) cause for concern, especially as the drugs seminars they arrange are so poorly attended.

In the most recent case the Scottish super-middleweight Craig Windsor was banned following an anti-doping rule violation involving the use of illegal steroids. The 29-year-old, who has had 12 professional fights, was banned on information provided by heavyweight Larry Olubamiwu who was already serving a four-year ban after admitted to over a dozen counts of an illegal substance use, including EPO, human growth hormone and steroids.


Last year he befriended Windsor, another small-hall fighter, on Facebook and they discussed steroids. Olubamiwo then passed on the details to UK Anti-Doping. When Windsor later pleaded guilty, and was barred for three years and nine months while Olbamiwo's sentence was slashed.

His whistleblowing has earned him a 34 months remission of his a four-year ban, and he has successfully re-applied for his licence.

You may wonder how this can happen. Certainly, some in boxing do, and question the morality of it. Not everyone knows that WADA's code allows for up to a 75 per cent reduction in a ban for those whose evidence helps convict others.

Whistleblowing – snitching, grassing, call it what you will – is very much in vogue these days, as evidenced from the National Health Service to spooks, but at least the fight game has not made the 18-stone Olibamiwo, aka "The War Machine", a fugitive in the manner of the US intelligence officer Edward Snowden. Indeed, the boxer's reward is an astonishingly generous cut in sentence which enables him to return to the ring forthwith.

Apart from the former WBO world cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli - suspended for six months last year after testing positive for the stimulant methylhexaneamine contained in a dietary supplement - none of those caught are exactly bill-toppers.

But one huge marquee name has been swept up in the controversy, the former world light-welterweight champion Amir Khan, whose link with Victor Conte, the disgraced mastermind behind one of sport's most infamous doping scandals, has been questioned.

Conte founded Balco, a sports nutrition centre in California, and served time in prison in 2005 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute banned steroids, alongside a charge of money laundering. He admitted supplying performance-enhancing substances to athletes Chambers, Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery.


Newlywed Khan, 26, has admitted working with the "reformed" Conte's strength and conditioning team before his most recent bout against Mexican Julio Diaz in Sheffield. But he strenuously denies any drug use then - or in the past."I have never taken drugs, and I never will," he told the insidethegames. "It is against my religion and all my principles."

Conte, he said, was brought into his camp by new San Francisco-based coach Virgil Hunter. "He [Conte] introduced me to top track trainers who have helped me on my running, sprinting, breathing methods, my engine really, which is working my fitness."

Last December, it emerged that Khan had used supplements from Conte's company SNAC in preparation to face Carlos Molina, a fight which he won by a 10th-round stoppage. But he says these were cleared by the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

He maintains he no longer uses any supplements supplied by Conte "because I'm sponsored by the supplement company Maximuscle."

But his decision to retain Conte as part of his training team is criticised by UKAD whom say: "We strongly advises athletes to consider the risks of working with those who have actively supported doping in the past. We believe it is preferable to be supported and train in a clean sport culture where the values of sport are promoted and upheld."

Since his conviction, Conte also worked with three other world boxing champions - Andre Berto, Nonito Donaire and Zab Judah.

It is the second time that Khan has had to defend himself against whispers of an association with drugs. When he trained with Manny Pacquiao there were unfounded rumours of illegal pills and power potions being used in the camp - largely fuelled by Floyd Mayweather Jnr. "There was nothing in it," Khan insists. "The drugs rumours were upsetting but I can honestly say that I have never saw anything like that happening.

"I've never been approached to take anything and like alcohol it's something I will always stay away from, in or outside the ring. Drugs can destroy your career, ruin your life, and I am determined that is not going to happen to mine."

Although he is adamant has never been involved in drugs use Khan did face one fighter who was - American Lamont Peterson tested positive for synthetic testosterone after controversially defeating him in December 2011.


"Since the Peterson issue, so many fighters have been caught. But how many more are there out there? I'd never realised there were so many cheats in boxing.

"Boxers who take drugs put the lives of others at risk. I am a clean athlete and always willing to be tested anywhere, any time. I am in favour of random testing and blood testing because we need to clean up the sport."

At least the BBBofC has learned lessons. As general secretary Robert Smith points out: "We are part of WADA, work closely with the UK anti-doping authorities and have dramatically increased out of competition testing, which in some cases includes bloods."

Smith says that 951 British boxers were subject to random testing in 2012, at around £1,000 ($1,500/€1,120) a time, while championship-level fighters were also tested after every bout.

In America, however, there is no overall boxing board of control. Every state looks after itself and its drug policy.

Britain's ring cheats may be mainly undercard minnows, like heavyweight Ali Adams who tested positive after, would you believe, losing to Audley Harrison, but some big fistic fish have been ensnared in the international drugs net.

Among others who have been banned or admitted using illegal substances are former world champions Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Julio Cesar Chavez jnr, Roy Jones jnr, Shane Moseley, Antonio Tarver, Pernell Whitaker and Erik Morales, who once beat Pacquiao.

It is a little-known fact that Ukraine's WBC world heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko missed the 1996 Atlanta Olympics after testing positive for steroid use following an injury. Brother Wladimir took his place – and won the gold.

So far it does not appear to have spread to amateur boxing - Indian ring piun-up Vijender Singh, a Beijing gold medallist, was cleared in an out-of-competition test in April, along with four others, after an accusation of taking heroin.

And no boxer has ever failed a drugs test in the Olympics.

But as the sport moves ominously towards the realms of professionalism through World Series Boxing (WSB) and AIBA Professional Boxing (APB) there has to be an inherent danger of drugs use with the pursuit of big money now allied to glory.

Boxing's drugs ring is not one of confidence, as Sir Craig Reedie may be about to discover.

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.