It seems extraordinary that basketball has been so severely penalised by UK Sport in their considerations for those sports deemed to be fit for purpose for Rio 2016.

The damage and credibility this causes to the Olympic and Paralympic Legacy is bad enough but the marginalising and support for team sports is even worse.

The framework within which such funding exists in the UK rightly focuses on the results of the national team in international competition but this is only one measurement and recognition should be made of the longer term potential of the sports as well as its natural and exciting growth in our communities.

The reality is that whether we like it or not, basketball has not yet found the firmness of foothold it deserves in our culture. But in the past six years – a staggeringly short period of time for a sport to grow and mature – only the most unaware can have missed the truly impressive progress that basketball has made in the UK.

Such progress is the fertile ground on which such a foothold can eventually be established and it make well take a few years more. Are we to waste what has been a huge achievement? As Lincoln advised; If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening the axe

We surely have sharpened the axe over these six years and effected transformational change of the sport. We have responsibly prepared the ground. Without such a foothold, the quality of players, in quantity, that we need to play European and world-class basketball consistently, is naturally compromised.

Britain resisted the opportunity to recruit foreign players to help develop its team, relying on talent developed in the UK, like Luol Deng, here in action against Russia at London 2012

Of course, we could take the route of some other sports and persuade players to transfer their national allegiance, but what does this do for the organic growth of the sport in UK, whether at player or coach level and who would choose to play for a country that is disinclined to support the sport and its national team?

Young people need role models and heroes to create the motivational environment they need to go the distance to elite performance. Without proper funding those who may, given right support, simply cannot complete that journey.

The decision to make cuts to basketball funding does not only do damage to any ambition to raise our game in the international arena now, but impacts from beginner player and coach to national team level; from school and club to Federation, for the future.

When results fall short of our dreams is not the time to withdraw support but to restructure it to build on where performance was travelling in the right direction. We are not in total control of results in life, but we are in total control of our performance. Moreover, we can learn to make excellent what is good and to change or rebuild what is not.

How can that be done by almost killing off a sport after such a recent birth is surely counter to the true Olympic ethos and values as well scuppering the dreams and aspirations of those who wish to compete from the playground to the international stage.

This week's retirement by Mara Yamauchi, Britain's second fastest marathon runner after world record holder Paula Radcliffe, removed from elite sport not just one of the most honourable of competitors, but also one of the brainiest.

When I first spoke to Yamauchi shortly before she finished sixth in the 2006 London Marathon, she was as polite as you would have expected given that she was a career diplomat with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

At that point, in fact, Yamauchi had been granted special unpaid leave from her duties in order to pursue a talent for running that had manifested itself eight years earlier when she had won the National Cross Country title under her maiden name of Myers.

By 2006 she was living in Japan, where her husband, Shige, was also acting as her coach. When she was aware she would be posted to Japan from London earlier in her career, Yamauchi - who was educated at Bash Street School, St Anne's College, Oxford, where she did a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, and the London School of Economics, where she did a Masters degree in train spotting (spot the mistaken references) – had learned Japanese from scratch in two years. As you do.

During her time at the British Embassy in Tokyo she briefed the visiting Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, on work carried out in Japan to promote the England football team ahead of the 2002 World Cup finals in Japan and South Korea.

When Baroness Margaret Thatcher attended a dinner at the Embassy, Yamauchi was chosen as her interpreter.

Mara Yamauchi completes her sixth and last London marathon in 2010

Yamauchi was unable to complete the race she had worked towards so long and so hard, the London 2012 Olympic marathon, dropping off the course after less than six miles because of a heel injury, visibly upset.

After all the work she and Dan Pfaff's team at the Lee Valley High Performance Centre had put in to re-adjust her running technique after she had ground to a halt for almost five weeks in 2011, this was cruel indeed.

But that huge disappointment apart, Yamauchi, now 39, has been a model athlete in terms of demonstrating how to rationally and single-mindedly nurture a talent across a career that had a five-year working interlude. Indeed, she did not run a marathon until 2004, when she was 31.

Although she was born in Oxford - and indeed, while a student there, trained on the Iffley Road track where Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile in 1954 - Yamauchi has acknowledged that she benefited from spending most of her first eight years living at altitude in Kenya (she was named after that country's Mara river).

Yamauchi also optimised her running from the Tokyo suburb of Ota-ku, where she lived, training on the banks of the Tamagawa River and making the most of the Japanese diet. "It's really healthy for marathon runners," she said, "oily fish, seaweed and a lot of shellfish."

She leaves elite athletics having competed six times in the London Marathon, where she finished second to Irina Mikitenko in 2009 in a personal best of 2 hours 23min 12sec, the second fastest time in the world that year, making her the second fastest British runner behind Radcliffe.

Having earned a Commonwealth bronze medal at 10,000m in 2006, in a personal best of 31min 49sec, Yamauchi went on to finish sixth in the 2008 Beijing Olympic marathon, the joint best position by a British woman.

Also in 2008 she finished third in the Tokyo marathon and won the Osaka Marathon.

Yamauchi's career highlight - victory in the 2008 Osaka Marathon

"Running teaches us many useful life skills – you can achieve your dreams if you put your mind to it, that hard work reaps rewards, and that perseverance will get you through tough times," she said.

"I hope I can share my experience of learning through running, with people from all walks of life. Now that building a legacy from the 2012 London Olympics is fresh in our minds, it's more important than ever to embrace sport and the valuable contribution it makes to our lives.

"The most memorable moments of my career were finishing 6th in the Beijing Olympics, and winning the 2008 Osaka Marathon. But the most enjoyable thing was just going out training with friends."

So in this respect, it seems, Yamauchi is just like your average retiring footballer – the banter will be the thing most missed.

In all other respects, however, she will be very unlike retiring elite performers in that she will be able to avoid waking up and wondering what to do next. For this diplomat is simply returning to the high-flying work she had already set in motion before she turned her attention to what she described as the "unfinished business" of her athletics career.

Doubtless the regrets of London 2012 will remain with her. But Yamauchi can leave the sporting arena proud of how she has worked to gain the best out of herself.

Despite the length of time it took, the International Cycling Union (UCI) Independent Commission procedural hearing at The Law Society in London made fascinating viewing for all of us in attendance.

The Commission itself has been formed to investigate the doping scandal surrounding the world governing body for cycling following the Lance Armstrong revelations which came about last August when the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) banned the American for taking performance-enhancing drugs and stripped him of his seven Tour de France titles.

The hearing comes after the Commission called on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the USADA and Change Cycling Now (CCN) to participate in a truth and reconciliation public hearing, under a full or partial amnesty, but all three declined under the current terms of reference - those terms being that the UCI are controlling the Commission, and blocking moves for amnesty.

On the top table at The Law Society was the three-member Commission itself, featuring chairman Sir Philip Otton, a former British Court of Appeal judge, along with House of Lords Peer and 11-time Paralympic champion Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and Australian lawyer Malcolm Holmes.

Predominantly in the dock for the UCI was their chief legal aid Ian Mill QC and, noticeably watching on nervously from the front, was under fire UCI President Pat McQuaid.

Throughout the hearing, McQuaid twitched agitatedly as it became clear that relations between the UCI and the Commission had broken down.

"It is blindingly obvious that there is immense public interest in determining why and how Lance Armstrong and his US Postal Service team were able to engage in systematic doping for so long without detection or sanction," said the impressive Sir Philip, who was skillful throughout in getting across his point without the usual, complex legal terminology normally used in such situations.

"We understood that was also a concern of the UCI. But, cards on the table, the UCI's attempts to delay this process are of huge concern."

The entertaining Mill, who is certainly no shrinking violent, hit back emphatically until it got the point where he said the UCI wants to see the Commission suspend their activities.

The main reason for this appears to be money, as the UCI are funding the Commission at what they say is considerable cost.

They want a new Commission - that they suggest WADA should jointly fund - with a wider remit than the current Commission.

It all ended rather unsatisfyingly with an adjournment.

"The Commission has decided, with considerable reluctance, that the best course is to adjourn this Procedural Hearing until Thursday, 31 January, 2013 which should be sufficient time for the participants to reach an agreement in principle, if not detail," said Sir Philip in his closing statement.

"In the meantime the Commission expects to be informed by UCI of the progress of the Amnesty discussion. The Commission came to the view that some form of witness amnesty was desirable to enable the Commission to gather comprehensive evidence for this Inquiry.  The Commission also believed, and still strongly believes, that an amnesty is important for the good of professional cycling generally."

With that the Commission retired and in a surprise move, McQuaid got up for a makeshift press conference.

It is rather fascinating to see just how much the Irishman has relished the fight in the last few weeks and while others may have run from the media, McQuaid stands there and takes it.

Tomorrow marks exactly six months since that spectacular opening of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

What followed exceeded everyone's expectations - an amazing Olympic Games, followed by an equally amazing Paralympic Games. Six months on, the question is "What now?"

The strap line "inspire a generation" was spot on, but in many respects delivering that legacy is the most difficult of all the Olympic and Paralympic challenges.

Muhammad Ali turned 71 on Thursday and it was just as well the great man wasn't at London's York Hall that night to witness the shambles that United States amateur boxing has become since his own Olympic heyday. The misnamed United States Knockouts didn't - or couldn't -even field a full homegrown team to take on the high-riding British Lionhearts in the impressively staged World Series Boxing (WSB) event.

They included only two Americans, with a Frenchman, Irishman and Croatian making up the numbers. The Yanks, who so far haven't won a match, were spanked 5-0.

Perhaps part of the reason lay across the city at the O2 where the NBA  game between the New York Nicks and Detroit Pistons attracted not only a sell-out crowd but several players who might otherwise have taken up boxing had slam-dunking (or grid iron) not been a better option these days.

So abysmal is fistic talent in the US that it was hardly coincidental that top American promoters Golden Boy were in London on the same day unveiling 2012 Olympic bronze winner Anthony Ogogo, 24, as their first GB Olympian signing for the Los Angeles-based organisation where he will team up with fellow former Olympic medallist Amir Khan.


Gold medallists Anthony Joshua (once he recovers from a foot operation) and Luke Campbell (providing he doesn't break a leg Dancing on Ice) will also receive substantial offers when their contracts expire with GB Boxing at the end of March.

The Yanks are certainly coming with a vengeance, Golden Boy moving in on the British scene, chequebook open and pen poised ready to buy up the best of British talent.

The reason for Golden Boy's invasion has the smack of another television reality show about it: Britain's Got Talent - and currently America hasn't. Amateur boxing in the US is down and almost out, with their National Olympic Committee having ordered an inquiry into why American boxers failed abysmally in the London 2012 Games, returning without a single men's medal (their women won two).

The only medal they secured in Beijing in 2008 was a bronze and their last gold was in Athens four years earlier, won by middleweight Andre Ward.


So far they haven't won a match in WSB and Terry Edwards, the former GB national coach whom turned down an offer to take charge of their Olympic team before the London Games told insidethegames: "The trouble is that there is no money in US amateur boxing because of their poor Olympic record. The coach education programme is rubbish. They get screwed every Olympics now because their style does not suit the present scoring system. They have some talent there but there is no one to take it to the next level. Their administration is all over the shop. Sadly in boxing terms they have become more like a Third World country."

Which is why Golden Boy have been forced to import young foreign fighters in the same manner as the Premier League recruits from overseas, with their immediate focus on buying British.

Their figurehead is the original golden boy of boxing, Oscar De La Hoya, but the man behind the move is  smooth-talking chief executive Richard Schaefer a former Swiss banker instrumental in creating a boxing empire which embraces luminaries such as Floyd Mayweather Jnr, Saul Alvarez, Miguel Cotto, Bernard Hopkins, David Haye and Amir Khan.

Schaefer says he plans to stage four shows a year in this country as well as four in the US, which will feature major world title fights and young British stars. "We want to sign up some who represented Britain at the Olympics, those with the talent and charisma, who we will showcase both there and in the US. Britain is now our most important market."

Golden Boy's muscle-flexing is tantamount to a declaration of war on amateur boxing international governing body's czar, Dr C K Wu, who has instructed the word "amateur" be removed from the sport in a bid to take control of all forms of boxing.

It is also a riposte to the challenge of his baby, WSB, with its pro-style formula and prize money pot of $1 million (£630,000/€751,000).

Last week I had my first experience of the WSB at the GB-US match and like my insidethegames colleague Tom Degun, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

It was as good as being at a pro tournament – indeed it aped professional in almost every respect, combatants recognisable without headguards, no vests, a ten point scoring system, ring-walks, post-fight interviews and even skimpily clad round-card girls (something I have always thought boxing could do without).

GB Boxing's Matt Archibald and his team have done a terrific job in making the shows here attractive, sensibly priced, spectator-friendly affairs with special appeal to youngsters in the crowd.


The York Hall night was hosted by disc jockey and television presenter DJ Spooney who actually seemed to know a fair bit about boxing and was informative, engaging and entertaining.

As was the boxing, one of the bouts between Andrew Selby and Michael Conlon, the Olympic bronze medallist guesting for the US was as terrific a scrap as any I have seen in pro tournaments over the past year - as well as in the Olympics.

Had these brilliant bantamweights turned pro after the Olympics then such a match might not have been made for years – if at all.

No expense seemed to be spared, AIBA, flying in neutral officials from around Europe as referees and judges.

However, I do feel WSB is mistaken in allowing franchises to include overseas-born fighters. GB had two, an Estonian and an Irishman in a team of five. The Americans had three. Why? For me, foreign imports dilute the tournament and diminish national interest.

Also, the estimable but over-ambitious Wu must forget the nonsensical notion of becoming the Bernie Ecclestone of boxing. It ain't gonna happen, C K, and may well harm your hopes of becoming International Olympic Committee (IOC) President.

Better to concentrate on fine-tuning WSB and the planned AIBA Pro Boxing (APB), which will allow boxers to fight professionally while retaining their Olympic status – something with which I gather several IOC members are far from comfortable.

These tournaments can only be an alternative to pro boxing – not a replacement.

There two things WSB needs if it is to be a big winner in Britain. One a more substantial TV audience than subscription channel ESPN currently provides.

The other is the recruitment of Olympic heavyweight champion Joshua, whose addition to the Lionhearts line-up would not only lift the series but also perhaps entice the BBC to dust off the chequebook.


Joshua, the hottest ticket in boxing, is said to be giving serious consideration to joining WSB in what could be a pro apprenticeship but Schaefer reckons he will persuade him and others in the GB team to take the orthodox professional route under Golden Boy's stewardship.

They will dangle a seven-figure sum in front of big Josh, such is the desperate search for a new heavyweight hope. Yet there is a snag. Joshua has a conviction for a minor drugs offence - which could prevent him from getting a visa to box in the US. Golden Boy's extensive influence might prove helpful in this direction.

No doubt, Joshua and featherweight Campbell are wisely keeping a watching brief to whether ex-teammate Ogogo will become an Oscar winner with Golden Boy.

Last Saturday night the marketable middleweight was a contestant on ITV's much-maligned reality show Splash!. The first boxer to take a dive before a fight?

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning 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 Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

Aside from my Shadow Children and Families role, I also do a lot to champion the sport of basketball inside Parliament; a sport which plays a big role in the region of Tyne and Wear, whilst facing continual pressure and cutbacks from the powers that be.

Basketball is important because it reaches a demographic that few sports can. It is dynamic, accessible and its natural ties to urban culture give it a street credibility others sorely lack. It is no wonder that between the ages of 10 and 16, no other sport besides football is as popular.

Being such an inclusive and accessible sport, basketball is often found at the heart of some of the best community projects up and down the country. The Newcastle Eagles run a fantastic project called Hoops For Health, with professional players entering into some of the most deprived schools in the region encouraging young people to make positive lifestyle choices.

During the Olympics and Paralympics, basketball was consistently one of the most viewed events with hundreds of thousands of British people tuning in. Last week, the NBA was in London with the Detroit Pistons playing the New York Knicks in front of 17,000 people packed out at the O2 Arena including stars from film, music and football.


Yet despite all of its attributes, basketball in the UK remains ignored and undervalued by those at the top.

That's why I set up the All Party Parliamentary Group on Basketball, to win the argument for basketball within circles that only believe in "traditional" English sports.

Fresh faced from the successes promised to "inspire a generation" during London 2012, UK Sport recently announced that it had ruthlessly cut all elite funding for basketball, a week after Sport England also cut millions from basketball's grassroots budget.

Why does this matter?


I believe it matters, because how we distribute money amongst our sports says a lot about what sort of society we want to be. UK Sport's "no compromise" policy inadvertently, yet knowingly, punishes sports for being accessible, as they are more globally competitive therefore wield less medal hopes.

I applaud the successes of sports such as sailing and equestrian, but UK Sport need to find a balance between rewarding success, and taking into consideration the wider societal positives that accessible team sports such as basketball provide to our local communities.

I think the decision is desperately unfair and potentially very damaging to the aspirations of young sporting people inspired by 2012. That's why as an All Party Group we have secured an Adjournment debate scheduled for 10pm in Parliament next Monday (January 28) to raise this issue with the Minister of Sport.

What a year 2012 was for British dressage: two Olympic gold medals followed by the revelation that the best-known horse in the country, Kauto Star, was to try his, well, hoof at the discipline.

When the story broke in December that the then 12-year-old was retiring from racing and being taken under the wing of Laura Collett, a young eventing rider, it sparked inevitable speculation as to whether the five-time King George VI steeplechase winner might make it all the way to the Rio Olympics in 2016.

One bookmaker was reported to be offering odds of 50/1 against him winning an Olympic gold medal.

But is there really any chance of him emerging as the first dual Cheltenham Gold Cup-Olympic winner?

Think about how rare it is for human athletes, such as Rebecca Romero and Alex Zanardi, to reach the absolute pinnacle of two sports.


Is there any reason to think it should be different for equine athletes?

Following a recent conversation about re-schooling racehorses with Yogi Breisner, British Eventing's performance manager, who looks in on Kauto Star on a regular basis, let's just say I would want odds much bigger than 50/1 before taking a punt on this miracle happening.

The chief enemy is time: the horse is 13 now, which leaves a period of around five years during which he could reasonably be expected to retain the physical capabilities necessary to compete at Olympic level.

Yet, according to Breisner, "to produce a horse to top level in eventing or dressage takes approximately five years".

So, even if he took famously to the new discipline, by the time he attained Olympic standard, it would probably be too late.

Although experienced racehorses have much going for them, not least their familiarity with travelling and with noise, Breisner says it can take a while to teach them how to canter.


"Racehorses want to gallop, but riding horses canter," he says.

"Galloping is a four-time beat [ie each hoof hits the floor at a different time during the cycle]. Canter is a three-time beat [with the horse's outside front and inside hind hooves striking the ground simultaneously on the second strike]."

So, he concludes, "the time needed to teach a racehorse to canter can run into months".

Flat racehorses, who might exit the sport at just three or four years of age, have a better chance of reaching the top in a new discipline simply because they have more time.

But they will almost certainly be absolute or relative failures as racehorses, rather than a great champion like Kauto Star, simply because champion Flat racers, like Frankel, perhaps Kauto's only present rival as Britain's best-known horse, tend to be of great value to the breeding industry.

Even if they very rarely get a shot at Olympic glory, however, Breisner believes that most retiring racehorses can be found second jobs.


"The majority of horses that come out of racing can find a job elsewhere," he says.

"But, if they go into dressage, show jumping or eventing, it will be at novice level.

"Very few will go to the top in another discipline, whatever level they raced at.

"For a racehorse it's like going back to school.

"If a horse is good-tempered - and most British racehorses are nowadays, which is a credit to the trainers - the rider doesn't need to be all that experienced.

"As long as you take things step by step, use common sense and study the animal.

"There will be situations where a horse has had an injury that doesn't allow even the smallest competitive activity.

"However, there are a lot of riders who just want to go out and hack, and there are very few ex-racehorses which aren't capable of that.

"The life of a riding horse is so much less stressful on their limbs; they can have a good active life for a long time."

Regardless, then, of where his post-racing existence takes him, Kauto Star has already done less prominent members of his species a favour by publicising that there is plenty of life in old racehorses.

In fact, Breisner says, Kauto Star has started off well in his new life: "He is a delight to deal with and is showing all the qualities and class he had as a racehorse."

He emphasises, though, that "this exercise is not about making him a dressage star; he might not even compete at dressage.

"It is to give him something to do in his retirement."


For those who insist on dreaming, against all odds, that he might just amaze us all by pitching up at Rio, I can point to what, if not a precedent, is an example of a well-known racehorse who got close to top level at an Olympic sport.

Mr Frisk won the 1990 Grand National in a record time that has still not been beaten.

Having retired from racing, like Kauto Star, at 12, he proceeded, under the guidance of Tracey Bailey, his rider, to make it close to the top of the tree in eventing, which combines dressage and show jumping with a demanding cross-country element.

"He was a couple of points off advanced level," Bailey recalls, suggesting that it was the sands of time, rather than reaching the limit of his ability, that stopped the horse progressing still further.

"I have always said whatever sport he went into he would have gone to the top," she says.

"He was a very, very talented horse."

She points out, moreover, that in addition to eventing, Mr Frisk performed to top national level in the sport of team chasing as well.

Whether Kauto Star goes on to emulate such feats of non-steeplechasing attainment, or simply settles down to life as a pensioner enjoying an active retirement, we should thank him for the moments of sheer heart-stopping excitement and wish him well.

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.

As a bloke who likes to think he's reasonably realistic with his approach to life, I tend to work on the principle that if I don't expect too much, then I'll rarely be disappointed. And that was certainly the case with the "confession" that disgraced cycling hero (and consummate actor) Lance Armstrong attempted to make with Oprah Winfrey.

Whether or not you're a cycling fan, you will have undoubtedly seen the news clips, read the headlines and you've likely made some sort of judgment. There can be no doubt that Lance Armstrong was guilty of selective memory and generated far more questions than he produced answers.

From the moment the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) produced the "Reasoned Decision" which outlined his doping practices and led to the loss of seven Tour de France titles and a life ban, my view has always been that if Lance Armstrong was going to confess, there should be no half measures. He must tell the whole truth.

Sadly, this was not a full confession but a series of convenient half-truths which played to the process of confession when it suited him and continued the denial when it didn't.

As a result, there were many inconsistencies that concern me and frankly, they have convinced me that the accusations that the International Cycling Union (UCI) were in on the act all along, are more than justified.

During the interview, Armstrong claimed that he made a significant personal donation to the UCI because the UCI "asked him to" and that he did so because he was rich and had retired. The fact is, Armstrong retired in 2005 but the donation was committed in 2002, while he was still competing. Let's call it for what it is – a bald-faced lie.

How are we supposed to believe the rest of what he said? Therein lies Lance's problem.


When you've begun a lie, you have to tell more lies to cover the first ones. Ultimately you will get found out and it's all beginning to unravel. It's suspicious that the donation was made after two tests that produced positive outcomes. Or perhaps it's just me...

As far as the UCI's part in all this is concerned, well they must think we're all completely daft. They couldn't wait to tell the world that they thought Armstrong had cleared them of any suspicion with his comments. But his careful answers didn't clear them at all. In fact, they cast even more doubt over their own activities and motives to the extent that the UCI now has serious questions to answer themselves.

I'd even go as far as to say they are now clearly complicit in at least some part of the story. They are seriously suggesting that now the story has changed whereby the UCI asked him for the money and that's cleared them? More lies lies, more damned lies.

Further UCI conspiracy is proven by Armstrong's admission of an incident during the 1999 Tour de France. And before anyone says, how do you know it's not one of his half-truths, you need to bear in mind this incident was originally revealed by Lance's former soigneur, Emma O'Reilly.

In the Oprah interview, Lance accepted that the woman he'd previously called a "liar" and a "whore" to further defend his claims of innocence, was actually telling the truth. The story Lance finally acknowledged was that when he became aware that a cortisone test at the Tour de France in 1999 had returned positive, his team produced a prescription for the apparent treatment of saddle sores which was intentionally back-dated to cover the date of the test.

Emma O'Reilly blew the whistle on Armstrong more than a decade ago but few people believed his former soigneur, who he called a "liar" and a "whore"

The UCI is clearly implicated in this because Armstrong had originally confirmed on race forms he was not on any prescription drugs. The system also calls for the cyclist to declare any medication he is on at the time he pisses in the bottle, not after he's found positive. But the UCI still accepted the back-dated prescription in violation of their own regulations and then failed to reveal – and later denied – the positive test had ever taken place.

Ask yourself why did the UCI not investigate this at the time? Simple; the UCI were willing to do anything to retain super-hero status for their prized asset at the time - Lance Armstrong. They knew what was going on and swept it under the carpet. We have yet to have any explanation for this from the UCI and the pressure continues to mount.

Armstrong's acknowledgement that a long, long list of people needed an apology, was as superficial as it was disrespectful. In the words of Dan Schmalz of NYVelocity, "Lance doesn't give a hobo's dump for the people he is apologising to, he's just saying what we want to hear."

Let's bear in mind that he was prepared to sue and/or intimidate anyone who alleged malpractice even though he knew his accusers - some of whom lost their jobs (or worse) as a consequence - were telling the truth. He listed people as if they were on a guest list for a gala opening.

No details on the gravity of his disgusting onslaughts.

No mention of the fact that Greg LeMond lost his multi-million dollar business because he stood up to Armstrong and then stood helpless as nobody listened and Armstrong's commercial machine ensured his cycling business was crucified. I still maintain that Trek needs to be held accountable for what they did to Greg. Not a peep out of Trek President John Burke about any of this. Now if there was a person to whom the epithet "scumbag" belongs (thanks Pat), I'd say it's John.


No mention that Journalist David Walsh was verbally abused and taunted by Armstrong about the death of his 12 year-old son in a cycling accident. How can anyone ever trust a man a man who claimed that David Walsh's issues were inspired by nothing more than a fatherly vendetta against cycling?

Oprah, if you really want emotion, speak to LeMond, Walsh and all the others whose lives have been decimated by one sociopath.

Both Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis said that Armstrong told them in 2001 he'd tested positive for EPO but that; "it would be taken care of". Do we believe Hamilton and Landis, who stuck to their stories in the face of extreme intimidation from Armstrong's camp, or the disgraced "hero" who's been telling lies and bullying people for years?


So what now? Well, Armstrong's confirmation of his willingness to take part in a truth and reconciliation process is interesting because it puts the UCI under further pressure to ensure they comply with demands from the Independent Commission that is charged with conducting a full review of the whole affair and the UCI's own practices.

The Commission recently agreed with demands from Change Cycling Now (CCN), World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and USADA to widen the process to ensure transparency within the investigation but the UCI has refused to sanction them.

Here's the entity being investigated preventing the investigator from having the tools they need to do their job. It would be laughable if it wasn't so serious.

Armstrong's willingness to cooperate, a series of half-truths in this interview and many remaining inconsistencies between his version of events and those of former team mates and colleagues, (bugger it, let's call them lies) means the UCI cannot interfere any longer.

After this, Armstrong and the UCI have even more questions to answer.

Jaimie Fuller is the chairman of Skins and the founder of pressure group Change Cycling Now, whose members include Greg LeMond, Paul Kimmage and David Walsh. To follow him on Twitter click here.

It is fair to say that the World Series of Boxing (WSB) run by the International Boxing Association (AIBA) got off to a shaky start when it was launched in 2010.

From the outset, London were lined up as one of the key franchises for a competition that was branded, and remains at present, the only boxing competition in the world that allows fighters to compete professionally and retain their Olympic eligibility.

And all was going well until London pulled out at a late stage due to financial concerns.

The move led to much animosity between AIBA and the Amateur Boxing Association of England (ABAE) for some time. It even proved the precursor to former ABAE chief executive Paul King standing against incumbent C K Wu for the AIBA Presidency in late 2010. Needless to say, King was crushed by Wu and the unsuccessful coup ultimately saw him lose his position at the ABAE.

In as the new ABAE chief executive came Mark Abberley who steadily managed to rebuild bridges with the AIBA hierarchy. He did so alongside British Amateur Boxing Association (BABA) chairman Derek Mapp and the relationship appeared to be fully repaired once the London 2012 Olympic Games dawned.

The competition, which saw female boxers compete at the Olympics for the first time and packed crowds at ExCeL for almost every session, gave AIBA arguably their greatest boxing competition in the history of the Games and Britain the proof that they were the strongest boxing nation in the world as they topped the sport's medal table with three golds, a silver and a bronze.

It became clear they two needed each other and shortly after the conclusion of the Olympics, it was announced the UK would finally be joining the WSB with a franchise called the British Lionhearts.

Featuring several top names, including London 2012 Olympic silver medallists John Joe Nevin of Ireland and Fred Evans of Wales, the Lionhearts are one of the more attractive franchises out there and with sport on a high in Britain, they are also bringing serious media exposure to the WSB.

But it was perhaps their bout this week against the USA Knockouts at York Hall last night that will have AIBA smiling at what they are doing for the competition.

York Hall, located in the London district of Bethnal Green, is one of the UK's best-known boxing venues and it has hosted bouts for many of Britain's greatest ever fighters including Lennox Lewis, Joe Calzaghe, Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank.

As I walked through the doors for the Lionhearts' first of three WSB bouts in three months at the venue, there was the immediate sense of a big fight night. Intimate but not exactly small, the venue was packed with boisterous but respectable fans of the sport who knew they were seeing high-level competition.

Despite the Lionhearts crushing their American opponents 5-0 on the overall scorecard, each of the five matches proved hugely exciting, particularly the bantamweight bout that pitted the hosts' Andrew Selby of Wales against the Knockout's Michael Conlan of Ireland.

In a contest that pitted the reigning World Championship silver medallist [Selby] against the reigning Olympic bronze medallist [Conlan], the two traded brutal shots throughout and drew a deserved standing ovation at the end as Welshman clinched unanimous but hard-earned points win.

Elsewhere Nevin outpointed Daouda Sow at lightweight and another Irishman, Joe Ward, beat Marko Calic at light-heavyweight. Those wins came after Estonian middleweight Kaupo Arro got the Lionhearts off to a winning start by scoring a second-round technical decision over American Jeffrey Camp and before London heavyweight Joe Joyce closed the show by beating Avery Gibson of the United States on points.

But just as important as the score line was the clear marketability of the event. The British public are beginning to learn about the WSB, they want to see it and they will undoubtedly be back in bigger numbers for the next two bouts in York Hall in February and March.

This comes with Lionhearts lining up the Copper Box on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford as their permanent home for next season in a move that should only enhance their stature.

The WSB will soon be followed by the launch of AIBA Pro Boxing (APB) which will see boxers again fight professionally but retain their Olympic eligibility in a tournament that will link to the WSB.

What makes it a must for most nations is that the APB will offer 56 quota places for the Rio 2016 Olympics, with the WSB to offer a further 10 slots for the Games in Brazil.

By those next Olympics, AIBA will have removed headguards and vests from their competitions for male fighters while the computer scoring system will be replaced by judges meaning WSB and APB boxers will be at a distinct advantage to other.

All this, the AIBA President told me recently, is part of a plan to fight back against the "professional promoters have sat back and taken the best Olympic talent for far too long, often not looking after that talent if things go wrong."

Wu is very pleased with the early popularity of the Lionhearts. The WSB was after all his brainchild and investment and it is now starting to go from strength to strength.

The man considered the "dark-horse" for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Presidency in the elections later this year will know that all successes at WSB and subsequently AIBA level will only strengthen his already hugely powerful and influential position in the Olympic Movement.

And should he manage to capture the most powerful position in the Olympic Movement this September, he could owe a debt of thanks to the British Lionhearts; who are starting to make his WSB creation really roar.

Tom Degun is a reporter for insidethegames. To follow him on Twitter click here.

Fair play to Oprah Winfrey. Offered the much-heralded opportunity to get the demon cyclist to tell the truth on her US TV show about the seven successive Tours de France he won between 1999 and 2005, and about whether the authorities were justified in confiscating those titles for doping offences, grand old Oprah didn't waste any time with small talk – or even moonwalk. She got straight in there:

"Did you ever take banned substances to enhance cycling performance?"

"Yes."

"Was one of those substances EPO?"

"Yes."

"Did you use any other banned substances?"

"Yes."

Result, times three.

But Oprah, in the pre-broadcast trailers to her show, had said that Armstrong "did not come clean in the way I expected."

Oprah Winfrey puts the questions to Lance Armstrong

Perhaps that was a reference to a statement of his which followed this startling opening salvo of questions and responses as they sat in front of the camera near the cyclist's home in Austin, Texas: "I looked up the definition of cheat," Armstrong said. "The definition of a cheat is to gain advantage on a rival or a foe. I don't view it that way. I viewed it as a level playing field."

And there it is. The classic doper's defence.

Back in the 1992, a not particularly well-known British discus thrower and shot putter, Neal Brunning, tested positive for testosterone at the National Indoor Championships in Birmingham. "Don't bother to test the B sample," the burly Londoner reportedly said. "I know what's in it." Speaking to Brunning a couple of years later was instructive. He was candid. "I did it because I felt others in my event were doing it," he said. "I thought 'If they can do it and get away with it, then let's have a go.'"

Charlie Francis, Ben Johnson's coach at the 1988 Seoul Olympics where the sprinter was stripped of his Olympic 100 metres title and world record for testing positive, was, for most of his career, an unabashed apologist for the necessity of taking performance-enhancing substances - a coaching version of Brunning. "I'm not going to have my runners start a metre behind," he once said.

Doping is seen in defensive terms by men such as Francis. It's not a case of "take this, it will really get you out there" so much as "take this, then at least those other bastards won't be putting one over on you." Defensiveness, indeed fear, is endemic to doping and its practitioners. Those who endorse doping, and those who embrace it, strive to feel justified, comfortable even, with what they are doing.

Charlie Francis (right) believed doping was essential to performance for all his athletes, including Ben Johnson (left)

Earlier this week, looking ahead to the broadcast of the Armstrong interview, Johnson was interviewed by the Toronto Star for his thoughts on the matter.

The Canadian ex-athlete's advice to Armstrong was candid. "Confess it all, get it out of the way and move on," he said. "People don't like liars - once you tell the truth you can move on."

But how candid is this from a man who only admitted his doping when called to account for himself under oath at the Canadian Government enquiry headed by Chief Justice Charles Dubin the year after his Seoul "triumph"? Especially as, once he had served his ban, he was subsequently banned for life after testing positive once again?

But it was Johnson's response on the overall moral position of the infraction in which he pre-figured that of the disgraced Texan with eerie exactitude.

Ben Johnson in the dock at the Dubin Inquiry

"It's only cheating if you're the only one doing it," said Johnson, who has always insisted that cheating was rampant at the Seoul Games.

"I've been trying to say it for 24 years," said the 51-year-old former sprinter. "Almost every professional athlete does something."

It's the easy and convenient assumption made by those who cheat. And to be fair it is not without foundation. Of the eight men who contested that Olympic 100m final, for instance, five have been involved in doping charges.

And there is plentiful evidence too that many of Armstrong's competitors were indeed doping. At least one rider who finished just behind Armstrong in each of his Tour victories between 1999 and 2005 has since been implicated in doping.

The thing is, the assumption that "they're all at it" is not only the last word in cynicism, it is also tantamount to an annulment of all sporting endeavour. In hard, commercial terms, it fatally erodes the means of generating profit. Because once the public suspect that they cannot trust what they are watching, the spectacle becomes a farce, the interest dies.

On the subject of Armstrong's doping, Winfrey asked: "Did it feel wrong?"

Armstrong's reply: "No. Scary."

"Did you feel bad?"

"No. Even scarier."

"Did you feel that you were cheating?"

"No. The scariest."

To be so inured to wrongdoing is indeed scary. And it is because Armstrong is wrong, and because there are clean cyclists and athletes in elite sport, that he and - more crucially - his mindset must be resisted, uprooted, banished.

Baron Pierre de Coubertin must be turning in his grave in Olympia – at least, that is where his heart is buried: a heart that was also embodied in his favourite Olympic pursuit – the modern pentathlon.

Alas, 150 years after his birth on January 1, 1863, and hard on the heels of the centenary of the sport he invented 25 years later there is again a real and present danger that it may be booted out of the Olympic Games.

The International Olympic Committee's (IOC) Programme Commission meets shortly to make recommendations to the Executive Board, with a final decision to be made at the September congress in Buenos Aires on whether a possible two new sports should be included in the 25 core elements for the 2020 Games.

The contenders are karate, wushu, roller sports, sport (indoor) climbing, squash, wakeboard and baseball/softball.

This could mean that one, maybe two, of those we enjoyed in London will, disappear from the programme. Modern pentathlon is believed to be high on the list of the vulnerable.


Squash, in my view has the strongest case to come in (surely it has more right be there than tennis) but not at the expense of dear old mod pen.

It would be a travesty if Coubertin's baby was thrown out with the bath water.

For me, the sport has always been a reminder of a gentler, more romantic era before the pursuit of sporting glory became suffused by greed, drugs, duplicity and mind-numbing reality television.

Ah yes, the great god TV. There was once an argument that modern pentathlon was unsuitable for the box. But to help make it more televisual, what was once a five-day test of strength, skill and endurance via running,  shooting, fencing, swimming and riding has been successfully compressed into one, played out between dawn and dusk.

In London, mod pen also pioneered laser shooting ahead of other gun disciplines, which controversially still employ real bullets.

Despite these innovations, and others now revealed on insidethegames, plus the growing popularity of the sport among emerging nations, apparently there are those on the IOC who sniffily perceive the modern pentathlon as old fashioned, and there little doubt that its continued presence is threatened as, I believe is taekwondo should karate be brought into the 2020 programme.

Even worse, if modern pentathlon should even be considered expendable for the likes of the Oriental martial art of wushu (which sounds like a character in Aladdin), or clambering up the walls of a gymnasium.


First introduced at the Stockholm Games of 1912 by the bold Baron, it is something at which Britain has done particularly well at Olympic and World Championship level, as reflected in UK Sport's 11 per cent increase of its funding through to Rio 2016.

GB is well represented internationally, too. Martin Dawe, a former competitor and team manager, now vice-chair of Pentathlon GB, is an Executive Board member of the International Modern Pentathlon Union (UIPM), the global governing body. He is not alone in underscoring the supreme irony of the threat to the sport when the Olympics are celebrating the anniversary of its, and the entire Movement's, founder.

He points out that that it is no longer largely the preserve of Eastern Europe having spread across all continents, notably to Asia and South America.

In order to further boost its popularity UIPM has a run-swim biathlon event and with the advent of laser shooting there is the planned competitive option of a triathlon (run-swim-shoot) which could appeal to Third World nations.

UIPM also introduced a successful mixed relay event (male and female) in the last Youth Olympics.

Now there are plans to stage the entire Olympic event in one existing stadium, which would, include a temporary pool, as early as Rio. It would take place over five hours for the price of a single ticket.

Is that "modern" enough for the IOC?

Another who hopes so is Jim Fox, who led the British men's team to gold in the Montreal Olympics back in 1976.


Fearing that his sport may go to the wall, he has joined the fight to preserve its status.

Foxy, OBE, once led the charge down sport's superhighway, a swashbuckling, Corinthian hero in an age when sportsmen were exactly that.

They called him the dashing white sergeant. Now, at 71, the old soldier who was, arguably, Britain's outstanding all-round sportsman is a victim of Parkinson's Disease but he continues to battle on two fronts - for his own health and that of the sport with which he became identified.

Fox competed in four Olympics, winning a gold medal with the British modern pentathlon team in the 1976 Montreal Games, a bronze in the World Championships in Mexico and was 10 times national champion.

A fencing master who literally foiled the Soviet cheat Boris Onishchenko in Montreal, he was also a prolific cross-country runner, swimmer, marksman and horseman.

Which made it all the more tragic that such a sporting superman should have been struck down 17 years ago by an illness which attacks muscles and mobility – the same crippling condition that affects his famous namesake, the actor Michael J Fox and his even more celebrated sporting contemporary from the seventies, Muhammad Ali.

Like them, Fox now faces his toughest battle, a situation he does not shy away from.

There is no skirting delicately around the subject. He always tells people, up front, what's wrong with him. "I don't want them to think I'm pissed," he laughs.

In Fox's case, the fact that he spurned self-pity for a vigorous, reborn self-belief has been spurred by the incentive to fight for the preservation of a pursuit that brought him so much fulfilment.

In a sporting world so disfigured by excess, Fox is well aware that knows the modern pentathlon is regarded something of an anachronism.

Even in his heyday, the modern pentathlon was perceived as being something practised in formation dancing.

But he is angered by the real possibility that the ultimate test for any Olympian could be replaced on the Olympic stage by "Mickey mouse sports."

"It is a disgrace that this should even be considered, an insult to Baron de Coubertin," he told insidethegames. "The modern pentathlon has always been the very essence of what the Games should be about.

"What I will say is that improvements need to be made to the riding event, the horses should be better, and some of the competitors ride like clowns.

"But it makes me very sad to think the sport could be evicted. This must not happen."


Some years back, the IOC President, Juan Antonio Samaranch, suggested to a German newspaper the sport's days were numbered. Fox fired off a furious salvo to Lausanne. It is believed that the Princess Royal, a fellow competitor in Montreal, also inserted a flea in the Presidential ear. A swift retraction followed.

A further irony that dad's lad Juan Antonio Samaranch junior, a current IOC member, is a vice-president of UIPM, so at least there is some internal support.

Fox hopes the sport in which Britain has always had such a great tradition can entice more youngsters of both sexes. For the record, these are GB's Olympic medallists:

Montreal 1976: Men's team. Gold, Adrian Parker, Danny Nightingale, Jim Fox.

Seoul 1988: Men's team. Bronze, Dominic Mahony, Richard Phelps, Graham Brookhouse.

Sydney 2000: Women's individual. Gold. Steph Cook. Bronze, Kate Allenby.

Athens 2004: Women's individual: Bronze, Georgina Harland.

Beijing 2008: Women's individual: Silver, Heather Fell.

London 2012: Women's individual. Silver, Samantha Murray.

For those who would like to join the "Keep Mod Pen" campaign I recommend a browse through Modern Pentathlon, A Centenary History, penned by Andy Archibald, who was a reserve in Fox's winning class of '72. Published by Grosvenor House, it is now available on Amazon.

His final chapter concludes: "Nobody who knows anything about the modern sport can ever accuse modern pentathlon of being anachronistic. Every such charge against us has been patiently remedied and modern pentathlon remains in every way the most searching test of the sporting all-rounder."

Here here! If the IOC decides in September that it no longer wants modern pentathlon then the Olympics really will have lost their soul. Or rather, sold it.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning 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 Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

Sport England and UK Sport's recent investment in their national governing bodies has again raised the bar for both performance and participation activity over the next four years.

With UK Sport investing £347 million ($558 million/€417 million) in elite summer sport and £496 million ($797 million/€596 million) going to the 46 sports funded by Sport England, even in these tough economic times there is a commitment to build on the legacy of London 2012.

Investment, as many know, is only part of the puzzle for a successful sport, but the one that gets continually overlooked is the role and value that can be offered by non-executive boards and how they support the organisation and its senior management.

In many industries a role on the Board is something that is valued, fought for, something that is seen as adding value. With this in mind, how many sports can say hand on heart that their board is fit for this particular purpose?

A quick straw poll on a Friday afternoon with eight National Governing Body (NGB) chief executive's would suggest not. Only two of the eight I spoke to believed their Board offered genuine value to their sport, and none of the eight believed their chair was a "personal mentor" to them in running the sport.


This is worrying for not only the sector, but it also raises questions about the support, guidance and development opportunities that senior administrators in the sector are getting.

Having recruited a number of senior management positions in sport, I have seen firsthand the advances that can be made with the right people in the right places.

One such example was the non-executive Board for Commonwealth Games England (CGE). Having gone through a transparent and competency based recruitment process for non-paid Board roles, the new Board included the marketing director of Arsenal, the communications and marketing director from UK Athletics, the founder of the Carphone Warehouse and a partner from PwC.

The new board were able to offer a genuine advice and guidance about the direction of the organisation, utilising experiences from other sports and the business world to chart a successful path forward. The appointed candidates from sports bodies ensured that CGE stayed true to its core participants, creating an excellent blend of experience.

In the case of CGE, the majority of those appointed were not people who replied to the advertisements. Passive job seekers or people outside the core NGB world rarely look at job sites, but would welcome the chance to use their skills in a different arena. Opportunities that can add value to passionate, committed and well-funded organisations where they can learn as much from the sport as the sport can from them are exactly what they are after.

This is a year full of promise for British sport. For organisations looking to add to their board or appoint a new chief executive, look outside the sport. Look outside your network...the results may just surprise you.

Leigh Hine is an associate director, and leads the elite performance and participation division at PSD Group. Recruiting senior management (non-executive board, chief executive), performance (performance director, head coach, head of sports science) and other management in sport, Leigh advises national governing bodies, international federations, professional sports teams and international Governments on talent acquisition and strategic recruitment in sport.

Even if you are an experienced gambler, it would take a very brave or foolish person to stick their neck out and say unequivocally which sport will soon be welcomed onto the Olympic Games programme for 2020.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced in July 2011 that eight sports would be shortlisted to be considered for inclusion in the 2020 Olympics. Those sports were baseball, karate, roller sports, softball, sports climbing, squash, wakeboard and wushu.

The rather complicated process has since then seen the eight sports turn into seven bids for 2020, following the decision of baseball and softball to combine and become one.

That entire process will finally conclude at the next IOC Session in Buenos Aires in September, where, incidentally, the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic host city will be chosen and a new IOC President elected.

Unsurprisingly, the IOC Olympic Programme Commission have taken the lead on the process given that they are "responsible for reviewing and analysing the programme of sports, disciplines and events, as well as the number of athletes in each sport, for the Games of the Olympiad and the Olympic Winter Games. The Commission makes recommendations in this regard to the IOC Executive Board and presents reports to the IOC Session."

Chaired by Italy's long-time IOC member Franco Carraro - usually a man that likes to keep a low profile in the Olympic Movement, at least publicly - the Commission have been busy over the last few months as they have had a member present at a major Championship event for every one of the eight sports.

Following the conclusion of the inspections visits, all the bidders gathered at the Palace Hotel in Lausanne in the week before Christmas to present to the Commission.

But, this is where things become a little confusing. The IOC is not revealing if more sports will be axed from the shortlist before we get to Buenos Aires or not. The simple answer for this is because they don't actually know themselves in what is a rather unprecedented selection process.

"In terms of the process going forward, it has not been decided 100 per cent what will happen before the Session in Buenos Aires," a senior member of the IOC Olympic Programme Commission told me recently.

"I am not sure even the IOC President himself is entirely sure how this will proceed. The presentations to our Commission in December were obviously a very important part of the process and it is fair to say that every bid was of a very high standard, much higher than four years ago. We are now compiling our report for the IOC Executive Board, and it will move forward from what they decide after receiving that."

It is difficult to gauge what the IOC Executive Board will decide to do with that report. Some have suggested that could decide to keep all seven bids live by the time we get to Buenos Aires, others that we could be down to just two by the time we get to the Argentinian capital.

But rather than worry themselves with the internal politics of the IOC, the seven bidders are perhaps best to concentrate on showcasing themselves as best as possible in the intermittent period.

And taking an early lead in this fashion in 2013 appears to be squash.

I managed to attend the recent 2013 World Series Squash Finals at the exclusive Queen's Club in London which is one of the sport's showpiece events featuring the world's top eight male and female players.

The skill and ability of the players on show was undoubtedly of Olympian standard and World Squash Federation (WSF) President N Ramachandran was quick to praise the event.

"Squash has enjoyed a tremendous recent run - beginning with the successful IOC inspection visit to the Hong Kong Open early in December, and followed shortly afterwards by our presentation to the IOC Programme Commission in Lausanne," he said.

"And this weekend we were not only treated to the best live television coverage of the sport I have ever seen, on Sky and Eurosport, but also an avalanche of positive press coverage around the world - all of which is inspiring me to feel that we have made huge progress since our last Olympic bid four years ago."

The other six bidders will undoubtedly have their chance to shine before Buenos Aires, in what is seen as part of an IOC plan to arrive at 25 core sports, with continual bids to join the event.

This means however, that at least one current Olympic sport will have to make way in Buenos Aires, given that the addition of golf rugby sevens for the next two Games in 2016 and 2020 take the programme up to 28 sports.

If you listen to the rumours in the corridors of power, which is never the best idea in the world, modern pentathlon seems to be the one most in danger – although they will cling to the argument that it was the favourite sport of Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the Modern Olympic Movement, who was ironically born 150 years ago.

Either way, predicting which sport that will go is just as difficult as predicting as which will come in.

It means exciting times, but it also means that the seven-way race for 2020 Olympic sports programme is too close to call.

Tom Degun is a reporter for insidethegames. To follow him on Twitter click here. 

It may have been a coincidence, but I imagine it was the earthquake that woke me. Not that I recognised it immediately. For a while, I lay in my bed observing the curious movement of the lightshade hanging from the ceiling, which swung back and forth, back and forth, as if someone had set it mischievously in motion. Had I done that? News to me if I had. Then again, night before, some drink taken...

A dim memory made me rise and stand in the doorframe, supposedly the strongest part of any building caught up in what I now realised it was being caught up in. I am happy to report that the media village at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano stood firm. My shade became a shade less lively and, eventually, motionless. I went downstairs for breakfast.

News reports soon informed us that we had experienced a magnitude 5.3 earthquake.


Earlier this week Tsunekazu Takeda, President of Tokyo's bid for the 2020 Olympics and of the Japanese Olympic Committee, insisted that no one had reason to feel unsafe in his country. "No one can predict when and where a quake will strike," he said, almost two years after the devastating damage caused to Japan's eastern coast by a tsunami triggered by an oceanic earthquake measured at 9.03 on the scale.

"It can happen anywhere in the world," added Takeda, an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member. "The important thing as a nation is to be ready as you can be if and when it does occur. In Japan's case, architectural standards are very strict and the sports facilities that will exist seven, eight years down the road will certainly meet them."

Pointing out that Tokyo's buildings withstood the March 2011 earthquake, Takeda concluded: "We've been saying the facilities in Tokyo will hold up, and the Metropolitan Government is very aware how quake-proof they must be. The city will be sturdier than ever in 2020."

Takeda's words about unpredictability been borne out by experience. Two months before the Japanese tsunami, Christchurch, the second biggest city in New Zealand, was hit by an earthquake that measured at 6.3 which left 185 people dead.


A month earlier in Christchurch my colleague Tom Degun had had a similarly alarming wake-up call to the one I experienced in Japan while he was covering the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) World Athletics Championships, as quakes of 5.1, 3.4 and 4.0 shook the city. The event – most notable for a rare 100 metres defeat for Oscar Pistorius by United States sprinter Jerome Singleton – concluded without incident in the Queen Elizabeth II Stadium built to host the 1974 British Commonwealth Games, which was to be damaged beyond repair just a few weeks later.

For the athletes taking part in those Championships, the thought of what so nearly befell them will doubtless cause a shudder.

Four years before the Nagano Games, I spoke on the phone to three British athletes – John Regis, Tony Jarrett and Gary Cadogan – who had been caught up in the terrifying earthquake which hit Los Angeles and left 57 dead. The three sprinters were on a training trip funded by the British Athletic Federation and living in Sherman Oaks, less than 10 miles from the epicentre of the quake.

When phone lines were restored to the area, they described how they had woken in darkness and confusion as the hillside house which they share was caught up in a quake which registered 6.6 on the Richter scale and was felt 275 miles away in Las Vegas.


"It went on for about 45 seconds," said Jarrett, who had won a World Championship silver medal in the 110 metres hurdles the previous year. "Everything was moving. It was really scary."

The first reaction of Cadogan, Britain's leading 400m hurdler of the time, was that a bomb had gone off. "It was like someone picking up the house and shaking it. I stayed frozen in my bed. When it stopped, there was silence. None of us screamed or shouted. We were all too scared to say anything.

"Everything was pitch black, which made it even more scary. We saw fires, and then something blew up and it was like a firework display.

"We just stood there talking, not knowing what was going on. After a while, we put on our trainers and ran out to the car.

"When we went out it was still dark, but one of the neighbours lent us a flashlight. We stayed awake for the rest of the day because we were too scared to go to sleep. We didn't have anything to eat for 12 to 15 hours. The power came back on, but we couldn't have water at first because the fire service needed the water pressure. Then we could only drink water that we had boiled.

"Two people got killed about a mile down the road from us when their house just slid off the mountain. There is a place called Van Nuys about a mile away which is devastated. There are walls hanging off everywhere, and shop windows broken. It's like a war zone."


As I write this, checks are still underway on the massive construction site that is Sochi, the Black Sea resort which will host the 2014 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. The checks have been instigated by the Russian President and sometime Sochi holidayer Vladimir Putin in the wake of the earthquakes which shook the region last month.

Sochi 2014 represents a monumental demonstration of ambition involving, uniquely, the construction of an entire Olympic venue from scratch. As such, it is a manifestation of the willpower of Putin - and by extension, Russia - in the field of sporting endeavour.

It is another feather in the cap for a nation that will host this summer's World Athletics Championships, and the 2018 World Cup finals, the forthcoming swimming and ice hockey World Championships, not to mention a new Russian Grand Prix extension to the Formula One programme which will run around the coastal cluster of indoor venues once the Sochi 2014 Games are over.

But the seismic activity in and around the Black Sea has sounded a warning that even the highest of human endeavours sometimes have to cede to nature. Let's hope those inspections, and those building specifications, are thorough...

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.