It is not a phrase, I must admit, that has often tripped off my tongue, but I think Colin Moynihan has judged this one just about right.

It is hard to see the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) doing anything other than backing the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA's) position when it passes judgement on the British Olympic Association (BOA) bylaw preventing drug cheats from representing Britain at the Olympic Games, probably early next year.

But, if he plays his cards right, win or lose, the BOA chairman should emerge from the episode as a champion of the populist cause of taking a hard line on doping offenders.

WADA, by contrast, if it is not very careful may have a tricky time explaining why a body with the words "anti-doping" in its very title, appears to be pressing for a 20-year-old sanction to be diluted.

That is where the PR battle is likely to be waged.

Actually though, while you might very well sympathise with the principles behind Moynihan's hard-line stance, I think the correct approach would be to work hard at convincing WADA, in effect, to adopt the BOA bylaw worldwide.

Either a standardised global approach to doping is worth having, or it isn't.

I share the BOA's hope that the world of sport will use this issue as a pretext for "an open and honest debate about the status and future of the anti-doping movement".

But I fear that by making the severity of sanctions the focal-point, more fundamental matters will be glossed over.

Let's start with the effectiveness of the anti-doping apparatus.

An adverse analytical finding is catastrophic for an athlete.

It can transform someone from national hero to international pariah virtually overnight.

And that would be true however severe (or lenient) the potential sanction.

Yet do we have the slightest idea of the proportion of drug cheats who are actually caught?

Or whether this proportion is rising or falling?

It is a tough thing to ascertain, for sure.


But unless we have some idea, how do we know that it is not just the incompetent drug cheats getting caught and vilified, leaving more accomplished dopers to bask in continued adoration?

Introducing severer sanctions would also, to my mind, make it imperative to make sure we are a) 100 per cent confident in the science and b) 100 per cent certain that there is not the faintest smidgen of official favouritism or corruption from the moment the testers knock on the door to exhaustion of an athlete's last avenue of appeal.

I am afraid I disagree totally with the notion that a smattering of innocent victims is a price worth paying in the drive to stamp out abuse.

It is all very well in theory, until that innocent victim is you.

And the logic of arguing that a two-year ban for doping is "almost saying it is acceptable" quite escapes me.

Moynihan also said this week that over 60 per cent of countries in the Olympic Movement have anti-doping policies that are non-compliant with the WADA code.

If that is even remotely correct, then bringing that figure sharply down should, to my mind, be much more of a priority than bickering over sanctions.

I repeat: the consequences of an adverse finding are so devastating - whether or not you are forced to sit out an Olympics - that the least top-level athletes have a right to expect is that they and their international peers receive equal treatment.

Once that is sorted out, then the matter of whether penalties need to be more severe can move centre-stage.

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 and 2010 World Cup. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.

Stand by your beds chaps! Labour has a new games mistress. Harriet Harman's appointment as sport's overlady on the Opposition front bench seems to have sneaked the radar. Perhaps with good reason.

Ed Miliband's selection of his daunting as shadow secretary for Culture, Media and Sport will raise eyebrows, and doubtless a few hackles in the sporting community.

"Harperson" has no track record of any previous interest in sporting issues but this did not deter her going into bat at Lord's last week, telling the Business in Sport and Leisure annual conference that while on holiday in India last year "it took me twice as long as any other nationality to get through passport control and baggage checks because all they wanted to talk to me about was the cricket. It was quickly evident that they knew more about English cricket than I did." And probably any other aspect of sport for that matter.

But that's politics for you, and politics is what she is about, as she has wasted no time in putting the boot into Government sports policies, claiming everything good that is now happening in sport is all down to the last administration.

Another Harman gem: "In Peckham, they walk tall when Rio Ferdinand reminds them that he came from Peckham." Not if they're a supporter of nearby Millwall, dear, as her newly-appointed sporting sidekick could inform her.

Clive Efford, MP for Eltham, is now Labour's Shadow Sports Minister. Not only is he a Millwall fan but a qualified referee. His whistle should come in handy.

It will be fascinating to see how Harman, now nominally overseeing Labour's Olympics policy at the DCMS, gets on with Tessa Jowell, who remains in the Cabinet as Shadow Olympics Minister.

All this must bring a wry smile to the face of Kate Hoey, the best Sports Minister we've had since Denis Howell, who was brutally booted into touch by Tony Blair after some calculated earblowing by his insidious henchman Alastair Campbell on behalf of the equally insidious football lobby, whom Hoey had the effrontery to challenge. She could be doing Harman's new job with far more credibility and background knowledge.

So could someone who was once Hoey's right hand man when she was Sports Minister. As her Parliamentary aide he shared the same passion for community and schools sport.

Andy Reed is one of the nice guys of politics. Which is probably why he lost his seat the last election. Ironically he represented Loughborough, whose electorate have much to thank sport for. They should have known better.

Had he still been at Westminster surely he would have been the ideal choice to head up the Opposition's sports team. He says, somewhat diplomatically that he finds Harman's appointment "quite interesting" while Efford is "a good guy."

For me, the jury's out on Harman (pictured), but the good news is that the loss of his seat meant that Andy was handy to become the new chair of the Sport and Recreation Alliance, (the Central Council for Physical Recreation that was) in succession to the doughty Brigid Simmonds.

With his 13 years Parliamentary experience and a genuine feel for sport at all levels has already begun to enhance its reputation. A former runner, volleyball and tennis player who still turns out for his Midlands rugby club, Birstall, at 50, he is popular with sports leaders and principled enough to have resigned from the Government over the Iraq war.

With chief executive Tim Lamb, the former head honcho at the England Cricket Board, and the ubiquitous Howard Wells, former UK and Northern Ireland FA chief executive as deputy chair the refurbished Alliance has been given a new lease of life .

The old CCPR had become increasingly anachronistic since the heady and purposeful days of the well-remembered and much lamented Nigel Hook. It is re-emerging as the potent ginger group it once was.

Reed tells me: "It's a cliché in these situations to say what a great honour it is to be asked to chair an organisation like the S&RA – but it genuinely is. Sport plays an incredibly important part in our society and, I am leading an organisation that brings together no fewer than 322 national governing and representative bodies, 150,000 clubs and millions of participants."

Literally representing everything from bowls to bridge, football to tchouckball, and activities like movement and dance and cheerleading which will play a role in the cultural aspects of 2012.  "Every sport you've heard of and a few you haven't," says Reed.

As the CCPR - so often confused with the letters on the vests of athletes in the days of the Soviet Union - and now the S&RA they have been an effective if relatively unsung body. As Lamb says: "It it frustrates me that we've been around for over 70 years and still so many people don't really know what we do, which is why we are  endeavouring to raise our profile.  We have put ourselves about a bit and back on the map."

The trouble is, much of what the Alliiance does as the "parliament of sport"  can be eye-glazing for the public prints, rather like that of the English Institute of Sport, another nuts and bolts operation that is worthy and essential but no-one really wants to read about.

And in terns of sports governance the S&RA  is overshadowed by the two Goverment quangos, UK Sport and Sport England, and the British Olympic Association.

"It is a tough sporting environment out there in terms of financing and funding," says Reed (pictured). "Much of what we do doesn't excite the public until the impact is apparent."

So what does the S&RA do? Well, they organise campaigns from their Victoria offices aimed at supporting the sporting community on varying issues like the work of volunteers, tax, VAT, betting in sport, playing fields, women's sport, planning permissions, the increase in police charges at sports events and licensing matters. Reed cites an example of his rugby club which even has to fork out for an annual music licence because some of the player bring in their Ipods to play in the dressing room. The S&RA fought a successful battle to get the proposed fee increase for all clubs halved.

MPs are actively lobbied to oppose things that might harm sport and encouraged to support schemed that are beneficial.

The body's raison d'etre is fighting sport's corner from, all angles and it is estimated that over the past two years clubs have been saved over £2 million in taxes and levies.

"One thing we keep banging on about is Olympic Legacy," says Reed. "We are immensely supportive of 2012 but critical of the amount of legacy that will be left for sport."

He adds: "If we didn't exist you would have to invent us because people in sport need an independent voice. We're not hamstrung by close ties with government and we are not dominated by the Big Five of sport. We can advise on the governance of sport and also be critical of the way some sports are run – and sometimes we are.

"Our meetings give sports leaders a chance to get together, compare experiences and have a moan if they like. Some of the less known sports have nowhere else to go. They see us as their as their representative in the big sporting world."

After three months in the role Reed admits: "I've found the politics of sport a lot harder than the politics of Westminster."

Something upon which Ms Harman, our new sports czarina, may care to ponder.

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.

The announcement of the Olympic Torch Relay route earlier this month -and in particular, the fact that it will pass within ten miles of 95 per cent of the population – is one tangible way in which the Games will touch every corner of the UK.

Another, of course, is Team GB – Our Greatest Team:  the 550 athletes who will come from towns and cities throughout the UK and fulfil the opportunity of a lifetime by competing in the London 2012 Olympic Games.

During the past week we have launched a vital campaign - "Be There with Team 2012" - which gives everyone the chance to win tickets to the Games and, in doing so, help British athletes achieve their ambition of winning more medals from more sports and, in doing so, unite and inspire the nation next summer.

The objective of the Be There campaign is to raise £2 million ($3.2 million/€2.3 million) to give British athletes – Olympic and Paralympic – a critical boost in their final preparations for the biggest moment of their sporting careers. The money raised will go toward world-class coaching, medical support, travel to competitions, sport psychology and specialist equipment over the next nine months.

This is your chance to win tickets to this once-in-a-lifetime experience; your chance to help British athletes to achieve their dreams; your chance to Be There. Find out more here.

Your support can make the crucial difference for Britain's Olympic and Paralympic athletes. Research shows that the London 2012 Olympics will be the most competitive Games in history with more nations than ever now producing athletes capable of winning medals.

The latest predictive Olympic medal table published recently shows Team GB in fifth place with 59 medals. That's 12 more than were won in our groundbreaking performance at the Beijing Games in 2008. Crucially, however, the breakdown is 15 gold, 21 silver and 23 bronze, while Germany currently stand at 17 gold in their overall total of 55 medals, and currently claim fourth place in the predictive table.


In Beijing, four of Team GB's fantastic Olympic gold medals were won by a cumulative difference of just 0.87 seconds. These are the fine margins that define Olympic success. That's why the Be There with Team 2012 campaign is so important; to give British athletes the extra one percent; to convert silver and bronze into gold when it matters most, on home soil next summer.

For many British athletes, the next step in their preparation will be to compete at one of the twelve London 2012 test events taking place across many of the Olympic venues in the next three months. Athletes from six sports will compete at ExCeL, including our boxing and taekwondo squads who both returned from their 2011 World Championships with outstanding four medal hauls.

The women's handball team will debut in the impressive Handball Arena later this month before the gymnasts, track cyclists and swimmers test their Olympic venues early in 2012. The test events are invaluable in terms of sharpening our Games time plans – athletes, coaches, support staff and Team GB leadership.

As we approach the end of the year and enter the awards season, I look back on countless exceptional performances across our Olympic sports. For me personally, five of the most memorable moments were:

•         Keri-Anne Payne, open water swimming world champion

It was a privilege to be there to witness Keri-Anne's world beating performance as she took the world crown in China and qualified an Olympic quota place for Team GB.


• Sarah Stevenson (pictured), taekwondo world champion

Sarah showed immense courage, bravery and commitment to win gold in Korea, the home of Taekwondo, while overcoming the most difficult of personal circumstances.

•         Mo Farah, athletics world champion

Mo demonstrated incredible belief in his ability to bounce back from the disappointment of silver in the 10,000 metres to win a thrilling 5,000m just days later.

•         Mark Cavendish, road cycling test event

Cav's sprint finish down the Mall to win the London 2012 Test Event provided one of the highlights of the summer and certainly whet the appetite for day one of London 2012 when he will be racing for Olympic gold. He then went on to become GB's first male world race champion in 46 years in Denmark in September.

•         Denise Johns and Lucy Boulton, beach volleyball test event

The GB pair were undoubtedly inspired by the home support to beat China's world number four pair en route to reaching the semi-finals in an iconic 2012 Olympic venue.

Andy Hunt is Team GB Chef de Mission and chief executive of the British Olympic Association (BOA). To follow him on Twitter click here. 

I'm currently training with The Finn squad out in Perth, Australia, ahead of the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) World Championships and we have decided to grow moustache's to help raise funds for The Prostate Cancer Charity. The team consists of myself, current European champion Giles Scott, European bronze medallist Andrew Mills, former Finn junior world and European Champion Mark Andrews and our physio Alex Hopson.

Check out our Mo video.

The Mo's look shocking already and we are getting loads of stick off the Aussies so help make it all worth it by donating here.

Andrew Mills gives his lowdown on the different Team Mo's:

• Mark Andrews is surprisingly sporting the most ginger Mo out of everyone – must be the Scottish in him.

• Giles, as the youngest, is kind of struggling. He has gone for the classic moustache but is currently experiencing slow and sparse growth. He claims it will be awesome by the end of the month!

• Hoppo is going for the handlebar moustache and is doing very well, so far. I believe he is tempted to keep it after Movember finishes

• Ben is showing his age and experience in taking an early lead with some quick dense growth, sporting the chinstrap exceptionally well. All the lads are working hard and are confident of catching him by the end of the month

The Prostate Cancer Charity provide vital support for anyone affected by prostate cancer: concerned and diagnosed men, their partners, friends and families. They also help fund a robust research programme working towards a world where lives are no longer limited by prostate cancer.

Comments from the boys so far....

• "This mo is definitely making me less aero dynamic" – Giles Scott

• "I'm finding it hard to look in the mirror" – Mark Andrews

From all the team, "Massive cheers".

Ben Ainslie is Britain's most successful Olympic sailor. In total he has won three gold medals and one silver. His next aspiration is to qualify for and bring back a historic fourth gold in the London 2012 Olympics. He is also the current 2010 ISAF World Match Racing Champion. To find out more click here.

It was thrilling here in the huge Ball Room at the St Kitts Marriot Resort as the outgoing Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) President Mike Fennell of Jamaica, after criminally joking around for what seemed like an eternity, eventually announced the Gold Coast as the hosts of the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Their sole rivals, Hambantota of Sri Lanka, put up a valiant fight which Gold Coast 2018 bid chairman Mark Stockwell was the first to acknowledge.

They truly did make a compelling argument to take the event to Sri Lanka.

But in the end, the Gold Coast were worthy victors.

Rightly or wrongly, Hambantota were compared to Delhi and the 2010 Commonwealth Games which most people would like to forget.

It was perhaps a tad unfair, but you could see the risk involved given that only one venue was built for a potential 2018 Commonwealth Games had been built meaning that there would have to be an outrageous construction process involved to have things ready in time.

In stark contrast, the Gold Coast offered a stunning setting, already has in place a number of elite sporting facilities and also has huge experience in hosting major competitions.

Couple that with amazing weather and the most welcoming hospitality – which I was fortunate enough to experience when I visited the city earlier this year – and you can safely bet that the Gold Coast will host a superb event in seven years' time.

The decision is also just reward for the hugely likeable Stockwell and also the bid chief executive Mark Peters, who have worked so hard to provide the Commonwealth with an offer they couldn't turn down.

One now hopes they are now involved in the next stage of the process as they truly deserve to be. Fortunately, that looks increasing likely with Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, the decision maker on the issue, known to be a huge supporter of the duo.

It was typical of Stockwell, a former Olympic and Commonwealth Games gold medallist in swimming, to pay tribute to his vanquished foe when I asked him the question at the winning press conference.

"At the same time as celebrating victory, I really want to pay tribute to Hambantota," he said genuinely.

"At times in their presentation, I actually wanted to vote for them because they were so convincing and were speaking from the heart.

"But we put so much heart and so much hard work into our bid so I think we really deserved that victory."

For their part, Hambantota kindly congratulated the Gold Coast heartily.


"Congratulations to Mark and his team, I am sure they will host a fantastic event in 2018," said Hambantota 2018 co-chairman Ajith Nivard Cabraal, a man who truly did not deserve to be on the losing side.

"It is disappointing of course that we will not see a Hambantota Games in 2018.

"But we have said all along that bidding for these prestigious Games is a key part of an exciting and progressive journey in Sri Lanka.

"Together we have embarked on a new era and we will make good our promise to rejuvenate the region regardless of this outcome.

"We are talking about something transformational; something that will help build a better tomorrow for all our people."

It was nice to hear the last part of Cabraal's statement.

The story they told is amazing and one truly hope they return to bid again.

As Fennell himself said: "Hambantota was a very strong bid, and we have a duty to take the Games to new places, but the bid needs to be the right thing for the Commonwealth Games Movement at the right time.

"This time Gold Coast was successful, but I hope Hambantota consider bidding again - their team were wonderful."

A time will certainly come to expand the Commonwealth Games Movement, with whispers of a South Africa 2022 bid growing.

But for now, a strong, safe Commonwealth Games in 2018 in a beautiful city feels just right.

So well done Hambantota but congratulations to Mark Stockwell and his entire team.

You are truly worthy of victory.

Tom Degun is a reporter for insidethegames 

The Minister for Sport and the Olympics was looking at his phone as he stood in the hectically busy bar of Monte Carlo's Fairmont Hotel, and the expression on his face was one of satisfaction. As well it might be, given the text of congratulation was from "dc".

The Prime Minister - for it was he - had delivered a recorded message in support of London's bid for the 2017 World Athletics Championships which had been played during the presentation the IAAF Council, and played its part in getting the whole effort across the line at the end of a long and arduous process which had begun, abortively, with negotiations to secure the Championships of 2003, and then 2005, and then...

Oh, it's too long and complicated to go into now.

Lord Sebastian Coe, of course, was a harrier in his days as an Olympic champion. But the discipline he showed mastery of as he headed the London presentation to the IAAF Council members for whom he is already a vice-president was the hurdles. God knows there have been enough of them for this British endeavour.

The feeling was beforehand that the IAAF wanted to finally award the Games to one of their oldest and best heartlands – as long as London didn't shoot itself in the foot again. By the time it came to the vote, the ground around that foot was drilled with bullets, but the foot remained intact thanks to the late intervention which guaranteed the 2012 Olympic Stadium for future athletics use.

For all the dizzying financial promises made by the rival Doha bid, a sizeable majority of the voters – London won it 16-10 – held true to a vision which, in Coe's estimation, served as the completion of a story which had been begun with the 2012 Games.

Coe, too, was among those shuttling between the Fairmont bar and the booming attraction of the Buddha Bar further up one of this principality's vertiginous sets up steps towards the Casino Square. How he deserved his drinks.

In the all-but-deserted room in which the press had sat to see the TV link to the presentations being made in another part of the Fairmont Hotel, the large screen continued to show images - and the speaker alongside it to broadcast sound - from that same room.

It was fascinating to watch the body language as Coe moved through the crowd, with the camera tracking him. Some members he hugged with clear warmth. Others he shook by the hand. Yet others, perhaps remembering Don Corleone's good advice, he clasped to his bosom.

Later, in the bar, the Minister, Hugh Robertson, briefly speculated upon who the 10 members voting for Doha might have been. Those calculations will go on in private as far as Coe is concerned, given his ongoing commitment to the International Association of Athletics Federations as one of its vice-presidents and as a man who clearly has the potential to become yet more important for track and field's world governing body.


As he sat alongside the IAAF President Lamine Diack at the post-vote press conference, Coe's bearing was, you would have to say, also Presidential as he steered the line between being British and being International.

In praising the "unprecedented" levels of support which had been given to track and field in Britain despite the parlous economic times, he doffed his cap to the Minister and the man who sat at the end of the London dais, Boris Johnson, the capital's Mayor. Johnson had made another of his rousing but faintly alarming contributions to the London cause which finished with a game and spirited attempt in French to underline the permanence of athletics – "et aussi pour le football et le pop music" - in the heart of the Olympic Park.

As the relieved applause, to which Diack had contributed with a broad grin – one showman appreciating another? – died down, Coe changed the mood to one of calmer diplomacy.

"These are always complicated days, because actually I wear two hats. I'm here as a bidder, and I'm here to win the right to host the World Athletics Championship, but for the remainder of the year I wear my other hat which is as a representative of the sport globally. Mercifully, actually both hats, I think have pointed to London today and the delivery of a World Championships to London I think will serve global purposes extraordinarily well.

"I'm very open about this, I would not have supported this bid simply because I come from that country. I supported the bid because the vision we created in 2012, and the vision these guys have crafted for taking the sport forward, back everything I said six and a half years ago. So for me this is a perfect story.

"And let me, rather like the President, congratulate Doha, because their bid was a solid bid, the presentation was a powerful presentation, and we do need to globalise and build capacity in our sport.

"And yes, sometimes that does mean taking it to challenging environments. I'm sure that over the next decade we will be looking to broaden the sport and broaden that global reach in all sorts of territories. But today the bid London offered was the right bid at the right time.

"And I genuinely think that it meets all our domestic legacy commitments, certainly growing the sport in the UK, but in large part the global vision that the President set out in the beginning of the World Plan that seems to bring to fruition that thinking next year."

It's all there, isn't it?

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the past five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames. Rowbottom's Twitter feed can be accessed here. 

Can you hear it? You can probably hear it best if you are in Monte Carlo right now, in a hotel perhaps, and momentarily mistaking it for something playing in the lift. But no. Get past the muzak. Attune your ears to one of Lord Sebastian Coe's favourite phenomena: mood music.

As the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) prepares to choose between London and Doha as host of the 2017 World Championships, they do so amid a crescendo of noise from both sides. But the noise has to be tempered, has to be disciplined. It is so easy at this moment to hit a wrong note, to create a jarring dischord.

Thus London can't be too heavy-handed about the fact that their opponents want people to run in conditions which will be uncomfortably hot for many of them, especially if they are competing in events on the roads. It may be cooler at night in Qatar but that can still mean temperatures bordering on 30 degrees.

Having visited Doha three times in the last couple of years I found it dizzyingly hot even walking around outside my hotel, albeit that my visits were in May rather than late September, the proposed time for the 2017 championships.

And, at the risk of sounding crass, I did spend a fair amount of time blithering about in the evenings looking for a place to buy an alcoholic drink before repairing to the bar in the gardens at the back of my hotel – and finding it shut. Last time I went out in Doha I visited the Souq Waqif, a lovingly reconstructed version of a souq that originally stood on or near that spot in the city.

The Souq itself was a warren of fascinating alleys and brightly lit shops selling clothing, rugs, antiques, ornamental swords, jars and candlesticks, while traditional food was also available from a range of street sellers. It was great. My two friends and I had a good wander before a really nice meal at a rooftop restaurant, surrounded by family groups. It was lovely food, and a lovely atmosphere. It's just that at one point – well, at several points to be honest – I heard a strange lip-smacking sound emerging from one of my compadres and as our eyes met over our cola drinks we were momentarily as one. Desperate for a beer.

But that probably can't be mentioned. And the question marks which have been raised over the efficacy of the air conditioning technology at the heart of the Doha bid also cannot be mentioned by London if they want to maintain decorum.

For their part, those representing Doha might love to stick a well-aimed boot at London's lamentable attempts at keeping its word to the IAAF in the space of the last decade as they have promised and then failed to deliver on the subject of the World Championships not once, but three times. Fourth time lucky, as they don't say...

Doha's announcement this week that they will cover the £5 million prize fund for the Championships, with the added suggestion that this might enable the IAAF to plough funds they might otherwise have had to spend into youth development, looks like a pretty keen thrust.

London are responding with decorous, but subtly coded messages. Their announcement that they have had support from 100 athletes around the world, including the likes of Tyson Gay, Fabiana Murer, Tirunesh Dibaba, Steven Hooker, Kenenisa Bekele, Haile Gebrselassie, Carmelita Jeter and Tatyana Chernova – as well as the three shortlisted women for IAAF Athlete of the Year, Valerie Adams, Vivian Cheruiyot and Sally Pearson – adds powerfully to their insistence that theirs would be "an athlete-centred" championships (as opposed to – what? Non athlete-centred championships? Nobody is saying that of course).

The quote offered by the bid's chairman, Ed Warner, linking the 100 athletes to 100 years of history also nods towards one of London's greatest virtues. This, after all, is a city which was hosting athletics as part of the Olympic Games more than a century ago.

Coe, the Bid President, chimes another bell with his comment on the supporting athletes: "They are clearly so excited and enthused by the idea of competing in a championships where their needs have been addressed and where they will compete in front of a full passionate crowd."

So two things there, then. Another prompt that this will be a venue and atmosphere in which athletes will feel relaxed. And a reminder of more of London's undeniable strengths – the historical support it has offered for athletics, and the depth of knowledge about the sport which most spectators would have.

So who's going to get the vote? Well, 18 years ago in Monte Carlo, as the International Olympic Committee made its final deliberations as to who would be awarded the 2000 Olympics, I asked that same question of an athletics writer who probably understood the politics involved as well, if not better, than anyone – the late John Rodda of The Guardian. He said it was too close to call. If all that knowledge is not enough to provide a secure prediction, then I think I will just have to attune my ears to the mood music myself and await the final bar. As it were.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the past five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames. Rowbottom's Twitter feed can be accessed here. 

This time next week, we will have reached the conclusion of our 11th World Class Performance Conference, the final opportunity for the entire high performance community to congregate ahead of next year's home Olympic and Paralympic Games, having spent three days with our leading performance directors, coaches and support personnel, exploring the theme of "Aspiration".

Our 2011 conference stands in complete contrast to our 2010 event. We are swapping the splendid isolation of St Andrews for an East London competition venue and the reality of Mission 2012. Last year we invited delegates to stop, reflect and, if necessary, make courageous changes before embarking on a final year of development and preparation.

This year we are asking them to pause briefly to check where they are and where they've been, and then to grasp the moment and aspire to go where they may once have thought impossible.

2012 will test us all in ways we cannot with certainty predict, so the best we can aspire to be is comfortable in the knowledge that we have done all we can, with the time and resources available to us, so when the torch is lit we capitalise on whatever opportunities materialise, and confront any adversity with maximum positive energy.


It's tempting to argue that this notion of positive energy and the mindset it alludes to is the final, defining element of complete preparation - the last opportunity available to us that is within our gift to determine. I'm struggling to think of anyone or any team who has had a trouble-free journey from the moment the bid was won on July 6 2005 to the present time. There have been clashes of opinion and belief, losses, setbacks, disagreements, tears and, I daresay, some scars to show for it.

But as we look back briefly for the last time before 2012, it may be worth reflecting on what might be gained by leaving behind whatever negatives we are still carrying in our metaphorical kitbags, simply on the grounds that they can only reduce our chances of success.

As the World Class Performance Conference gathers for a final time before what is sure to be an exceptional year for British sport, there is no better opportunity to acknowledge that we are all in this together.

Peter Keen is director of performance at UK Sport, the nation's high performance sports agency.

UK Sport's 11th World Class Performance Conference takes place at ExCeL London from Monday 14 to Wednesday 16 November. The aim of the Conference is to reflect on and learn from collective experiences of the sporting year across different sports and environments, in order to share best practice and prepare for the challenges ahead. Workshop leaders this year include Biz Price, Bill Endicott, Jason Lee, Hugh Morris, Yogi Breisner, Craig Hunter, Steve Peters, Malcolm Arnold, Neil Laughton and Steve Heppell

The sad passing Joe Frazier at 67 from liver cancer evokes memories of heavyweight boxing's golden era in the 1970s when champions like himself, Muhammad Ali and George Foreman fought each other for genuine titles and not disparate bits of bling.

It also allows me a moment of personal indulgence to recall that I am one of only two people (Foreman was the other) ever to have put the great Smokin' Joe on the floor..Well, kind of...

It happened at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics - the very first I covered. In those days we media types were permitted to roam the Olympic Village unaccompanied and I was doing just that when around a corner on a bike hurtled a large, thick-thighed young man  pedalling furiously at breakneck speed.

He saw me rather late, I jumped, he swerved and fell off heavily. I recognised him immediately as the US boxing heavyweight representative, one Joseph Frazier.

"Oh dear," I thought as he got up and glanced down at his grazed knees. "Am I in trouble here!"

But Frazier grinned sheepishly and apologised. "Sorry man, I guess I was going a bit fast," he said.

I introduced myself, we shook hands and I wished him luck in the forthcoming Olympic tournament, hoping that our near–collision had not damages his chances..

It hadn't. He went on to win the gold medal, deploying the wrecking ball of a left hook that was to become his trademark in the semi-finals against a Russian, on whose features he broke a thumb.

That injury restricted his punching power in the final, when he outpointed the German Hans Huber on a majority decision.

The next time I saw that left hook in action was at Madison Square Garden seven years later when it fractured the jaw of Ali in the final round. Bravely Ali survived the count but Frazier had clearly won the first of what was be the most memorable trilogy in boxing history.

Back then Olympic gold medallists traditionally graduated to become professional world champions, as Ali did after acquiring the Olympic light-heavyweight title as the 18-year-old Cassius Clay in Rome in 1964 and Foreman, Frazier's eventual nemesis, did at Mexico City in 1968.

They shared an an incomparable era in both Olympic and World Championship boxing. Between them they produced fights that were unforgettably dramatic.

I am fortunate to have been at most of them, including the Ali-Frazier  Fight of trhe Century in New York, The Rumble in the Jungle and the Thilla in Manila. As well as the savage encounter when Foreman literally blasted Frazier off his feet five times in two riounds in Kingston, Jamaica.

Of them all, it was the third Ali-Frazier fight which remains etched most vividly in the memory, not just for the raw intensity of their attrition, but for a poignant moment afterwards.


Then World Championships were fought over 15 rounds and at the end of the 14th  on that steamy Filipino morning (the fight began at breakfastime for US TV) Frazier, blinded in one eye and his face a grotesque gargoyle, was compassionately ordered to stay ion  his stool by his trainer, the legendary Eddie Futch.

He angrily remonstrated but Futch said calmly. "Sit down son.It's all over but no-one will ever forget you did here today."

And no-one has, least of all Ali. I was in Frazier's darkened dressing room later when Ali, who himself had been close to a bruising defeat, collapsing even before they could raise his arm, walked in and saw Frazier's then 14-year-old son Marvis (later to himself become a  heavyweight contender battered by Larry Holmes and Mike Tyson, and subsequently a preacher) sobbing on a bench.

Ali patted Joe on the shoulder and then walked across to Marvis. "What you cryin'; for boy?" he demanded

"I'm crying 'cos my daddy lost," replied Frazier jnr.

Ali snorted."You stop that boy, you hear. Your daddy ain't lost nuthin'. No-one lost. Your daddy's a winner you just remember that for the rest of your life."

The great irony is that while Ali had extended the hand of friendship to Frazier, it was not reciprocated until more than 30 years later when this sharecropper's son, an uncomplicated  man who never really understood the nuances of the  Ali hype, finally recognised that what The Greatest was doing was selling tickets and enriching them both.

Throughout the years Smokin'; Joe hadr had smoudered with resentment at the deeply unsettling insults Ali had flung in his direction, even calling him an  "Uncle Tom," Which Frazier certainly was not.

When Ali, stricken with Parkinsons. was called upon to light the Olympic flame in Atlanta in 1996 tears were shed around the world. But not in Frazier's Philadelphia home. "They shoulda thrown him in it," he is said to have growled.

Frazier even had answer-phone message which said:" Float like a butterfly, string like a bee. I done the job, he knows, look and see"  as blatant reference to Ali' s physical decline.

It was an apology from Ali that finally ended the one-sided feud."I said a lot of things I shouldna have" he admitted."I called him names I shoudna done. I apologise for that."

Both will be forever entwined with each other as arguably sport's greatest double act, topping Borg and and McEnfroe and Coe and Ovett.

Shortly before the announcement of Frazier's death in a Philadephia hospice early this week I was reminded of their inimitable rivalry by a truly evocative collection of photographs of Ali taken by one of our finest sports snappers, Chris Smith, of the Sunday Times. They are on display at a small gallery in London's Fleet Street, and a number show Ali in preparation for his contests with Frazier.


The ailing Ali will be 70 in January, and this exhibition a brilliant pictorial insight into the undisputed sports personality of the century who has surprised us all by outliving the first man ever to beat him. There also will be an new ITV documentary to coincide with his birthday but I recommend this still-life collection (at the Piero Passet Gallery, 21 Fleet Street, until Christmas) which represents real sporting art, unlike those newly-revealed Olympic posters..

As someone who miserably failed O-level art, I may not be the best judge, but I  am alone in thinking most of them a pile of arty-farty rubbish, plucked from that brilliant spoof TV series on next year's Games rather than the real thing. Supposedly they have been selected to showcase the nation's "artistic excellence" but even the expert eye eye of Independent's art critic Michael Glover sees, the typically esoteric offering by Tracey Emin as "a bit of scratchy sentimental hogwash." Another, he says, is a "a common or garden schoolroom effort". One that is merely a splodge fo blue paint is enough to give anyone an art attack.

Forgive me digressing, but here is just another example of what happens when you let the luvvies loose on sport, which is far better symbolised by the camera of Chris Smith and the genuine talent, sweat and passion of true Olympic gladiators is like Ali, Frazier and Foreman.

Should you needed need a further example of where art gets sport wrong, it ls in the statue they have erected in Philadelpia in honour of the city's "most famous fighting son." Joe Frazier? Sadly not. It is Rocky Balboa, the celluloid creature created by Sylvester Stallone.

Surely Smokin' Joe deserves a better epitaph than that.

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.

When we returned home from the World Championships in Tokyo on October 18 we were all given a couple of days off to take time to reflect on our own personal performance and that of Team GB.

Even now, two weeks on, it's still hard to believe that we failed to qualify in the top eight teams for the Olympics but at least we still have a second chance to qualify in January at the O2 Arena. 

It really was all down to too many errors on the high bar and, if we had spread those errors out across all six apparatus, I am certain we would be celebrating right now and really looking forward to Christmas.

We are now all focused on the January qualifiers where I am sure you will see a different Team GB. We've now also added the Stuttgart Grand Prix to our diary on the November 12/13 which will be a great opportunity for the team to come together before January. It is so important that we now maintain our fitness levels and conditioning ahead of Stuttgart and the qualifiers.

People forget that gymnastics is a full-time occupation and my normal rigorous training schedule, alongside training camps, will ensure that I remain fit over the Festive Season – which would usually involve a lot of overindulgence.

A typical week is pretty gruelling and involves 37 hours of training over six days at my club in Huntington. Saturday is the only day I have off and I'd usually spend it resting and relaxing with my girlfriend and friends. In December, however, things will change as I'll be heading to the Team GB training camp at Lilleshall where there won't be any days off – it's pretty intense.


The next few months won't just be about training, my diet is also massively important too to ensure that I can get through the training and allow my muscles to recover. My daily diet looks like this – as you'll see it's all about protein:

For breakfast I either have scrambled eggs on toast or porridge with a protein shake.

A typical lunch for me would be a big pasta and chicken salad and a Maximuscle protein bar to help me recover from the first session and give me the energy for the second.

A typical dinner would be salmon with vegetables and a protein shake, which I normally have as soon as I get home from the gym. I am also trying to lean down over the next few months so I have a rule of no carbohydrates at night.

At the moment we are all back training with our personal coaches at our local clubs so the competition in Stuttgart will be the first time that we'll regroup as a team since Tokyo. After that we will have a very hectic schedule through December with a lot of training back at Lilleshall ahead of the Olympic qualifier on the January 10 at the O2 Arena.

Daniel Keatings, who is powered by Opus Energy, made history in 2009 when he became the first British gymnast to win a medal in the all-round event at the World Championships. He was also the first British gymnast to win a European Championship gold when he won the pommel horse event in Berlin in 2010. To find out more about his sponsorship deal with Opus Energy click here. 

I make no apology for returning to the theme of the Olympic Games and poor strategy. In the past it has been sport which has failed to live up to expectations and promises by hoping instead of planning. Now, it appears that tourism is following suit.

I would far prefer to be writing of the great example set by the strategies used to deliver our Olympic bid promises but sadly that is not the case. Instead I hope that others will look at the mistakes made and learn from them; at least that way the failed promises will serve some positive purpose.

It never ceases to amaze me how many apparently intelligent people, how many supposedly sharp business minds feel that by crossing their fingers and hoping that success will be delivered.

And yet, without strategy that is exactly what many do including, it seems, those tasked with delivering the promises on which our hosting of the Olympic Games in London next year were built.

I have previously covered - several times - in this blog the lack of strategy to deliver the two legacy promises on which the bid was based - and won - in 2005. The legacy promise of an increase in people taking part in sport across the UK has been shown to be hollow. Indeed, having assured us that the strategy for delivering this legacy does exist, the Sport and Olympics Minister Hugh Robertson was asked to show us that strategy as long ago as July 2010. Thank God we didn't hold our breath waiting as he is still to produce any evidence that it exists.

Then there is the long running farce that is the Stadium legacy, one that now looks nothing like that originally promised. If there ever was a strategy for delivering the plans we were promised, again we never saw it and it has been changed on the whim of Ministers, football clubs, UK Athletics, Newham Council and others on such a regular basis as to make any strategy which had existed meaningless.

The promised participation and stadium legacies were written into the bid which won the Games for London in 2005 making the lack of strategy to ensure their delivery all the more puzzling, as is the latest demonstration of poor or no strategy. Not part of the bid promise but nonetheless part of the long-standing promise to the British public was the boost the Games would provide for tourism.

True to form it appears that promise was also made with fingers well and truly crossed behind backs for no strategy to make that tourism boost appears to exist and now the European Tour Operators Association are telling us that tour operators to the UK have seen an average 90 per cent downturn in bookings for the period of the London Olympics.


Back in 2005 leading voices in the campaign to bring the Games to London, including Sebastian Coe and Government Ministers Tessa Jowell and Richard Caborn, were rightly pointing out that no Olympics had ever seen an increase in sporting participation simply because they were held; for that to happen we would need a strategy to ensure the promise was delivered.

The same people were also pointing out that too many previous Olympic Stadiums had become white elephants once the greatest show on earth left town. Not London they told us as they showed us plans which bear no relation with today's version.

And the same people were telling us of the boost to both the London and the national economy that tourism brought about by the Games would produce; despite the fact no previous host city could point to the same they assured us that London was different because they had a plan.

Now, the lie has been laid bare. There was never a realistic strategy for increasing sporting participation, neither was there a plan for ensuring tourism met expectations. There was a stadium plan - we saw it - but that has long since been thrown in the bin.

But there is a very positive side to this tale. It is in the lesson it provides to those staging events, running businesses, leading local authorities, managing charities and, in fact anyone who has great dreams of a future to come. It is simply this; if you want your dream to become a reality, crossing your fingers and making promises will not do.

If you genuinely want to pursue excellence, if you genuinely want to achieve whatever you set out to do, make sure you have a proper, functional strategy in place. Alternatively, don't be surprised when you fail to deliver.

Jim Cowan is a former athlete, coach, event organiser and sports development specialist who is the founder of Cowan Global, a company specialising in consultancy, events and education and training. For more details click here 

There has always been something winning about Jo Pavey. Part of it is that lovely Devon accent. Most of it is to do with the fact that she is one of the most patently honest and genuine of athletes.

Despite her 5,000 metres silver medal from the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, two European Cup titles and the bronze she won at the 2004 European Cross Country Championships, this runner from Honiton might have had more tangible reward for a top-class career which has now spanned almost 20 years.

In 2004, she finished fifth in the Word Indoor Championships 3,000m and the Olympic Games 5,000m. In 2006 and 2007 she was just one place off the podium in the 10,000m at the European and World Championships respectively. There are pictures of her in the aftermath of both races in the same attitude – hands on hips, face set with disappointment and fatigue.

At the age of 38, Pavey – coached by her husband Gavin – is now the proud mother of Jacob, who was born in 2009. She is also a marathon runner with her mind set on racing at the London 2012 Olympics. Which is why, this weekend, she will run her second marathon over the tough and undulating course of the ING New York City marathon.

Pavey already has a UK Athletics qualifying time for marathon selection next year after finishing 19th in her debut at the distance in London this year in 2 hours 28min 23sec.

But as she readily acknowledges, that will not be sufficient to ensure she gets her wish to run through the streets of London during what she describes as a "once in a lifetime" event. "Even though I have the time, it doesn't guarantee selection on the British team," she says.

Paula Radcliffe, Britain's world record holder, has also re-stated her ambitions at the age of 37 after a lengthy maternity/injury leave, almost certainly securing one of the three British places in London with the time of 2:23:46 she ran to finish third in Berlin in September.

Claire Hallissey and Louise Damen have also got inside the UKA qualifying mark of 2:31 this year, while other strong contenders such as Liz Yelling, who has a best of 2.28:33, and Mara Yamauchi, who has run 2:23:12, yet to make their final challenges.

That is why Pavey is seeking to supplement her marathon experience with a championship style race – along with Boston (which is ruled out for record purposes as it is not a loop course), New York is the only major marathon which does not employ pacemakers, thus aligning itself with the World Championship and Olympic races.

She also needs to run another marathon after her experience in the capital this year, which was all going tickety-boo until she reached the 17-18 miles mark.

Pavey describes the experience with characteristic candour. Despite her years of experience as a world class athlete, she admits she succumbed to the two classic marathon dangers – starting off too fast, and then hitting the wall.


"It was my first marathon, and people had warned me to go out cautiously," she recalls. "But I didn't get my pacing right. With my history of running 5,000 and 10,000 metres I found it felt really, really slow so I speeded up and paid for it in the final stages."

Although Pavey was obviously well aware of The Wall – the image employed for the shattering experience which befalls many marathon runners with around eight miles of the 26 remaining, when many bodies switch from using glycogen to having to burn stored fat for energy- she basically didn't believe it would ever rear up in front of her.

"I thought it might be a psychological thing," she admits. "I didn't ever think it would happen to me. What really surprise me was how sudden it was. It was like flicking a switch. I felt really good after 17 miles, and then within five seconds it just suddenly came on.

"I was really shocked. I was wondering for a while how I was going to finish. Was I going to be reduced to a walk?

"It did catch me by surprise because I felt like I'd done everything in preparation. It did make me feel like a novice."

So Pavey is heading back towards that Wall in New York City with a little extra knowledge of a race which can sweep you away like a wave.

When asked if she plans to run a third marathon next spring, she is ambivalent. If this race goes really well, that should be the ideal combination for the selectors of time plus performance.

But she does not rule out having to re-state her case once more in April. She knows the marathon now.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the past five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames. Rowbottom's Twitter feed can be accessed here.

"Sorry, but these sentences are preposterous".

That's how I reacted on Twitter this morning on hearing the sentences handed down in cricket's corruption trial.

Former Pakistan cricket captain Salman Butt (pictured and below centre) was jailed for 30 months for his part in a conspiracy to bowl deliberate no balls in a match last year between his team and England.


Bowlers Mohammad Asif (pictured below right) and Mohammad Amir (pictured below left) were sentenced to one year and six months respectively.

Intemperate as my instant reaction might have been, I now feel under an obligation to explain it - to myself as much as others.

And having thought it through while walking the dog, I think it boils down to this.

These sportsmen have been found guilty of an action, which, though corrupt, was highly unlikely to have a significant impact on the outcome of the game.

Yes, if England had won by 10 runs or fewer, then the no balls would certainly have been material; but the chances of that being the case were very low.

Indeed, I would think one of the factors that made this proposition so tempting was that it offered the possibility of making money for doing something which, in all probability, would have no meaningful impact on the match result.

Consider now the situation if in future an athlete - and we could be talking about any sport - was found guilty in England of actually throwing a contest in return for money.

Would we lock them up for 10, 15, 20 years (the sort of sentences one normally associates with violent crime)?

Or are we saying there is no moral distinction between acting corruptly in a manner calculated not to affect the result of the match (even if there is a small chance that it will) and doing so in a manner where determining the result is the whole point of the exercise?

To me, the two examples, though both distressing and wrong, seem fundamentally different.


I happened to be at Lord's on the day in question and witnessed a supremely exhilarating day of test cricket.

I simply don't believe the atmosphere of any sporting contest in which one side had been bribed to throw the match would be remotely comparable.

It is also worth underlining that this was a newspaper-conceived operation - under which an undercover News of the World reporter paid cricket agent Mazhar Majeed £150,000 for details of the timing of three no balls - as opposed to a real plot hatched by some illegal betting operator.

This makes no difference to our judgement of the players, but suggests that their exposure may not be much help in identifying and bringing to book those behind the gambling markets, which, we are told, pose such a threat to the integrity of sport.

Yes, if athletes are terrified of the consequences of being caught, then it may make fixes harder to orchestrate.

But I am sceptical that this is the way to solve the problem.

After all, if the Mr Bigs behind these gambling rings are as powerful and unscrupulous as we are given to believe then it will be within their means to intimidate, as well as reward, potential accomplices.

And I certainly would think hard before rushing to judge a cricketer who did something as trivial as bowling a no ball if s/he genuinely believed her family was under threat.

So, while not wishing to defend the cricketers, I do think these sentences are well over the top.

I hope the appeals system allows a rethink.

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 and 2010 World Cup. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.

Sport has long been bedevilled by four-letter words but currently it is two six-letter ones that are troubling the consciousness. Sleaze and racism.

I am glancing at front-and back-pages of the papers which are occupied by reports of the conviction of three Pakistani Test cricketers on charges of conspiring to cheat and accepting corrupt payments, and to the decision by police to probe allegations the England and Chelsea captain, John Terry, racially insulted QPR's Anton Ferdinand.

It doesn't make pleasant reading. Sadly not much in sport does, these days.

I wrote here only recently of how dishonesty becoming the name of the games people play and how hard it is to find a sport left untainted by incidents of extreme wrongdoing in one form or another from athletics to snooker.

Sadly, sleaze now seems to be an indelible part of the sporting lexicon but one would have hoped that by now racism would have been eradicated from it. Unfortunately this does not appear to be the case.  Whatever the outcome, we must hope that the respective findings of the Ferdinand – Terry case and the other ongoing inquiry into allegations that Manchester United's Patrice Evra was persistently racially abused by Luis Suarez of Liverpool will serve as a reminder for footballers, indeed all involved in sport, to focus their minds on just how unacceptable even the merest hint of racist attitudes is these days.  Indeed, as it should have been at any time in history but sadly wasn't.

Suarez was said to have used the 'n' word at least 10 times while Terry's bizarre defence is that he was asking a question of Ferdinand, rather than making a comment ("Did you say I called you a F...ing black c...?"). But it is when you hear that Chelsea fans have now taken up chanting abuse of Ferdinand that you really despair.


I first encountered the real abhorrence of racism in South Africa in the wretched days of Apartheid when interviewing a black cyclist who stood trembling in front of me. When I asked him to sit down, he refused, pointing out that to do so in the presence of a white man was against the law of the land.  Thankfully, sport was instrumental in kicking such discrimination into touch and the International Olympic Committee, albeit belatedly, played a major part when they banned both South Africa and the then Rhodesia from the Games until their respective unholy houses were in order.

Sport and show business are surely the most ethnically diverse components of our daily life yet elements of racism still seem to be prevalent in both. I have been reading an interview with one of my favourite entertainers, the British-based black American stand-up comic Reginald D. Hunter in which he says, "Britain has more of a class problem than a race problem, but racism still exists. I had a racist incident that happened to me less than a week ago."

Similarly I was talking this week with Nigel Walker, the former international hurdler and Welsh rugby star, who is now one of the country's shockingly few black sports administrators as director of the English Institute of Sport. We talked about the current racial issues and he confirmed that as a young rugby player he was often subjected to abuse and he believes that more of it than we actually realise still goes on and that to some degree it has been accepted and shrugged off.

As it happens, two of the sports with which I have been most closely associated – boxing and athletics – have been conspicuously free of racism between competitors for many years. It may not be a coincidence that these are sports in which black competitors are most proficient.

Indeed, the last racist incident I can recall in boxing happened back in the early eighties when Britain's Alan Minter scandalously remarked before defending his world middleweight championship to Marvin Hagler, "There is no way I will lose my title to a black man."  As it happened, he did, rather brutally so, early in a bout which saw a ringside riot at Wembley. Had such a thing happened now, I have no doubt Minter would rightly have been banned from boxing for life.

I suspect there are few sports personalities from ethnic minorities who have not been targeted in some form during their formative years. I know the former Olympic silver medallist and current World light welterweight champion Amir Khan has, not to his face of course but via the internet. Yet Khan's Britishness, like that of his Pakistan-born father who famously wore a Union Jack waistcoat during the Athens Olympics, is beyond question.


Tessa Sanderson, the Olympic javelin champion, and one of the great icons of British sport once told me "I had people spit on me at school and was called a gollywog and a nigger. When you are 15 or 16, that is hurtful, very hurtful. I had fights over it. Ok, that was then, but you know there are still a lot of people in Britain who are racist but you can't go round with a chip on your shoulder all the time because you will never move on. But people do get hurt. There's a lot of feeling among our young black athletes, when I see somebody get hurt, it hurts me too, especially in my community and my family. I am accepted now because I have gone out there and done things, proved my worth, flown the flag, but it's still about. Fortunately it doesn't confront me now, and anyway, I have grown up knowing how to handle it. For some young people today it can be touch and go."

Of course, it is not just the colour of one's skin that can be the cause of prejudice; there are many other forms. There is homophobia – and plenty of that exists in sport. Again this week we had an example when fans of Brighton and Hove Albion FC claimed that the club has been made a target because of the town's gay community. "There's a certain amount of banter between fans, but when it crosses that line, it's not acceptable," says John Hewitt, the chairman of the Albion supporters.

Then there is religion. Anyone who has ever attended an Old Firm derby will tell you just how strong that bitter divide remains – just ask Neil Lennon, the Celtic manager, who was physically attacked by a zealot last season.

I came across another disturbing example of discrimination when I interviewed the new British heavyweight boxing champion, Tyson Fury, a young man immensely proud of his Romany routes. I asked him whether he had ever experienced prejudice because of his heritage. "Oh yes," he says. "All the time.  I get called 'You gypsy bastard, fat gypo,' lots of things."  But like Amir Khan, never to his face. As he stands a tad short of six feet and nine inches, weighs 18 stone and is unbeaten in his 16 contests, you can understand why. "It's mainly the Facebook warriors," he said. "But at least I know that every time I win it hurts them more."

And how about sexism? How much longer can the International Olympic Committee tolerate the presence of a Saudi Arabian team from which women are purposely excluded? Here is a nation which not only prohibits women from playing sport in public but actually bars them from watching it.

Now,as a postscript, a personal confession. In my Independent on Sunday column last week, I jocularly used the word 'boyos' when praising the Welsh international, Gareth Bale and any compatriots who plan to defy the FA of Wales and wear a Team GB shirt in the London Olympics next year. Red dragons have been breathing fire all over me since (eg: "You are just an old-fashioned bigot") which rather amuses me as for many years I was greeted by a Welsh sports editor with the words "'Allo boyo, how are you today?"  As a Cockney, I can't see how that is any more pejorative than being called 'Mate' or 'Cobber' by an Australian.  But it just shows how careful you have to be in these PC days with the Twitterati's fingers constantly poised over the keyboard.

As Reginald D. Hunter also said, "Twitter is a little bit like democracy. It encourages stupid people to have an opinion."

I am not sure I totally agree with that, but one thing I am certain of; while there is a lot of pride in sport these days, there is still an awful  lot of prejudice.

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