Athletics : a tainted sport populated by the arrogant and the average

By George Tyndale on Jul 18, 08 01:37 PM

The High Court has ruled that drugs cheat athlete Dwain Chambers will not be allowed to run for Britain at the Bejing Olympics.

The truth is, of course, that Chambers attempted to overturn the ban imposed upon him by the British Olympic Association not because he wanted to represent his country.

It was because he wanted to represent himself.

Which is what all our professional athletes do.

Does anyone believe that the first thing on the mind of any one of our Bejing team is an urge to do their best for the reputation of GB?

They will be on that plane to satisfy their bloated egos and to stuff their bank balances with the appearance money and sponsorship deals that will follow a successful performance.

Yet many of these strutting, self-regarding creatures have been handed a small fortune in financial assistance in order that they need not soil their hands with any kind of work that might interrupt their training.

And what does the nation get in return?

Performances that usually oscillate between the mediocre and the cringe-making. If the cheat had made it to China he had next to no hope of a medal anyway.

Once we had genuine athletics heroes like Coe, Ovett and Cram. And real athletics characters like Daley Thompson and even Dean Macey.

Not any more.

No wonder our true interest in running, jumping and throwing can be judged by the acres of empty seating at any athletics event broadcast by the sport-parched BBC.

If athletics was left to its own devices, like football, rugby or cricket, we would never have heard of Dwain Chambers.

And in any self -respecting sport we would certainly not have heard of him for the past three years.

It speaks volumes about the moral vacuum in the sport that, after admitting taking drugs, the man was banned from competing for just two years.

This is despite the fact that drug use almost certainly enhances performance for life.

One of his arguments against his Olympic ban, under a BOA by-law, was that no other country in the world has such rule. Why not?

Why, for that matter, does the Olympics itself continue to welcome people to compete who have flagrantly cheated their team-mates, their competitors, their sport and such members of the public who watch them?

British athletics is a tainted sport populated by the arrogant and the average.

We may be rid of Chambers. But I'm not exactly over the moon about any of these over-indulged under-performers representing me.