Drug abuses in sport - Unwinnable?

THE call by UK Athletics for world records to be reset due to the doping crisis destroying sports’ credibility is unlikely to succeed.

It does, however, add to the growing moral pressure around professional atheletics and all professional sport to confront drug abuse by competitors, abuse often facilitated and encouraged by their managers, trainers and mentors.

Just as the war on drugs in wider society seems all but unwinnable it is hard to imagine that we will ever reach a point where we can say with real, justifable confidence that all competitors in a particular event, especially a lucrative one, are drug free.

Were we ever really at the point?

This seems just the way of the world — in so many spheres where income is defined by success, the rule book is more an optional consideration than a proactive, real and controlling influence.

There is, of course, a sadness about all of this, especially as the 2016 Olympic Games are but months away.

This once magnificent carnival may have been as corrupt as it is today but at least we were unaware of the extent of doping and able to imagine we were watching a fair contest.